“Hidden gem” horror movie that’s insanely bleak is streaming on Hulu now

Viewers are lauding this incredibly bleak “hidden gem” horror movie, which is now available to stream on Hulu.

While mainstream horror movies like Longlegs dominate the box office, more obscure scary projects are getting their time to shine thanks to streaming services.

And one project that’s considered a “hidden gem” in the horror community is the 2018 Swedish-Danish film Aniara.

Although the movie only has a score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, Aniara is considered a must-watch entry in the horror community due to its incredibly depressing plot.

Aniara follows a group of humans as they try to make their way to Mars after Earth is ravaged by pollution, natural disasters, and rising sea levels.

While traveling the planet, the ship veers off course to avoid a collision with space debris.

Unfortunately, some of the debris does end up hitting the ship, leading the Aniara to lose control over its navigational and propulsion systems, rendering the vessel unable to make it to Mars.

Things quickly become chaotic as the leaders aboard the ship want to keep everyone in line with lies and propaganda. At the same time, the workers understand the dire situation everyone is in.

Without spoiling the movie as a whole, Aniara is an incredibly realistic and harsh look at how a mission like this could end for the humans on board and how easily people can adhere to the lies that make their lives more comfortable.

The Hulu movie was highlighted in an August 2024 Reddit post where a user asked, “What’s YOUR truly hidden horror gem?”

Many other horror enthusiasts quickly recommended Aniara to those in the comment thread.

“It’s not a ‘true’ horror film, but no movie has filled me with more existential dread and emptiness than Aniara. It has things I’ve never seen explored or touched on in a sci-fi or horror film before. That final timecard and cut, JESUS,” one viewer wrote.

And another commented, “Just watched Aniara. Holy hell, I’m obsessed! Fun fact: Apparently, this movie is based on an epic poem by Harry Martinson. ‘Aniara’ also roughly translates to ‘the ship of sorrow’ in ancient Greek.”

For more, check out other horror movies to get excited about in 2024, and our ranking of the best movies of the year so far.