May is not messing around. Shudder has four originals and a prestige series. Hulu has the Sam Raimi film that quietly became one of the better reviewed horror releases of the year. Netflix has the biggest horror sequel of 2025 and a cult classic it should have picked up years ago.
Here is everything worth knowing.
Shudder
Shudder is winning May and it is not particularly close. The schedule is stacked enough that I am going to break it down by title.
Heresy — May 1
Dutch folk horror from first-time feature director Didier Konings, set in a medieval village where a young woman is caught between her faith, a community collapsing into paranoia, and something older than both of them lurking in the surrounding woods.
Heresy premiered at Rotterdam and went to Fantastic Fest, Sitges, Screamfest, and Grimmfest before landing here. The comparisons to The Witch are going to come fast and they are not wrong. Already streaming.
The Terror: Devil in Silver — May 7, weekly through June 11
The third season of AMC’s horror anthology. Dan Stevens plays Pepper, a working-class moving man wrongfully committed to a psychiatric hospital where the staff’s secrets are worse than the patients’. Six episodes, premiering Wednesday.
Whistle — May 8
Dafne Keen finds an ancient Aztec death whistle. The whistle’s sound summons the future deaths of anyone who blows it. The friends who heard it are now being hunted down by their own eventual ends.
Directed by Corin Hardy, who made The Hallow and knows exactly how to build a mythology that feels like it has been waiting underground for centuries. The cast around Keen includes Sophie Nélisse, Percy Hynes White, and Nick Frost.
Something Is About to Happen — May 15
Spanish horror-thriller from director Antonio Méndez Esparza, adapted from Juan José Millás’ 2018 novel. A woman loses her job as a software developer and becomes a taxi driver, and her life quietly becomes something it should not be. The horror here is slow and lives in the wrong angles of ordinary life. Available in the US and Canada.
This Is Not a Test — May 22
Adam MacDonald adapts Courtney Summers’ novel about five high school students, each damaged in their own specific way, who barricade themselves inside their school during a zombie outbreak.
The zombies are almost beside the point. This is a character study wearing apocalypse clothing, and lead Olivia Holt carries it. MacDonald directed Backcountry, which means he knows how to let dread build slow and then hit hard and suddenly.
Hulu
Send Help — May 7
Sam Raimi directing Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as coworkers stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. Sounds like a premise that could go twenty different directions. It went the good direction.
Send Help opened in January with a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and earned $94 million against a $40 million budget, which is the kind of math that tells you audiences found it and liked it. Danny Elfman scored it. If you missed this in theaters, May 7 is your second chance.
We Bury the Dead — May 8
We Bury the Dead stars Daisy Ridley in a zombie drama set in Tasmania about grief and what happens when the ocean gives someone back. Ridley has been choosy since Star Wars and this one earned the yes. Worth your time.
Netflix
Jennifer’s Body — May 1
Diablo Cody wrote it, Karyn Kusama directed it, Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried did something memorable with it, and 2009 audiences completely missed what it was. Netflix picking up Jennifer’s Body in 2026 feels less like a catalog acquisition and more like a formal apology. If you have never seen it or if it has been long enough that you want to revisit, it is already there and waiting.
Devil May Cry Season 2 — May 12
The animated series is back. Dante is back. If you watched season one you already know whether this is for you.
The Black Phone 2 — May 16
The biggest horror sequel of 2025 hits Netflix on May 16. Ethan Hawke returns, Mason Thames returns, and the film earned $132 million worldwide against a $30 million budget, which makes it one of the stronger horror performances of last year. Scott Derrickson directed both. The sequel follows Finney and his sister Gwen at a youth camp where the mystery of the Grabber’s earliest victims begins to surface. This is the anchor arrival of the month.
Nope — May 18
Jordan Peele’s third film and the one that asks what would happen if the thing in the sky had always been there and you just never noticed. Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya. If you have not seen Nope, May is your month. If you have seen it, you know it rewards a second watch.
