Editor's Pick: The best movies on Shudder Australia

Shudder is a niche streaming service that's all about the spooky scary. Focusing on horror and horror-adjacent, the service is sure to delight those seeking a fright. Despite having a substantial library, Shudder isn't exactly full of blockbuster titles you'll recognise. As such, we've put together a list of our favourite movies on the service to help you get a start.   

Good Boy

---

Brodie's brief: Horror from a different POV (Paw-of-View)

Brodie's rating:

Good Boy is a horror movie with an adorable twist. When a young man, Todd, is sent to his late grandfather's home in the woods to recover from a debilitating lung disease, his dog Indy starts to sense a sinister supernatural presence that threatens his owner's already fragile health. Rather than following a human protagonist, Good Boy is told primarily from the point of view of Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever that belongs to filmmaker Ben Leonberg. 

Indy made history in early 2026 when he became the first animal to win in an acting category that previously only recognised human actors, taking home the award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller at the Astra Film Awards. - Brodie Fogg

Late Night with the Devil

---

Brodie's brief: Australian horror that knows how to entertain an audience

Brodie's rating:

Australian filmmaking brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes released one of the year’s most pleasant homegrown surprises in 2023 with their indie supernatural horror film Late Night with the Devil.

Starring career creeper David Dastmalchian as late-night talk show host, Jack Delroy, 

Starring career creeper David Dastmalchian as late-night talk show host, Jack Delroy, Late Night Devil follows the live recording of an occult-themed Halloween episode of Delroy’s show Night Owls. Desperate to pump the show’s low ratings, Delroy invites four controversial guests: Christou (Bazzi), a medium, a Randi-esque sceptic, Carmichael Haig (Bliss), a parapsychologist, Dr June Ross-Mitchell (Gordon) and her patient, Lilly, the child survivor of a mysterious cult who claims to be possessed by a demon known as Mr Wriggles. Is it all smoke-and-mirrors? Or is the Devil really waiting in the wings?

- Brodie Fogg

Host

---

Brodie's brief: Found footage horror for the Zoom generation

Brodie's rating:

At the height of WFH (working from home) mid-pandemic, Shudder pumped out an incredibly timely, low-budget horror that offered a fresh twist on the found-footage genre. Host wasn't the first webcam horror, but it's by far the best. 

Bored stiff during the COVID-19 lockdowns in London, five friends decide to conduct a "virtual séance", led by the online mystic Seylan. Despite Seylan's ominous advice to respect the spirits, those cheeky poms just can't help themselves and eventually their chicanery opens the door to something malevolent.

- Brodie Fogg

One Cut of the Dead

---

Alex's analysis: One of the freshest takes on the zombie genre

Alex's rating:

One Cut of the Dead is a Japanese zombie flick you simply need to watch. It follows a film crew shooting a zombie film, who then seemingly encounter actual zombies. And from then, it only gets weirder. A delightful, laugh-out-loud funny watch - Alex Choros

Possessor

---

Alex's analysis: An unrelenting slice of dystopian body horror

Alex's rating:

Tasya Vos is an assassin who takes control of other people's bodies to carry out her hits, then suics her host victim at the end of a job. It may seem like the perfect crime, but Vos seemingly loses a little bit of herself with every hit. Matters become even more complicated when Vos finds herself unable to leave her host's body. A gory, gripping ride - Alex Choros

Aliens Expanded

---

Brodie's brief: A deep-space dive into James Cameron's beloved sci-fi

Brodie's rating:

Shudder might offer mostly horror movies, but it also houses some horror-adjacent material. Case in point: the 2024 documentary Aliens Expanded. 

Something of a spiritual successor to 2019's Memory: The Origins of Alien, Aliens Expanded aims to be just as, if not more, definitive for the 1986 action-leaning sequel from James Cameron. And definitive it is. Clocking in at just under five hours, Aliens Expanded is an epic tome for die-hard fans. In fact, roughly 30 minutes of that runtime is dedicated to thanks for its crowdfunding backers, of which there are many. 

It features hours of unseen behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with everyone from James Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd, to almost the entire primary cast and behind-the-scenes talent, like VFX and "creature-effects" specialists. 

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

---

Brodie's brief: Hillbilly Mr Bean meets Cabin in the Woods

Brodie's rating:

Who says horror can't be hilarious? 2010's Tucker & Dale vs. Evil turns the classic cabin-in-the-woods horror concept on its head. When a group of teens go camping in the woods, they get the wrong idea about two kindly country folk, Tucker (Tudyk) and Dale (Labine), who just want to repair their cabin. 

What follows is a series of unfortunate events that even Lemony Snicket would find hard to believe. The teens think Tucker and Dale are hillbilly serial killers, Tucker and Dale think the teens are part of some sort of suicide death cult, thanks to their penchant for falling into wood chippers and what have you. Hilarity and bloodshed ensues. 

Guyver

Brodie's brief: You're mine, suckahhh!

Brodie's rating:

Based on the Bio Booster Armor Guyver manga series, the Guyver is a Venom-like symbiotic alien organism that gives its host super-human abilities. When a Zoanoid (go with it) escapes with an alien technology (the Guyver), it falls into the hands of a teenage slacker, Sean Barker. When Sean's girlfriend is kidnapped, the Guyver takes control, armouring Sean's body with an indestructible carapace. Sean, willing or not, lets the Guyver take brutal revenge on the aggressors. 

You know what, the plot really isn't important. All you really need to know is that the Japanese director goes by Screaming Mad George and worked on makeup and special effects for Big Trouble in Little China, Predator, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and many more. Also, fun tidbit: the sequel Guyver: Dark Hero was marketed as Predator 3 in the Philippines.