Top Ten Shudder Original Films
Phil Tippett’s Mad God.
Recently, the horror community was rocked by the announcement that AMC Networks would be undergoing large-scale layoffs after misreading the signs that cord cutters would flock to their streaming services en masse. The community’s response likely wasn’t a reaction to the doubtful future of further spinoffs of The Walking Dead, rather, the now uncertain future of beloved horror streaming service, Shudder. Shudder’s importance to the horror genre cannot be understated: From its dirt-cheap subscription price to its commitment to bringing attention to international and marginalized creators, Shudder has had a bonafide community grow around it since its inception in 2015. That its future could now be in jeopardy—perhaps absorbed into any of AMC’s other streaming services—has both fans and filmmakers alike concerned.
In response, we think it’s only appropriate that we celebrate the talent for curation that makes the service rise so far above the rest. Its “Collections,” which group titles together not only by sub-genre or theme, but in blocks designed to help fans learn about the genre they love, can only maybe be equaled by Criterion Channel. Here, though, we want to focus on Shudder Originals—those films in which Shudder recognized potential enough to call their own. So here is my personal ranking of the top ten* original films that you can find right now, only on Shudder.
*I will be cheating significantly.
11. Honorable Mentions
Though these titles don’t quite hit the top ten, they exemplify the kind of variety that Shudder has managed to attract. Whether you’re in the mood for a holiday horror like The Advent Calendar (2021) or an Evil Dead-inspired comedy like Deadstream (2022), these films have you covered. Some make innovative use of soundscapes, like The Strings (2020), while others, like Yummy (2019) and Fried Barry (2020) take a more visual approach to turning audiences' stomachs. Films like Terrified (2017) and Caveat (2020) have one defining image that is certain to imprint itself in your mind, whereas Glorious (2022) and The Beach House (2019) use dread-inducing Lovecraftian horror to make their marks. And of course, the anthologies V/H/S/94 (2021) and V/H/S/99 (2022) are available if you’re not quite sure what to watch.
10. Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) dir. Joe Begos
Christmas Bloody Christmas is the latest festive slasher to take the community by storm. Fans have been praising the gory effects and high intensity, and the cheesy plot is honestly just icing on the cake. The most surprising thing about Christmas Bloody Christmas is realizing it took this long for someone to make a movie about a robotic Santa retrofitted from a Terminator program.
9. Kandisha (2020) dir. Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury
Kandisha is a film that could serve as Morocco’s response to Candyman. When a girl summons the legendary Moroccan jinn to get some semblance of justice for herself, things quickly spiral out of control and the lives of her loved ones are endangered by the demon’s insatiable appetite for vengeance. While I could take issue with some of the CGI, Kandisha is a refreshing change of pace from the tired summoning of the same old Catholic demons again and again. I also just love learning about the real myths and legends behind films, particularly those that I’d never have been exposed to without the movie. This is going to be a recurring theme on this list.
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8. Blood Quantum (2019) dir. Jeff Barnaby, The Sadness (2021) dir. Robert Jabbaz
Blood Quantum, a Mi’qmak zombie film, gets its name from laws defined by the United States government as a way to legally define and separate racial groups. In the film, Indigenous peoples find themselves immune to the bloodborne disease ravaging the rest of the population, in a satisfying reversal of history. In The Sadness, however, China’s zombie problem resembles something more akin to the rage virus of the 28 Days Later franchise, causing the infected to indulge in their basest instincts, resulting in some truly depraved scenes.
7. All the Moons (2020) dir. Igor Legarreta, A Wounded Fawn (2022) dir. Travis Stevens, The Last Thing Mary Saw (2021) dir. Edoardo Vitaletti, Gwen (2018) dir. William McGregor, Hellbender (2021) dir. Toby Poser, John Adams, & Zelda Adams
On the heels of Kier-la Janisse’s brilliant documentary on folk horror, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, Shudder has taken note of the revived interest in folklore, and in addition to its dedicated collection, has also pumped out some great original tales with wide-ranging influences. All the Moons, for instance, is a Basque-language vampire tale set in Carlist-era Spain. Gwen and The Last Thing Mary Saw both deal with weighty religious themes and superstition in pre-industrial Wales and colonial America, respectively. Hellbender is a modern-set, family-centered story about matrilineal power, directed, produced, and acted by the Adams family. Finally, A Wounded Fawn, the newest release on this list, is a gorgeous film shot on 16mm, with the mythological Greek Fates lurking in the shadows.
