All the Horror You Need to Stream in January 2023

Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the horror content coming to and leaving your favorite streaming services. Here’s what to watch in January 2023:

I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions. But I do think there are a couple of “good habits” we can all nurture moving into 2023 as horror fans in the streaming age.

We could all do a better job of supporting services like Kanopy, which in addition to being marvelously curated, is free through certain public libraries. And speaking of free, we would all do well to sing the praises of services like Tubi, which use ads to bring ridiculously niche (and often hard-to-find) films to the masses. There are smaller things, too: share your surprise finds with pals, tidy up your bloated watchlist, and try to be mindful of when the algorithm is working against rather than for you. You get the picture.

All that said: be sure to peruse the complete list below, calendar in hand, for a full picture of what horror movies are coming and going from your favorite streaming services in January 2022.

Please keep in mind that all dates listed below may not apply to viewers outside the US.

January 2023 Horror Streaming Cheat Sheet

• Haunted house lovers, beware! Two Amityville movies are leaving HBO Max at the end of the month;
• Major selections from three franchises are leaving Hulu at the end of January: Underworld, Saw, and the extended Godzilla universe. (Though, never fear, Underworld is the hot potato of horror streaming and the franchise will arrive on Paramount+ early this month);
• HBO Max welcomes the first two Ghostbusters films, the first two Teen Wolf films, and Piranha 3D and its more well-endowed follow-up on the first of the month;
• Three of the films in The Mummy franchise hit Hulu on the first of the month;
• Paramount+ and Prime Video have a whack of Paranormal Activity films as of January 1st (Prime Video also has the first three films in the Spanish-language [REC] franchise);
• Our good friends at Tubi are welcoming two franchises this month: the Final Destination films and the Tremors films;
• New-ish releases kicking around this month include:
  • Freaky (2020) on Freevee as of Jan 1st;
  • The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020) on Shudder as of Jan 5th;
  • Death of Me (2020) on Netflix as of Jan 16th;
  • Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021) on Shudder as of Jan 9th;
  • Take Back the Night (2021) on Shudder as of Jan 16th;
  • Let the Wrong One In (2021) on Shudder as of Jan 23;
  • The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) which is leaving HBO Max as of Jan 20th;
  • The Menu (2022) on HBO Max as of Jan 3rd;
  • House of Darkness (2022) on Hulu as of Jan 7th;
  • Orphan: First Kill (2022) on Prime Video as of Jan 31;
  • Sorry About the Demon (2022) on Shudder as of Jan 19th;
  • The Lair (2022) on Shudder as of Jan 26th;
  • In Search of Darkness: Part III (2022) as of Jan 30th;
  • Teen Wolf: The Movie (2023) on Paramount+ as of Jan 26th;

The streaming service champion of the month is Screambox! They really showed up this month with a whack of deep cuts in the horror/giallo crossroads and I’m very here for it! Good work boys.

The streaming service dunce of the month is usually Disney+. But we’re going to kick the year off by wagging our boney witch finger at the usually excellent ARROW, who for the first time in recent memory, isn’t adding a new horror film to their library. Nothing but love for ARROW but it’s your own damn fault for setting our expectations so high.

Collection Corner: January 2022 Horror Streaming

• Adam Egypt Mortimer Selects (as of Jan 6)
  • Demented Spiritual Quests (as of Jan 6)
    • Titles include Boxer’s Omen, The Sacred Spirit, Love Exposure;
  • Portrait of the Artist as an Unhinged Lunatic
    
    • Titles include Demonlover; Beware of a Holy Whore; Naked Lunch;
  • Fucked-up Monsters (as of Jan 6)
    • Titles include The Great Yokai War, Gwilliam;
• Ravenous Cannibals (as of Jan 13)
  • Titles include Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Trapped Alive, Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood;
  • “It looks like meat’s back on the menu! Fasten your napkin securely around your neck, sharpen your carving knife and take a nice big juicy bite out of this collection of cannibalistic flicks sure to fill any tummies rumbling for gore, savagery, and man-eating mayhem!”
• The First Time (as of Jan 20)
  • Titles include A Ghost Waits, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Donnie Darko;
  • “You never forget the first time, and you’ll never forget these first films from a host of legendary, cult, and breakthrough directors.”

Horror Streaming Highlights for January 2023

Pick of the Month: Possession (1981)

Synopsis: A spy named Mark (Sam Neill) returns home to find his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani), who wants a divorce. She won’t explain why. And when Mark finally peels himself off the floor, he resolves to get to the bottom of his wife’s increasingly erratic and unexplainable behavior. Surely this is just a classic case of bitches-be-crazy hysteria, right? Wait, where did all those tentacles come from?

