#All the Horror Films You Need to Stream in August 2021

Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the horror content coming to and leaving from your favorite streaming services. Here’s what horror movies you need to stream in August 2021.

Last month, we all came to a consensus that it is “hot goth summer.” Which, to be fair, is every summer because the inherent cool factor of all-black outfits comes at a very sweaty price. Considering our vampiric pick of the month, let this be your official August reminder. The sun is a giant cancer-causing fireball trying to kill you. Apply your sunscreen and apply it often.

I’m happy to report that this month, the horror train is chugging smoothly along. Brace yourself for all manner of devilish delights sure to tide you over until the sweat festive release of fall. We’ve got the aforementioned blood-sucking counterpoint to middle-aged ennui, balanced out with a notoriously difficult to find expressionist terror trip.

The horror streaming docket this August also includes a collection of movies themed around some of genre cinema’s nastier corners. Finally, get hyped for an essential British folk horror offering sure to make you look twice at passing teens.

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 August 2021. Keep in mind that all dates listed below may not apply to viewers outside the United States.

Horror Streaming Highlights for August 2021

Pick of the Month: Jakob’s Wife(2021)

Synopsis: Thirty years into her marriage to a small-town minister, Anne Fedder feels like her life is starting to ebb and shrink. She’s docile, demure, and yearning for, well, more. Then, she has a gruesome encounter with a mysterious entity. Reeling from her gore-soaked awakening, Anne discovers a new zest for life as a member of the undead. Unfortunately, the pep in her step comes with a steep body count.

It’s no secret that around these parts we stan the scream queen Barbara Crampton (Re: Animator, You’re Next). So you can bet your afterlife that we’re going to recommend her latest ooky spooky effort, Jakob’s Wife, as the horror movie to catch on the small screen this month.

Reviewing the movie at SWSW, our own Rob Hunter praised Jakob’s Wife as a “bloody ride filled with prosthetic goodness.” The two lead performances are a clear highlight with Crampton showing off her comedic chops, “embrac[ing] Anne’s liberation with excitement, glee, and sexual confidence.” As the enthusiastically faithful Jakob, Larry Fessenden mines comedic potential out of panic.

Jakob’s Wife marks Travis Stevens‘ decidedly goofier follow-up to the equally fluid-filled, but way more serious horror movie Girl on the Third Floor. And what his latest effort lacks in tonal consistency it more than makes up for in blood and two banger leads having an absolute blast. All hail the Cramptonaissance.

Available on Shudder on August 19th

A wordless proto-Lynchian psychosexual horror noir

Synopsis: A tormented young woman awakens from a nightmare. But it was just a dream, right? Leaving her flea-bitten lodgings, the woman wanders out into the night. There, she’s met with an onslaught of groping hands, predatory men, and the haunting memory of her homicidal childhood. But how reliable is her fractured memory? And would she lean into her killer instincts once more, given the chance?

Banned by the New York State Film Board during its original run, in 1955, John Parker‘s Dementia is truly, emphatically, one of a kind. Often cited as Hollywood’s first Freudian American horror film, Dementia‘s sensational presentation of female violence is a smokescreen for more enigmatic and surreal concerns. A silent picture rife with spine-tingling soundscapes and devoid of dialogue, Dementia (later recut under the title Daughter of Horror) fell into the obscurity destined for a film on the outs of both commercial and arthouse spaces. Genuinely unique, vulgar, and for a long time impossible to find, few nightmares are as soul-shaking as Dementia.

Leaves The Criterion Channel on August 31st

More video nasties and silver screen perversions than you can wag a finger at

Synopsis: From one of the central pillars of Japan’s infamously perverse “Pink” genre to two (count’em two!) documentaries about the icky history of the “video nasty” in the UK, ARROW presents all manner of deliciously sick filth in this collection of films sure to court moral outrage of all stripes.

That’s right, ya freaks: it’s time to swan dive into the deep end of depravity. Hope you brought your water wings. This mid-month season, the sick [REDACTED]s at ARROW bring together some of the nastiest, most sinful filth that horror cinema has to offer:

Promising to bring together sex workers, scream queens, and two excellent documentaries, gird your morals and prepare to be corrupted! Titles in the series (“Ban this Sick Filth Presents: Moral Outrage”) include:

• Vice Academy (1989), students at police academy take to the streets to win “points” that go towards their graduation.
• Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape (2010), a definitive documentary guide to the scandalous Video Nasties era of Britain.
• Video Nasties: Draconian Days (2014), the delightfully salacious sequel to the above.
• Orgies of Edo (1969), an anthology about sado-masochism in the Edo period.
• Underwater Love (2011), a more recent Pink film (that is also a musical!) about a woman who falls in love with a kappa, a.k.a. a water sprite, who is the reincarnation of her old crush.

Available on ARROW on August 16th

Kids these days, always unearthing the fetid remains of hell beasts and starting death cults in the woods

Synopsis: A misshapen, putrid corpse is accidentally exhumed in a small 18th-century village. Before long, superstition grips the countryside; a mounting paranoia that encourages the local children to engage in all manner of diabolic games. Under the iron grip of an enigmatic young girl, the kids begin to worship the corpse as a devilish relic. A stern judge takes it upon himself to put a stop to the demonic influence.

The kids, it turns out, are absolutely not alright. Like: “performing ritualistic sacrifices in a dilapidated church” levels of not alright. You can’t talk about the folk horror genre without talking about 1971’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw. Quite literally: the film’s director, Piers Haggard, coined the subgenre in a 2003 interview with Fangoria.

Lush and shocking, The Blood on Satan’s Claw is a key pillar of the unholy trinity of foundational British folk horror films (along with The Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man). Featuring an eerie performance by Linda Hayden as the devious and debauched cult leader, the film hits the sweet spot between thick atmosphere and unflinching brutality. A terrifying and at times cheezy ride from start to finish, in this instance, genre fans can’t afford not to play with dead things.

Available on Paramount+ on August 1st; Also available on Hulu on August 1st (and leaving August 31st)

All the Horror New to Streaming in August 2021

Streamable Horror Incoming This Month

Fresh blood: A list of all the horror content coming to streaming services in August 2021.

All the Horror Leaving Streaming in August 2021

Horror Titles Expiring from Streaming Soon

That’s it for what horror to stream in August 2021. See you next month boils and ghouls!

Related Topics: Dementia, Horror, Horrorscope, Jakob’s Wife

Meg Shields is the humble farm boy of your dreams and a senior contributor at Film School Rejects. She currently runs three columns at FSR: The Queue, How’d They Do That?, and Horrorscope. She is also a curator for One Perfect Shot and a freelance writer for hire. Meg can be found screaming about John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur’ on Twitter here: @TheWorstNun. (She/Her).