Huluween: The Best Scares on Hulu

Like Netflix, Hulu's horror offerings run toward the low-budget, low-quality end of the scale—"Elvira's Haunted Hills" or "Atom Age Vampire", anyone?—but the service's seasonal Huluween section gathers together many of the best horror options in its catalog.

Hulu isn't exactly crawling with the cream of the horror-movie crop, but there are enough classics on hand to make the Huluween movie section worth a stop. If nothing else, it's where you can find the original 1968 "Night of the Living Dead," the zombie movie that started it all. You'll have to forget about the last several years' worth of gore-spattered zombies in order to remember why the opening "They're coming to get you, Barbara" scene was so chilling all those years ago, but if you can turn back the clock to a time when no one had any idea what a zombie apocalypse was, you'll find this film to be exceptionally creepy.

There's also "Carnival of Souls," the 1962 low-budget film about a woman who emerges unscathed from a terrible car accident, only to find that the world seems to have gone all weird around her. The pace is slow, and the tone is understated to the extreme, but the imagery of a deserted carnival looming in the distance is spooky enough all by itself to make this one worth watching.

If over-the-top 80s horror is more your taste, Hulu has a few treats for you. Not only can you find the original "Evil Dead" here, but you can also find the 1987 sequel "Evil Dead 2." If demonic zombies aren't enough for you, you can follow them up with the original "Hellraiser" film, the movie that introduced us to the iconic and oh-so-evil Pinhead.

Hulu's real strength is TV, and with the abundance of paranormal-themed TV that's filled the broadcast spectrum in recent years, there's no shortage of scary TV fare in the bag of Huluween treats. Ghost hunters of every size, shape and flavor are on hand, from "Deep South Paranormal" to "The Girly Ghost Hunters" to "Celebrity Paranormal Project" (Gary Busey ain't afraid of no ghosts). If you'd like to dip your toe into the ghost-sleuthing waters but don't know where to begin, try "Ghost Adventures"; this aggressive ghost-hunting team, with their in-your-face methods, is nearly as scary as (and definitely more entertaining than) the alleged spirits they're hunting.