16 (Legal) Websites to Watch Free Horror Movies Online

There are plenty of torrent websites out there with the latest horror movies to download, but: 1) they usually are illegally infringing on copyrights, and you could get in trouble if you download; 2) the picture and audio quality might not be good; and 3) who knows what you're actually downloading? Virus scan, anyone? Here are 16 safer alternatives, websites where you can watch horror movies online legally and for free.

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Public Domain Torrents

Selection: Around 100 horror movies, mostly pre-1970
Video Quality: Fair
Download or Stream in Browser?: Download
Legal?: Yes (public domain)
Sample Titles: Blood Tide, Devil Times Five, A Bucket of Blood, King of the Zombies, Driller Killer, Memorial Valley Massacre, Eegah, Oasis of the Zombies, Scream Bloody Murder, The Snake People
Bottom Line: There are a significant number of horror movies available for download on this public domain site, but if you want to view movies online, you'll have to go elsewhere. There are links to view online via the Google Video interface on the site, but they no longer work since Google Video is now defunct.

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Retrovision

Selection: Around 65 horror movies, mostly pre-1980
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes (public domain)
Sample Titles: Track of the Moon Beast, Night Gallery, Deadtime Stories, Deep Red, Werewolf of Washington, Silent Night Bloody Night, Oasis of the Zombies, Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), Manos: The Hands of Fate, Messiah of Evil, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, Don't Look in the Basement, Cat People (1944)
Bottom Line: A basic, no-frills site that focuses on its strong selection of public domain movies. As such, it's not the easiest site to browse.

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Snag Films

Selection: Around 50 horror movies, from the 1950s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Asylum, Night Train to Terror, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Carnival of Souls, White Zombie, The Last Man on Earth, Death and Cremation, The Millennium Bug
Bottom Line: Features an eclectic mix of vintage public domain horror films and recent indie fare.

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Internet Archive

Selection: Around 200 horror movies, mostly pre-1970
Video Quality: Fair
Download or Stream in Browser?: Both
Legal?: Yes (public domain)
Sample Titles: White Zombie, The Last Man on Earth, Horror Express, Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, The House on Haunted Hill, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, The Little Shop of Horrors, Devil Times Five
Bottom Line: This trustworthy non-profit library offers a large selection of public domain horror movies and is the only site on this list that offers the option of downloading the films (a lot safer -- and more legal -- than typical torrent sites) in addition to viewing online.

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Movies Found Online

Selection: Around 70 horror movies, from the 1930s to the 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Mostly
Sample Titles: Children of the Corn, The Driller Killer, Kingdom of the Spiders, Day of the Triffids, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Faces of Death
Bottom Line: A nice list of, well, movies found online, with embedded videos from other sites or links to those other sites. Where it really stands out, though, is its excellent selection of modern horror short films.

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Break.com

Selection: Around 50 horror movies
Video Quality: Excellent
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Leprechaun, The Descent, The Devil Inside, 2001 Maniacs, The Final, Jacob's Ladder, The Eye, Teeth
Bottom Line: Although known primarily as a video sharing site in which visitors upload content, Break.com has begun offering free movies from the vaults of Lionsgate, which owns a portion of the site, meaning it provides some popular, high-quality horror fare.

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Crackle

Selection: Hard to tell; at least 50+ horror movies
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Shaun of the Dead, Anaconda, Ghostbusters II, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Resident Evil: Extinction, Night of the Creeps, The Grudge, Ghosts of Mars, Urban Legend, The Cave, Vacancy
Bottom Line: Crackle is owned by Sony, so the site has that studio's high-profile vault of films from which to pick, as well as subsidiaries like Columbia, TriStar and Screen Gems. That said, because Crackle frustratingly shuffles in and out what is available, only a handful of horror movies (12, to be exact) are on the site at any given time. It does, however, occasionally have original offerings made only for the site, such as the live-action video game adaptation Dead Rising: Watchtower.

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Viewster

Selection: Around 200 horror movies, from the 1900s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Aaah! Zombies!!, Cropsey, Sleepaway Camp III, Class of Nuke 'em High, Eaten Alive Night of the Living Dead, Hayride, The Mangler Reborn
Bottom Line: Boasts a large selection of horror movies, although most are obscure, low-budget fare.

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Veoh

Selection: Around 500 horror movies
Video Quality: Fair to Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Varies
Sample Titles: The Descent, The Gate, Bad Meat, Laid to Rest, Seconds Apart, Dark Floors, Black Sheep, The Blob, Prowl, Don't Look in the Basement, The Beyond, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Bottom Line: Veoh provides user-generated content, so there may be copyright issues with some of the films (granted, if there are, simply viewing the films online shouldn't get you in trouble), and you might have to sift through some cheesy homemade videos. However, it allows you to sort by genre and video length, so it's easy to locate feature-length horror selections. Veoh also stands out for a robust selection of foreign horror fare.

