The sun shines brighter after you’ve spent some time in the shadows. Mysteries, murderers, monsters, cults, cannibals, and more – you’ll find them all here, waiting to send a chill up your spine.
Explore collections ranging from Scary Series to Ghost Tales from Around the World, all brought together in SBS On Demand's hub.
Vintage Horror
The Wicker Man
The best folk horror film of all time is now celebrating its 50th anniversary and has lost none of its power over the past half-century. Edward Woodward is devout Christian cop Neil Howie who heads for the remote Scottish community of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, only to find the inhabitants of the island cleave to a pagan faith much older than his. Worse (for him at least), the islanders, led by Christopher Lee’s magnetic Lord Summerisle, have plans for him… A truly singular film, The Wicker Man has been much imitated (and poorly remade once) but remains a genuinely unsettling cinematic experience.
The Wicker Man is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Razorback
This classic slice of Ozploitation from Australian genre veteran Russell Mulcahy is, if we’re being completely frank, a Jaws rip-off – but it’s a GREAT Jaws rip-off, and that makes all the difference. After his reporter wife disappears while investigating reports of animal cruelty at an outback pet food plant, American Carl (Gregory Harrison) heads down under to investigate. He finds the culprit is a gigantic wild boar that has been merrily munching its way through the bush for years, and so the stage is set for a creature feature for the ages. Featuring Mulcahy’s trademark MTV visual style, a soundtrack by Icehouse main man Iva Davies, and Aussie acting legend Bill Kerr as a vengeful pig hunter, Razorback is a perfect Friday night feast of fear.
Razorback is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Ghost Tales From Around The World
A Tale of Two Sisters
A low-burn supernatural thriller from Korean director Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil - also streaming ), A Tale of Two Sisters takes its inspiration from a Joeseon era folk story. After she’s released from a psychiatric institution, teenager Su-mi (Im Soo-jung) returns to her family’s country house and her sister Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young), with whom she shares a close relationship. Not so their father’s new wife Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah), a cruel stepmother right out of a fairy tale. So far, so rote, but this K-horror classic manifests an atmosphere of nigh-unbearable creeping dread and navigates some hairpin narrative turns as it builds to a shocking, unforgettable conclusion.
A Tale of Two Sisters is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Ju-On (The Grudge)
Rightly regarded as a classic of the early 21st century J-horror craze, Takashi Shimizu’s skin-crawlingly tense film is actually the third in the series, the first two going straight to video in their native Japan. But continuity matters much less than atmosphere here, as we follow social worker Rika (Megumi Okina) as she is assigned to help an old woman, Sachie (Chihayako Isomura) and her grandson, Toshio (Yuya Ozeki). When Sachie is murdered by a vengeful ghost, Rikia investigates the history of their apparently haunted house, uncovering a history of violence and horror. Told in a disquieting non-linear manner, Ju-On is haunting in every sense of the word. A sequel, Ju-On 2, written and directed by Shimizu followed, as did a series of American remakes.
Ju-On is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Ju-On 2 is streaming at SBS On Demand.
That Was Intense
Saint Maud
Fervently Catholic palliative care nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark) clashes with her latest patient, Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a hedonistic, gay former dancer who is dying of lymphoma. What starts off as a conflict of faith vs atheism soon cants into darker territory, as both the depth of Maud’s fanatical belief and hints of her dark past are gradually uncovered over the course of the film. Religious horror can be a tricky needle to thread, but debut writer and director Rose Glass unflinchingly examines the fine line between devotion and desperation here, culminating in a genuinely shocking climax.
Saint Maud is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
The House That Jack Built
Professional provocateur Lars von Trier delivers one of his most confronting films ever, in a career not exactly short of controversy. In unflinching detail, we follow the career of the prolific serial killer Jack (Matt Dillon) as he relates his many horrific murders to a mysterious man, Verge (Bruno Ganz), while they journey together through a surreal landscape. What infolds is a stomach-churning litany of horrors as Jack sadistically dispatches various men, women, and children and creative and grotesque ways. Cinematic serial killers may seem passe these days, but here von Trier forces us to immerse ourselves in unspeakable horror, which means The House That Jack Built certainly isn’t for everyone – but those who take up the challenge will never forget it.
The House That Jack Built is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Scary Series
Patricia Moore
Family road trips can be stressful enough at the best of times, but it’s even more nerve-wracking when your family are cannibals. The Moore family roam the outback in their converted bus, using daughter Patricia (Marlo Kelly) to lure victims to dine on. It’s not their fault, really – they’re on the run from the cult they escaped from and can’t adapt to a non-anthropophagous diet. But when Patricia has a meet-cute with local teen Toby (Joe Klocek), mum Marnie (Danielle Cormack) has to face the fact that her daughter is growing up, and their carnivorous car trip can’t last for ever. Told across 10 short episodes, Patricia Moore is perfect bite-sized Australian horror.
Patricia Moore will be streaming at SBS On Demand from 26 October.
Wayward Pines
Executive producer M. Night Shyamalan brings cult author Blake Crouch’s Pines trilogy to the screen, and the result is a series that should please fans of surreal small-town mysteries like Twin Peaks. When Secret Service agent Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon) travels to the titular town to investigate the fate of two fellow agents who seem to have vanished, he finds himself literally and mysteriously unable to leave. While he digs deeper into the hamlet’s enigmatic past, in the outside world his wife Theresa (Shannyn Sossamon) investigates his disappearance. Since the cultural phenomenon that was Lost, “mystery box” series are a dime a dozen, but Wayward Pines is head and shoulders above the rest, boasting literary depth and a genuinely intriguing central conundrum.
Wayward Pines is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Wayward Pines
series • Crime drama
MA15+
series • Crime drama
MA15+
Sci Fi Oddities
Synchronic
New Orleans paramedics Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) start finding people who have died in seemingly impossible ways, eventually discovering that a new street drug enables the user to briefly travel back in time. When Dennis’ daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides) disappears while taking the drug, Steve undertakes to travel back and rescue her, no matter the cost. Lo-fi genre specialists Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who also gave us Spring and The Endless, offer a unique, humanistic time travel tale that traffics in ideas rather than special effects.
Synchronic is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Lapsis
In a near-future world disturbingly close to our own, delivery man Ray (Dean Imperial) is struggling to support his chronically ill brother, Jamie (Babe Howard). Desperate, he takes a weird new gig – laying “quantum cable” across remote areas of the country for tech conglomerate CABLR. It’s boring, draining work, and he’s in competition with both his fellow subcontractors and the robot cable-layers that will inevitably replace them. Director Noah Hutton’s first fiction feature is technically science fiction, but the financial anxieties that plague its characters will be instantly familiar to anyone battling to keep their head above water in the modern economy.
Lapsis is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Explore these and other collections, all together at the at SBS On Demand.
