Not many things in life are free, but Tubi is one of them. Since it launched back in 2014, this streamer has experienced incredible growth and it’s easy to see why. Even most base level tiers of paid streaming services make you watch ads, it’s only after you pay a bit more per month that you can go ad-free. Tubi also makes you watch ads, but you don’t have to pay a dime per month. Better yet, while one would expect it to make you sit through a ton of free ads for free content, that’s not the case. Of course, none of this would matter if Tubi didn’t have excellent content, but it does.
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Tubi is Crackle if Crackle had a larger library. This includes horror movies, and right now, Tubi has quite a few horror classics or minor classics that are more than worth a few ads for the streaming price of zero.
1) Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Even by 1998, it seemed like John Carpenter’s Halloween had received too many sequels, but then Steve Miner’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later showed there was life in the IP yet. 1995’s Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers felt like it existed in a weird nebulous where it was picking up the threads established by the fourth and fifth films, but was visually quite different. It hovered between reboot and sequel.
H20 does something similar, but it was a sequel to just Halloween and Halloween II. It felt fresh and, given the return of Jamie Lee Curtis, like an event. This is the best of the movies that were clearly inspired by the style of Wes Craven’s Scream and Scream 2, and its ending is the best finishing of Michael Myers to date (which the unfortunate Halloween: Resurrection swiftly proceeded to ruin).
2) Jeepers Creepers
While it’s a mystery how Victor Salva was allowed to continue making movies after the behind-the-scenes crime during the making of Clownhouse, his Jeepers Creepers is quite effective. And, while it’s not as solid, Jeepers Creepers 2 (also on Tubi) is fun as well.
Admittedly, the first 30 minutes of Jeepers Creepers are the best 30 minutes of the film, and it’s tough to see a movie peak towards the beginning and then tail off. But even in the second and third acts, it’s easy to appreciate the movie for the chemistry shared by Gina Philips and Justin Long and the design of the Creeper.
3) The Howling
A revered ’80s horror classic from Gremlins‘ Joe Dante, The Howling is one of the more visually stunning horror films out there. The werewolf creations by The Thing‘s Rob Bottin look as great as the filming location of Mendocino County, California.
The Howling led to a long-running franchise (all of which are on Tubi) but, really, the first one is the only one worth watching. This is right up there with An American Werewolf in London (also released in 1981) as one of the best lupine scarers of the 1980s. It also features a commanding lead performance by Dee Wallace, who made her horror breakthrough a few years earlier in The Hills Have Eyes and kept the streak going with Cujo and Critters.
4) Bone Tomahawk
A brilliant and brutal horror Western with a top-tier cast, Bone Tomahawk was the first sign that S. Craig Zahler makes compelling genre films that nonetheless occasionally make you avert your eyes. It’s not nearly as grotesque as something like Cannibal Holocaust, but suffice to say, this one isn’t for everyone.
Kurt Russell was the perfect choice for a seasoned law enforcement official who is trying to protect the members of his small town from an unknown, vicious threat. Ably backing him up is Patrick Wilson as a man whose wife was kidnapped by that threat and Richard Jenkins as the deputy to Russell’s Sheriff Hunt. But, at the end of the day, this is a movie that coasts on its setting, ominous tone, and brutal violence as much as the strength of its performances.
5) You’re Next
One of the very best modern slasher films, You’re Next is the type of experience where you can practically feel the mayhem. Even before all the carnage starts, the viewer is forced to feel every ounce of the dysfunction present in the family at the narrative’s core.
This was one of the first movies by Adam Wingard, who went on to helm two of the Monsterverse’s best installments in Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. And, while those movies don’t show how well he can craft believable (though not quite likable) characters, they do show how he can display intense sequences of violence. It’s just, here, the monsters aren’t kaiju, they’re greedy individuals hiding behind animal masks. Just about everything in You’re Next works. If you like Ready or Not you’ll like this, because it’s essentially a version of that single locale, outsider-against-a-family narrative, but with both feet firmly planted in reality. And, as that outsider feeling out of place at a family event, Sharni Vinson is entirely convincing and fully likable. This film should have made her a star.
6) Mayhem
While Sharni Vinson’s career didn’t take off as it should, fellow Australian performer Samara Weaving’s career has really taken off. She elevates everything she’s in, and while she’s most stuck with horror films like Ready or Not and Scream VI, she’s also a natural with action material. Mayhem, starring Weaving and The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yeun, is a perfect hybridization of the action and horror genres, with a good dose of comedy tossed in for good measure.
We follow Derek Cho, a loan officer who is let go from his job but cannot leave the building since it has been placed under quarantine due to the outbreak of a virus. He teams up with Melanie Cross, whose loan he rejected, to mow through his zombie-esque, rageful former coworkers and escape the building alive.
7) Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Nearly as solid a film as Clive Barker’s original from the year prior, 1988’s Hellbound: Hellraiser II is a wildly ambitious sequel with a ton of connective tissue to the movie that preceded it, much to its own benefit. From visual tone to returning performers, this feels like a movie that starts itself as soon as its predecessor concludes.
Once again, Clare Higgins is dynamite as the sadistic and conniving Julia Cotton, whose turn it is now to try and evade the Cenobites. Equally great is Ashley Laurence, reprising her role of protagonist Kirsty Cotton. Fortunately, the sequel finds ways to expand both characters in ways that are interesting and feel organic. There are also a few really solid newcomers, particularly Kenneth Cranham as the power-hungry Dr. Philip Channard.
8) Creepshow 2
A critically bashed Stephen King movie that deserves a reappraisal, Creepshow 2 has gotten a bad rap that is only partially warranted. Part of people’s problem with it is fair; the first film consisted of five segments while the second only has three. In this case, unlike in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, that is something of a problem. The difference is the quality of the wraparound story.
Both Creepshow and Tales from the Darkside had excellent wraparound stories. Creepshow 2‘s looks cheap in live-action and then ends with an animated sequence that looks equally low-rent. It doesn’t quite work. Each of the three stories in the film, however, are quite enjoyable, especially “The Raft.”
9) Species
With a star-studded cast including Alfred Molina and Ben Kingsley and a creature designed by Alien‘s H. R. Giger, a lot of very talented people were behind the crafting of Species. For the most part, it works, even if it’s no Alien. The key to the film’s success is the note-perfect work by the then-unknown Natasha Henstridge.
While the design of the Xenomorph in Alien and Sil in Species is so similar it results in the two films being compared fairly often, they’re actually quite different. This is the type of horror movie where the monster walks around in open daylight, seeking prey so she can begin her takeover of Earth. It’s essentially a less artsy version of A24’s Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson. Just be sure to avoid the sequels because, even though Species II features a few returning cast members (including Henstridge), they hold far less entertainment value than Roger Donaldson’s original.
10) The Strangers: Prey at Night
It’s arguable whether The Strangers was a movie that really needed a sequel, but The Strangers: Prey at Night is a perfectly suitable stylish follow-up. What’s great about Prey at Night is that it ties a bow on the franchise. It doesn’t feel like an unnecessary continuation as much as it feels like a conclusion, one that doesn’t end well for the trio of psychopaths that torment, well, strangers.
Prey at Night may be an overall better film than the original. At the very least it’s more quickly paced, entertaining, and visually alluring, as if it’s illuminated by a hotel’s neon sign half the time (a technique which works quite well). And, thanks to the work by Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman, it’s more well-acted than the original film, as well.
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