I just wondered if anyone on this site has used Screambox or Shudder and what they think. I know there are some free streaming sites/apps as well - usually with pretty lousy movies and/or commercials. But the paid ones seem to have a nice selection and low monthly price. I emailed Shudder since I cannot find on their site anything about whether they stream in HD or SD. It appears Screambox does have both SD and HD movies - so my guess is Shudder does as well. They both have free trials so I might try both and see what they are like.
Shudder has a TV stream so you should be able to judge the vid quality for yourself. It looks hi def to me. At the moment there's too much overlap with Netflix for available horror films to justify paying for it yet. Regarding the other service, this is the first I've heard of it.
I use neither but one that it incedible and free, but only for computer or tablet/phone is Hoopla. Free in most areas with a library card, their horror selection is really good. Documentaries on horror too!
I browsed through Shudder's collection a bout a month ago and I was very impressed with what they offered. As far as Screambox goes, I'm going to have to check them out.
B-movie tv begins their 24/7 uncut horror run on Oct 23-Nov 1. Expect these, Fear No Evil (81), Shock Em Dead, Return of the Living Dead 3, House By the Cemetery, Hard Rock Zombies (uncut), Trick or Treat, and many more. Other notes, Bizarre Tv went Pay, 20 dollar lifetime access. Cryptic Tv seems to have turned into a short indie horror film channel.
I joined Shudder about 2 months ago and think it is excellent. Large selection of movies with many great titles, categorized well and all uncut. There are HD and SD streams and it is my go to for late night watching. Plus it's only $5 a month!
Bump..... It's been over a year since the last post. I was browsing both Shudder and Screambox today and both looked like they had a good selection. I'm tempted to give one of them a try. Any new thoughts on either service?
I haven't looked at scream box, but I'm still with Shudder and it is getting better every week. Great selection, good interface, excellent stream quality, and easy use on any devise.
Thanks for the feedback. Looking at their website, they have an option for an annual subscription which works out at 3.99 a month, not bad. Netflix has been kind of disappointing lately when it comes to horror.
It is well worth the $4. For that price you only need to watch 2 movies a month for a good value. They have started getting some exclusives that make the value even better, example they had Rob Zombies 31 on release day and have produced a series and grabbed some foreign horror series as well.
I used them through Amazon for a free weekly preview thing and cancelled them right after, just because I couldn't afford them. But even I had almost a dozen movies that I watched. Their quality through Amazon sometimes flat out sucked. But... I might try the main site for just one month if I think the player will be stable on my browser. (I have a LOT of trouble with that, unfortunately- I had to give up FilmStruck even though they have Criterion's library).
Looks like you can only get the discounted annual rate through the main site. I'm definitely going to do the free trial.
In case anyone is interested, I sent them an email asking if I could get the discounted rate when subscribing through Amazon. Their reply is below. -------------- Unfortunately we do not control the prices that third party vendors set for our members, so you’d have to ask Amazon if they’d honor our annual membership fee. Some things to note as far as the differences are concerned are that if you sign up through Amazon, you’ll only be able to watch on Amazon devices. Signing up through us allows you access to view via - your computer’s web browser at www.shudder.com - your mobile device with our Android and iOS apps - your TV, through Chromecast, AppleTV, or Roku One last thing to consider is that when Shudder adds new movies, other platforms experience a lag in time that they are available. Please be patient as these titles will soon appear in the other libraries, such as Amazon. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to improve the service for you!
Oh yeah- you would definitely be limited to what you could watch. The films would have to be on Amazon's service as well- but they loaded in titles (a lot of them) that are on Shudder's website through Shudder themselves (not on their device but through their license). I had my free sub way back in October or last week of September. Some time around then. But it was great for me because I only wanted to watch the Bava movies, The Baby, The Witch Who Came from the Sea, and maybe 4 or 5 other movies. Though Amazon Prime just has a lot of horror titles anyway. Some of the B-er stuff like Funeral Home and Savage Weekend (if they are still there) look terrible. But stuff like The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and Argento's Phenomena and some Blue Underground titles look excellent. And they have a bunch more stuff (Basket Case 2, Driller Killer, Madman, Blood Rage, Bride of Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, The House on Sorority Row, One Dark Night, The Final Terror, Sweet Sixteen, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, they just got Fade to Black with Dennis Christopher, quite a few giallos, a ton of early 80's horror)... Things have probably changed a bit since last fall. (Except Amazon's selection on their own just keeps getting better.)
I'm a bit of an Amazon fanboy so my preference would be through them. But it sounds like going through the Shudder website is the better option. Savage Weekend was there as of last week, watched it for the first time. I'm still recovering.
For wider viewing options, yeah- I want to say they have like 50 pages of movies to browse through. Something like that. (Though I only counted about 7 or 8 movies I really wanted to watch. But... still.) I think the worst thing about Amazon Prime is that they have multiple entries for certain movies. (They had a metric ton for A Bucket of Blood with Dick Miller last year- like 4 or 5... but it's the same movie. And most of their copies were probably of identical quality.)