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PopcornFlix/FrightPix

Selection: Around 250 horror movies, from 1960s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: , The Toxic Avenger, BloodRayne, The Collector, Puppet Master, Birdemic 2, Tombs of the Blind Dead, Dread, Jug Face, Satan's Little Helper, FDR: American Badass, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Big Bad Wolf, Amber Alert, Mask Maker, They Wait
Bottom Line: PopcornFlix is a streaming service run by Screen Media, a leading distributor that provides plenty of content to the site, meaning most of the content is high-end direct to video. An offshoot, FrightPix, focuses on horror movies, although it seems to have a lot of the same movies.

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Tubi TV

Selection: Around 150 horror movies, from the 1950s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Day of the Dead, The Devil Inside, The Evil Dead, The Loved Ones, , Cropsey, Madman, And Soon the Darkness, Bad Taste, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Outpost: Black Sun, Chastity Bites
Bottom Line: Partnering with the likes of Paramount and Starz, Tubi TV offers a nice selection of licensed films alongside some public domain choices.

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Hulu

Selection: Around 250 horror movies, from the 1950s to the 2000s
Video Quality: Excellent
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Scanners, Evil Dead II, The Collector, Hellraiser, The Human Centipede, Sharknado, Inferno, Bedevilled, The Abandoned, Maniac Cop, Cannibal Holocaust, Them, Excision, Malevolence, The Brood, Suicide Club, Hatchet
Bottom Line: One of the first video sites to pay for the rights to show full-length, high-caliber movies for free, Hulu features a great selection of horror films unavailable for viewing elsewhere and provides many of these same flicks to sites like IMDb. A pay option, Hulu Plus, provides a wider selection.

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Internet Movie Database

Selection: Hard to tell; probably 300+ horror movies, from the 1900s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Ginger Snaps, Evil Dead II, Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong, Frankenhooker, Night Train, Warlock III, The Abandoned, Dorian Gray
Bottom Line: This iconic movie reference site hosts more than 10,000 movies -- granted, most are short films and/or very obscure. Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to sort the list by genre (or length, despite what it claims), so searching for horror can be time-consuming and frustrating. IMDb also embeds another 30,000-plus free movies (again, many of which are short films and/or very obscure) -- which are sortable by genre -- from other sites, including about 250 horror features from Hulu and Internet Archive, plus pay movies from Amazon.

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80sHorror.net

Selection: Around 500 horror movies, from the 1980s
Video Quality: Good
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Varies
Sample Titles: The Changeling, The Fog, Prom Night, The Shining, Cannibal Holocaust, Terror Train, An American Werewolf in London, The Burning, The Funhouse, The Howling, My Bloody Valentine, The Thing, Creepshow, Poltergeist, Cujo, Demons
Bottom Line: Because it can be hard to find the user-uploaded content on YouTube, 80sHorror.net is a wonderfully useful tool that organizes and embeds/links to hundreds of horror movies on the site, with a focus on films released in the wild 'n wooly 1980s. It even breaks the films down by year. As with all user-generated content on YouTube, there may be some copyright issues, so don't be surprised if a film is suddenly yanked.

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YouTube

Selection: Hard to tell; likely 1,000+ horror movies, from the 1900s to 2000s
Video Quality: Good to Excellent
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Varies
Sample Titles: Night of the Creeps, Last House on the Left, Ticks, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, The Stepfather, Suspiria, Ringu, Audition, The Others, 1408, When a Stranger Calls, Class of Nuke 'Em High, Driller Killer
Bottom Line: A longtime haven for user-generated content, YouTube now also has licensed movies from major studios and independents like Troma that are willing to post some films for free viewing. The user content is where most of the free content is, but it's scattered and hard to browse (not to mention copyright questionable). It's useful to find a power user who's uploaded a lot of horror content or track down a site like 80sHorror.net that's done the research for you and found a lot of the horror movies available on YouTube. Often, the non-licensed feature films are divided into 10-minute chunks, so be prepared that some portions might be missing.

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OVGuide

Selection: Around 1,000+ horror movies, from 1900s to 2000s
Video Quality: Fair to Excellent
Download or Stream in Browser?: Browser
Legal?: Yes
Sample Titles: Shaun of the Dead, The Devil Inside, Underworld: Evolution, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Exit Humanity, Barricade, The Collector, Satan's Little Helper, Ginger Snaps, The Evil Dead, I Spit on Your Grave, The House on Sorority Row
Bottom Line: OVGuide is an aggregator that collects and organizes links to other (legal) sites that house movies, including PopcornFlix, Snag Films, Hulu, Crackle, and YouTube. As such, the selection is large, with over 1,000 free films (and even more pay movies) within the horror genre alone. With so much content, however, you'll find quite a few links incorrectly labeled.

16 Best (Legal) Websites to Watch Free Horror Movies Online

Snag Films

Movies Found Online

OVGuide

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