Like most normal people, I have a running mental note of all the films that give off palpable “my divorce is causing my brain to liquefy” energy. Steven Spielberg’s Hook is certainly up there. As is the custody battle-inspired The Brood. But none of them hold a flickering candle to Possession, the celluloid scream unleashed into the world in 1981 by director and co-writer Andrzej Żuławski.

If you haven’t had the incomparable pleasure of letting Possession‘s twisting tendrils ooze through your T.V. screen, murmurs of its notoriety may still have reached you: Isabelle Adjani’s contorted form writhing against the subway tile; some unparsable fleshy mass in a rundown apartment; the concrete carcass of West Berlin.

If Possession has been collecting dust in your watchlist and this is the sign you’ve been waiting for, there isn’t really anything I can say to prepare you. Keep an open mind but be wary of what such receptivity may let in (e.g. a crush on Isabelle Adjani).

And for those of you repeat watchers/sickos out there looking to double-bill Shudder’s exciting new addition with something equally miserable and depraved, check out this list of Possession pairings from myself and Anna Swanson.

Available on Shudder on January 5th.

What did the taxidermist say to his dead fiancé? Get stuffed!

Aquarius Releasing

Synopsis: An orphaned, rich, and wildly disturbed taxidermist (Kieran Canter) handles the sudden death of his fiancé very well. Just kidding, he exhumes her corpse, stuffs her, and puts her in his bed. Now, under the watchful eye of his housekeeper/wetnurse (Franca Stoppi), the taxidermist hunts for his beloved’s replacement! 

There are a host of sumptuously scuzzy giallo slasher films hitting Screambox this month. And while the temptation to sing the praises of the Australian-made, Italian-inspired Next of Kin is tempting, the more under-seen stone worth turning over is Joe D’Amato‘s masterpiece: Beyond the Darkness.

Somehow, despite its bananas plot, Beyond the Darkness is actually a remake of the 1966 Franco Nero vehicle The Third Eye. But that film doesn’t have a score by the prog-rock band Goblin. If artful revulsion is your game and you have an iron-clad stomach, this one’s for you.

Available on Screambox January 1st.

Half man … half monster … all “Manster”

Synopsis: Nothing bad ever came from injecting mold into unwitting human experiments, right? Right? Just ask cocky foreign correspondent Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), who has been unknowingly singled out for one of Dr. Robert Suzuki’s (Tetsu Nakamura) nefarious, body-altering experiments.

If you want a good, tangible example of why Tubi is a streaming service worth championing, look no further than The Manster (which, yes, is a portmanteau of man and monster). Like, sure, you could line Jeff Bezos’ pocketbook and watch the film on Prime Video. But the real ones know that the true B Movie experience lives on the people’s platform, Tubi.

As far as schlock goes, The Manster distinguishes itself by virtue of its almost entirely Japanese cast, crew, and shooting locations. I mean, just get a look at that poster! Part Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde part How to Get Ahead in Advertising, at 72 minutes, this goofy little flick is a perfect Saturday morning matinee watch.

Available on Tubi January 1st.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ‘EO’ director Jerzy Skolimowski’s ‘The Shout’

Synopsis: Bored while officiating a game of cricket at a psychiatric facility, a man named Crossley (Alan Bates) relays a tale to an affable visitor (Tim Curry). The tale concerns another man (also named Crossley), who ingratiates himself into the lives of an experimental musician (John Hurt) and his wife (Susannah York). Claiming to have learned occult practices while living in the Outback, the musician pushes his unwanted guest to show off his abilities with nightmarish results.

There are a number of excellent films currently streaming in The Criterion Channel’s terse celebration of Jerzy Skolimowski’s work. But only one of them is about death shouting.

Once you’ve recovered from the somewhat distracting fact that Alan Bates is a dead ringer for What We Do in the Shadow‘s Matt Berry, the phrase “holy shit, did Skolimowski make any other horror movies?” is bound to enter your mind. Terrifyingly lucid, given its dreamy presentation and miasmatic subject matter, The Shout is a stunning work of domestic horror that deserves fresh eyes on it.

Perhaps it’s the presence of Susannah York talking, but The Shout is in good company alongside other psychological terror trips of the 1970s: Images; Let’s Scare Jessica To Death and even The Witch Who Came From the Sea. Teaming with symbolist imagery and painterly compositions, The Shout is a striking piece of cinematic magic.

Available on The Criterion Channel January 1st

Streamable Horror Incoming This Month

Horror Titles Expiring from Streaming Soon

Related Topics: Horror, Horrorscope

Based in the Pacific North West, Meg enjoys long scrambles on cliff faces and cozying up with a good piece of 1960s eurotrash. As a senior contributor at FSR, Meg's objective is to spread the good word about the best of sleaze, genre, and practical effects.