What To Watch
11 Horror Anime to Stream (if You Dare)
Send chills down your spine with these on your screens.
By Matt Schley
March 4, 2026
11 Best Horror Anime to Stream (If You Dare) - Netflix Tudum
There’s never a bad time for a good scare, and anime can deliver spooky-season thrills at any time of year.
As longtime anime buffs may know, Japan has more than its fair share of chilling tales, thanks in part to the country’s long tradition of belief in ghosts and demons from yokai to yurei to bakemono. In horror anime, these traditional tales are often mixed with anxieties from modern life for a truly terrifying blend of old and new.
Aside from pure horror, you’ve got anime with healthy portions of blood and guts, zombie action, human vs. vampire battles, and even a side of humor. Whatever you’re in the mood for, we’ve got you covered with these titles.
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Akuma Kun
Here’s another update to a classic title, this one originally by Shigeru Mizuki, who spent his career reintroducing modern Japanese audiences to the things that go bump in the night. Mizuki’s Akuma Kun manga is about a child genius who harnesses the power of demons to bring happiness to humanity. In the new series, Akuma Kun uses his occult powers and superior intellect to crack supernatural curses like a kind of precocious Sherlock Holmes. Don’t let the cutesy character designs fool you: This modern take on Akuma Kun has plenty of scares up its sleeve.
Castlevania
The Castlevania video game franchise, which pits the Belmont clan against the forces of Count Dracula, is nearly 40 years old. This makes its many plot threads ripe for the picking when it comes to an animated adaptation. The series, written by serious Castlevania fan Warren Ellis, brings fan favorites such as the vampire hunter Trevor Belmont and the half-human, half-vampire Alucard to life in an epic saga that now spans four seasons and a spin-off, Castlevania: Nocturne. Aside from voice work by legendary actors like Malcolm McDowell and Bill Nighy, you’ll find chilling scenes aplenty, with gothic imagery, violent vampire battles, and more.
DAN DA DAN
Take a nerdy guy who believes in aliens but not ghosts, and an outgoing girl who believes in ghosts but not aliens, and you get Dan Da Dan, the wacky, fast-paced horror-comedy from the folks at Science Saru (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off). As our unlikely duo quickly discovers, both aliens and ghosts definitely do exist, and it’s up to them to team up and battle both (while maybe, just maybe, falling in love). With pop-culture references galore, blink-and-you’ll-miss it visual gags, and some seriously off-the-wall characters, Dan Da Dan is horrifyingly fun.
DEATH NOTE
Based on the manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, Death Note is one of anime’s most revered series of the ’00s. It follows a high school student named Light who discovers a mysterious book once owned by a shinigami (god of death) named Ryuk. Just write someone’s name in the book and they die, seemingly of natural causes. Light decides to use the book for good, but before long, he takes on a warped sense of justice, and it’s up to the genius detective L to stop him.
With its high stakes, nail-biting cliff-hangers, memorable characters, and seriously creepy shinigami, it’s no wonder Death Note has so many spin-offs, sequels, and adaptations. But nothing hits quite like the original.
Devilman Crybaby
Devilman Crybaby brings together two spooky tastes that go great together: Go Nagai’s classic Devilman, the manga about a high school boy who uses his Satanic powers for good, and the wild and warped mind of director Masaaki Yuasa, also known for cult classics like Mind Game and The Tatami Galaxy. Yuasa brings the classic Devilman into the 21st century with this adults-only series, which ups the sex, violence, and gore to glorious over-the-top extremes. At the same time, Crybaby isn’t just bloody fun: There are deep messages here about how we treat others and the responsibilities of those with power. You might just find yourself reduced to crybaby status by the end — but in the meantime, it’s a wild ride.
The Grimm Variations
You know what they say: The original folklore stories collected by the Brothers Grimm are often sanitized, with many of their grimmer elements removed to make them easier on modern audiences. Well, the opposite is true in The Grimm Variations, an anime anthology of fairy tales with a twist. In the series, animated by Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, Great Pretender) tales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel go dark, and the consequences may have you quaking. The stories also have brand-new settings — Cinderella has been transplanted to historical Japan, Little Red Riding Hood takes place in a dystopian future — making things even more unpredictable.
High-Rise Invasion
Talk about a nightmare scenario. High schooler Yuri wakes up to find herself transported to a world of skyscrapers with suspension bridges between them while being hunted by mysterious men in masks. To stay alive, she has to use all her wits while encountering others in her same situation. The problem is, she doesn’t know whether they can be trusted, and those masked men keep getting closer. Plus, it’s a long way to fall …
Based on the hit manga by Tsuina Miura and Takahiro Oba, High-Rise Invasion offers 12 episodes in which Yuri must outwit, outlast, and outlive, all while collecting comrades (and some high-powered weaponry) along the way. Follow along if you can. Just don’t look down.
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre
For decades, Junji Ito has been Japan’s leading maestro of horror manga, with enough spine-tingling tales to keep you up for days. Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre takes some of the master’s most beloved (if beloved is the right word) stories and characters and gives them animated form to terrifying effect. Among the characters featured are the beautiful but deadly Tomie and the creepy but charming boy wonder Souichi, who has a thing for swallowing nails.
Some episodes are truly frightening, while others display Ito’s dry sense of humor. Each one is self-contained, so you can dip in and out of the series at random to discover something with just the right level of spookiness.
Mononoke
Mononoke are vengeful spirits from Japanese folklore who linger on in the human world, causing misfortune for those unlucky enough to meet them. Mononoke is a 12-episode series about these creepy spirits and a mysterious man with the power to defeat them. Going only by the handle Medicine Seller, the protagonist travels pre-modern Japan, helping people he runs into by breaking their mononoke curses — but what are his true intentions?
With a unique animation style that looks as if it’s drawn on Japanese paper, Mononoke has an atmosphere that few anime since have been able to replicate.
Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain
It was a long time coming (17 years to be precise), but the cult favorite Mononoke finally has a sequel. In this film, the Medicine Seller is back, and this time he’s investigating an unusual spirit that seems to be possessing Edo Castle and its famous inner chambers, which are populated by dozens of courtesans. Featuring the same distinctive woodblock print style of the original but with modern, ultra-fluid animation, Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain is a treat for fans of off-kilter horror set in a classical Japanese setting.
Monster
Imagine you’re a surgeon who saves the life of a young boy, only for that boy to grow up to become a psychopathic serial killer. That’s the premise behind Monster, the anime based on the manga of the same name by master storyteller Naoki Urasawa. Over the course of the series, protagonist Kenzo must track down and try to stop Johan, his former patient, in order to atone for his mistake, all while avoiding the police, who suspect him of Johan’s crimes.
The anime, animated by legendary studio Madhouse, is a faithful, almost shot-for-shot adaptation of the award-winning manga — so you’ll get every bit of Urasawa’s intricately plotted, Hitchcockian suspense.
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