Shudder Finishes 2019 With The Year’s Best-Reviewed Movie & Best-Reviewed Horror Movie

2019 Featured Premieres of Hit Series ‘Creepshow,’ ‘A Discovery of Witches’, and Documentary ‘Horror Noire.’
Photo by: Shudder, AMC Networks

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service, is dedicated to super-serving fans of horror, thrillers and the supernatural with its unbeatable curated collection of new genre movies and shows. In 2019 the critics have taken notice by lauding two Shudder films as the best of the year, according to popular review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes®.

At 100% Certified Fresh™, Shinichiro Ueda’s zombie comedy One Cut of the Dead has topped Rotten Tomatoes’® list of the best movies of 2019. While shooting a low-budget zombie film in an abandoned warehouse, the crew in this inventive spin on the zombie genre find themselves caught between actual zombies and a mad director who won’t stop rolling.

At 97% Certified Fresh™, Issa López’s chilling and heartbreaking Tigers Are Not Afraid stands at the top of Rotten Tomatoes’® list of the best horror movies of 2019. A haunting horror fairytale set against the backdrop of Mexico’s devastating drug wars, the film follows a group of orphaned children armed with three magical wishes, running from the ghosts that haunt them and the cartel that murdered their parents. Tigers Are Not Afraid won over 50 awards at festivals around the world and was praised by masters of the genre including Guillermo del Toro, Stephen King, and Neil Gaiman.

Including Tigers Are Not Afraid, Shudder titles make up five of Rotten Tomatoes’® top 20 horror movies of 2019 including Hagazussa (#3), Bliss (#7, coming in January), Luz (#13, also coming in January) and Nightmare Cinema (#19).

The service’s run of 2019 critical successes extend beyond its feature films. The Shudder original documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror is 100% Fresh, making it one of the best-reviewed documentaries of 2019. Shudder’s two scripted original series Creepshow (96% Fresh), and A Discovery of Witches (94% Certified Fresh™) were two of the best-reviewed new genre series of 2019.

Creepshow helmed by showrunner Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) will return for a second season, and two more seasons of A Discovery of Witches have already been greenlit in partnership with sister AMC Networks streaming service, Sundance Now. Last month, Shudder shared that Creepshow was the most viewed program in the history of the service, setting records for both minutes watched and new member signups.

Also, The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs continues to be a hit with Shudder members, as the premieres of all nine episodes and both 2019 specials trended in the Top 10 nationally on Twitter. A new season will be coming next year.

Beyond those returning series and January films, 2020 overall is poised to be another great year for Shudder. Among the highlights are the premiere of the mythic Maori action/adventure series The Dead Lands in January, a co-production with TVNZ; the exclusive streaming premiere of Rob Zombie’s 3 from Hell in February; an untitled “queer horror” documenatry from director Sam Wineman and two of Horror Noire’s executive producers; Daniel Isn’t Real, out in limited release now after picking up awards at Sitges, SXSW and other film festivals, and coming to Shudder in 2020; and the acquisition of a mulitple films presently on the festival circuit including Jeff Barnaby’s Canadian First Nations zombie movie Blood Quantum, which premeiered at TIFF, Jayro Bustamante’s Gutamalan horror La Llorona which premiered at Venice and won the Fedeora Award for Best Film and the GdA’s Director’s Award, and Josh Ruben’s comedy thriller Scare Me, which will have its world premiere next month at Sundance Film Festival. The latter two acquisitions were announced earlier today.

Separately, Shudder also shared on social media its year-end most-watched movie and series premieres, by minutes streamed in their first week on Shudder. Four new films and one cult gem topped the films list: Haunt was Shudder’s most-watched movie premiere, followed by Nightmare Cinema, Hell House LLC IIi: Lake of Fire, the John Carpenter/Tobe Hooper 1983 anthology Body Bags and Belzebuth. Creepshow led the list of most-watched series premieres, followed by The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, A Discovery of Witches, NOS4A2 and Channel Zero: The Dream Door.

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