As Halloween creeps its way around the corner, nothing is better than kicking the spooky season off with some binge-worthy thrillers.
If you want to stay inside and watch a terrifying flick, Hulu and Netflix give viewers plenty of options. From classic horror, psychological thrillers to just plain old scary, this mix of seven movies and shows are just enough to frighten you.
- You:
This wild series is one of the most popular shows on Netflix today. It is a bloody, mind-bending thriller that stars Joe Goldberg, a local bookstore manager and part-time serial killer. Joe finds himself heavily fixated and infatuated with a writer named Guinevere Beck.
He becomes creepily obsessed with her to the point of stalking her on social media and tracking her daily whereabouts. Joe nearly loves Beck enough to remove any and every obstacle he sees in his way of being with her.
Their relationship did not last too long as his obsession with her was the cause of her death. Beck’s unfortunate fate does not stop Joe from finding someone new to pursue as he has a new love interest the following season.
Joe moves to a completely different city, hoping to start his life over and work on being ordinary. However, that changes after stumbling upon a woman named Love.
With no plans to love this woman, he finds himself significantly invested in Love once again, but the difference is that she is just as obsessed. Although Joe appears as a sensitive and anti-social bookworm, he has a dark side that many find out when it’s too late.
- Clickbait:
Netflix never falls short when it comes to making drama-filled series. This new limited series premiered on August 25th has only eight episodes, each more intense than the last.
This series is about a man named Nick Brewer, a well-known family man within his community. One day he is mysteriously abducted at a park. He later appears on a viral video where he displays a message saying that he will die after the video reaches five million views.
The search for Brewer before his suspected death begins as his sister and wife retrace his whereabouts before his disappearance. Each discovery only creates more tension throughout the show and an even bigger mystery.
This thriller is more relevant to today’s time as it shows the horrific outcomes of social media and impersonating people online.
- Black Mirror:
This well-known dystopian series is a high-tech and chilling depiction of the future of the world. Each episode is different and is independent of the others.
Every episode has a new theme ranging from spiritual consciousness, psychological horror and even romance for a bit of relief. Although many of these episodes show the real emotions and feelings of humans in real life, they also show how life can become chaotic with the extreme advancement of technology.
Black Mirror also came out with a unique and interactive episode called ‘Bandersnatch.’ It stars a young programmer named Stefan Butler who turns a choose-your-own-adventure book into a video game.
The film has numerous endings for the viewer to choose from, which aids the theme of free will and adds a bit of a scare factor. Although this series does not have a traditional scary storyline, the parallels it creates to the real world create realism and fear.
- Fear of Rain:
Although this film is PG-13, it’s still full of enough thrills and psychological ups and downs, leaving the viewer searching for answers. The movie stars a young 17-year-old girl named Rain who has schizophrenia.
This mental illness causes her to have terrible hallucinations and voices in her head that makes it hard for her to trust her thoughts. Her hallucinations continue to get worse throughout the film as she stops taking her medication due to it making it hard for her to paint and feel like herself overall.
After recovering from a manic episode, she finally returns to school only to be disowned and ostracized by her friends and classmates. She is finally able to make friends with a new student at her school named Caleb.
As a new student, he is unaware of Rain’s past, making it easy for him to go along with her wild ideas. The plot thickens when Rain is in the spare bedroom of her house when she claims that she saw a child in the window of her neighbor’s attic.
Rain only appears to be telling another one of her stories again with her current battle with mental illness, and no one believes she saw anything. Rain battles her mind, peers and parents throughout the film to prove everyone right about what she saw.
She clarifies that she will not give up on this little girl in the window and can recruit Caleb to solve this investigation and put her fears to rest for good.
- Secret Obsession:
This Netflix original starring Brenda Song is an hour and thirty-seven-minute-long movie of suspense. In the film, Song plays the character of Jennifer as she has finally woken up after recovering from a terrible car accident.
Although she does not succumb to her injuries, she still suffers from amnesia and can not remember anything about her life before the accident and the accident itself.
She meets Russell, who claims to be her husband, and tries to help her return to normal. He showed her pictures from her past and reminded her about other details of her life.
Eventually, someone gets suspicious of Russell, and a detective named Frank decides to dig deeper into this incident to make sure Russell is who he says he is.
Soon after, Jennifer notices weird behavior in Russell and finds proof that Russell is not her actual husband after going through his computer.
Jennifer plots to escape for her life because she knows she is in terrible danger. Russell’s sick obsession was fueled by jealousy of Jennifer’s marriage, ultimately leading to his demise. This love story eventually turned bitter sour.
- Monster House:
This kid-friendly, animated Halloween film has been around since the early 2000s and is now available on Netflix. This film stars a trio of young kids, DJ, Jenny and Chowder, played by Mitchell Musso, Spencer Locke and Sam Lerner. DJ and Chowder start as a best friend duo with a hunch that a house in their neighborhood is wickedly haunted.
An older man, Horace Nebbercracker, owns the house and hates the sight of kids in his yard. With their neighbor gone, they witness someone snatched inside the house by its tongue made out of the carpet and never seen again.
DJ and Chowder meet Jenny along the way and convince her of this house’s terrifying origins.
They eventually make their way into the house after putting it to sleep with a wagon full of cough syrup, and the gang stumbles upon some unlikely evidence regarding Nebbercracker’s late wife, Constance.
Nebbercracker finally returns and he tells the kids how his wife ended up being buried alive in the basement of the house after a freak accident and has been possessing the house ever since.
They know what they have to do to put an end to the house. With the help of the trio and Nebbercracker, they are finally able to quiet this haunted house and enjoy their Halloween.
- Squid Game:
This newly released series on Netflix does not fall short when it comes to suspense and thrill. This show starts with Seong Gi-Hun, who is neck-deep in debt and has a terrible gambling habit.
Seong decides to try his luck at a card game with a nicely dressed man he meets at the train station. After finally winning, the man tells him about another game that he can play to win even more money.
Desperate and strapped for cash, Seong joins along with the hundreds of others he meets upon arrival.
This game is not an average game show, as the stakes are deadly. With all the players in crippling debt, they are willing to endure almost anything to get the grand prize money.
Even after the first round of games ends early, players still choose to come back in hopes of winning the money, only this time, the game starts to get more dangerous. Players are willing to kill, steal and betray one another for the sake of making it out alive with the prize.
This show tests players’ sense of teamwork and skill and keeps the viewers up all night.