Revenge via IMDb.
6. Host (2020) dir. Rob Savage, Sissy (2022) dir. Kane Senes & Hannah Barlow
When Host hit the streaming service during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a minor sensation. With most films shelved due to theater closures and social distancing procedures, Rob Savage’s inventive solution of writing and producing an entire movie over Zoom was exactly what so many of us needed. And while it may have been the most high profile of Shudder’s low budget indie features, it’s by no means alone. Just this year, Kane Senes and Hannah Barlow’s Sissy introduced audiences to the titular social media influencer who confronts her past with some shockingly bloody results.
5. Speak No Evil (2022) dir. Christian Tafdrup, Who Invited Them (2022) dir. Duncan Birmingham
Without fail, I can always count on a good domestic thriller to entertain my family and I on a Sunday night. Speak No Evil and Who Invited Them, both debuting in 2022, fit the bill. While one of these films subverts the social niceties we employ as hosts in our own home, putting a fresh twist on the home invasion film, the other plays on the polite mores we feel bound to as guests, savagely holding its characters hostage with nothing other than perception.
4. Violation (2020) dir. Dusty Mancinelli & Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Revenge (2017) dir. Coralie Fargeat
One of the more controversial sub-genres in horror history is the rape-revenge film. Historically seen as misogynistic, exploitative excuses for male fantasies, recent years have given us more than a few films attempting to reclaim the genre, and some of the best are Shudder originals. In Violation, Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer paint a brutal portrait of a woman struggling with moving on from her trauma while her rapist is still in her life. It’s a painful, difficult watch that does well at not exploiting its characters without sacrificing realism. Revenge, on the other hand, approaches the “revenge” part of rape-revenge with more of an action hero mindset, with a visceral and equally satisfying ending.
3. La Llorona (2019) dir. Jayro Bustamante, Satan’s Slaves (2017) and Impetigore (2019) dir. Joko Anwar, and Saloum (2021) dir. Jean Luc Herbulot
As I mentioned in the introduction, one of my favorite attributes of Shudder is its commitment to expanding the geographic footprint of its offerings—once you reach outside of the usual Western perspective, you begin to realize how varied the world’s stable of monsters really is. Senegalese curses and ancient kings terrorize Jean Luc Herbulot’s Saloum, while distinctly Indonesian ghosts haunt the films of Joko Anwar. Though Guatemala is much closer to home than either of these examples, films like La Llorona (not to be confused with the infinitely inferior and entirely unrelated Revenge of La Llorona and The Curse of La Llorona) masterfully integrate historical tragedy to create unique tales of cultural pain and anguish.
2. Mad God (2021) dir. Phil Tippett
Phil Tippett’s Mad God seemed to come out of nowhere in 2021. Completed over the course of 30 years, Tippett’s magnum opus of stop-motion animation is disturbing, offensive, and an absolute visual feast. Tippett seamlessly combines a number of styles to create a wonderfully rich world that demands to be seen for any fans of practical effects and especially stop-motion filmmaking. Don’t forget to check out the Mad God-themed ghoul log for the holidays!
1. Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019) dir. Xavier Burgin
Few horror documentaries can match the passion and perspective that Horror Noire provides. Carefully charting the history of horror—for better or worse—onto the Black experience, this film helped cement Shudder’s reputation as a place for understanding horror, not just for consuming it. At the very least, you’ll come out with a great list of recommendations (Shudder’s own accompanying collection would be a great place to start), but hopefully, you’ll emerge with a stronger knowledge of the importance of the horror genre in a wider cultural landscape.
Article written by Ande Thomas
Ande loves the intersection of sci-fi and horror, where our understanding of the natural world clashes with our fear of the new and unknown. He writes about monsters and foreign horror and can also be found over on Letterboxd.
