Five Horror Movies That Will Actually Make You Shudder

Now, I’ve watched a lot of horror movies. I mean a serious amount of horror movies. Everything from subtle supernatural chillers to full-on blood and guts. As a result, I have definitely become somewhat desensitised to the effects of them.

But sometimes a good horror can still make me groan with disgust, yelp with fear or cringe in terrified anticipation. Here’s my list of five recent horror movies, currently available on Shudder, that have given me the frights.

1. Terrified

With a title like this, it would be easy for a movie to disappoint. But this horror from Argentina delivers. And then some. It’s hard to sum up the plot as it has so many twists and turns, many of them out there, to say the least. But however weird it gets, the scares are solid and sometimes scream-out-loud intense.

This is the official blurb on Shudder. On an ordinary suburban street in Buenos Aires, voices are heard from kitchen sinks. Bodies are levitating. Evil is here. It is up to a doctor, her colleague, and an ex-cop to get to the bottom of this neighbourhood nightmare.

2. Yummy

With this Dutch horror, the scares are tempered by some laughs. But once things get going, the horror is pretty relentless — and very bloody. It’s something of a throwback to the goofy horrors of the 80s. If you love zombies noshing on human flesh and the general mayhem that ensues when zombies take over a clinic, stream this movie.

Here’s the official Shudder blurb: When a young couple travels to a shady hospital for cosmetic surgery, the boyfriend stumbles upon a patient suffering from an experimental rejuvenation treatment. He frees her, but doesn't realize she’s ground zero for an outbreak which will change the doctors, patients, and his mother-in-law into bloodthirsty, utterly outrageous zombies.

3. Terrifier

There’s nothing subtle about this full-on slasher — it gore-soaked, violent and unhinged. Main villain, Art the Clown, reached cult status with this feature-length starring role, after previously appearing in two shorts and the horror anthology, All Hallows Eve. In these previous outings he was portrayed by actor Mike Gianelli. But it’s with David Howard Thornton in the white face paint that Art really comes into his own. Thornton has the skill of creating something truly terrifying through his body language and those long inhuman stares.

Here’s the blurb from Shudder: Brace yourselves as a maniacal clown named Art begins his reign of terror on Halloween night, setting his sights on three young women and anyone else that gets in his way! Move over Pennywise, because there’s a new clown in sight and this one is a thousand times more violent and a million times crueller. 'Terrifier' is a gore-filled, sadistic, twisted, chaotic horror experience not to be missed!

4. It Follows

There’s very little gore in this original U.S. horror that goes out of its way to make the viewer fee displaced and confused. There’s the more obvious horror element of an entity that can take on any form and will just follow you until it eventually kills you. Then there’s the odd, impossible to place time setting. At one point we see a cell phone, so it must be fairly contemporary, right? So then why is all the electrical equipment in the family living-room from out of the 1970s? Apparently, this mixing of time periods was a deliberate attempt by director, David Robert Mitchell, to confuse and unsettle the viewer. It works.

Here’s what Shudder has to say: After Jay sleeps with her new boyfriend, she’s informed that an evil shape-shifting entity will now be pursuing her, slowly creeping closer until it can take her life. The only way to end this mysterious haunting is to pass it on to someone else through sex, but that presents an ethical dilemma, so Jay and her friends seek out another way to end the curse for good.

5. The Power

This has just appeared on Shudder in the UK and was a pleasant surprise. It’s set in London in 1974 when power cuts were a regular trial as unions exerted their might. Add to the gloomy time period the bleak setting of an obviously understaffed hospital and things are disturbing enough before the supernatural element kicks in. But kick in it does and lead actress, Rose Williams, does a great job of mixing vulnerability with inner strength as a young nurse left overnight in an evacuated ward. It’s not long before she becomes aware of an other-worldly presence stalking her through the dark corridors. This movie has its flaws — not all the scares quite hit the spot — but it has a real sense of time and place and some excellent performances which lift it well above mediocrity.

Here’s what Shudder has to say: London, 1974. As Britain prepares for electrical blackouts to sweep across the country, trainee nurse Val arrives for her first day at the crumbling East London Royal Infirmary. With most of the patients and staff evacuated to another hospital, Val is forced to work the night shift in the empty building. Within these walls lies a deadly secret, forcing Val to face her own traumatic past in order to confront the malevolent force that’s intent on destroying everything around her.