North Texas Daily

It is safe to say that we are in the era of streaming services. Every couple of months it appears that more and more platforms are created, only to create a bigger hole in your pocket. Disney+ and HBO Max are great vessels to watch what you want, but I have noticed one giant gap in every single streaming service out there: the horror genre is either terribly represented or not represented at all, and that is where Shudder comes in.

I subscribed to Shudder a couple of weeks ago, and I can say with full confidence that this is one of the best streaming services out there. They cultivate a perfect combination of classic films and shows to choose from, while also creating some of their own Shudder originals that can win any die-hard horror fan over. There are categories for anything you are looking for, and it has everything from pop culture giants like “Halloween” to some cult classics like “Chopping Mall.”

It would be one thing if these Shudder original shows were terrible, but from everything that I have seen, it is brilliant. Not everything is going to be perfect, but if you enjoy the horror genre there are literally pages on pages of things to choose from. I really enjoyed looking through the “Directed by Women” and “Giallo” sections, because it shows that this service knows everything about the genre and breaks down its films accordingly. On Netflix, the horror section exists with almost nothing else to help you find what kind of movie or show you are looking for. If Netflix is going to tell me that “Scary Movie” and “It Comes At Night” are in the same exact category, I can’t help but feel like they are just smashing everything horror-related into one category with no specific indicators.

As I said before, there are a lot of streaming services that don’t get the horror genre right. I feel that college students and people our age tend to gravitate towards the horror genre more than anyone else, and this streaming service exceeds all expectations. For $5.99 a month and what seems like endless horror-filled content, I can start to weed out some of those other streaming services I don’t really use anymore. A huge problem we are going to see in the future is streaming services multiplying at a rapid rate. Television networks like NBC and Discovery have made their own streaming services, and it is starting to become a matter of picking the two or three you like the most.

If you are even remotely interested in the horror genre, this streaming service is something you need to get. It comes with a seven-day free trial, but you will need way more than seven days to truly appreciate what this streaming service is for the horror community. With horror films being under-represented in pretty much every aspect of the world, it is so nice to see a service as extensive as Shudder. There is no question that the material to make a horror-based streaming service is out there, it is just that all the other streaming services don’t make their selection of horror the best it could be.

I can not recommend this streaming service enough. Every day feels like Halloween when I am scrolling through Shudder, and if you are a horror fan like me you know that is the best feeling in the world. The amount of effort put into this streaming service makes me so happy to be a horror fan who is finally seeing a streaming service giving the genre justice.

Courtesy Shudder