2025's Most Unique Horror Movie Is A Streaming Hit On Hulu

In a crowded field, Hulu is fast-becoming one of the must-have streaming services. 2025 has been a good year for Hulu subscribers, with Chloe Fineman's critically-acclaimed comedy "Summer of 69" dominating the streamer's charts in May and Best Picture winner "Anora" doing the same back in March. We've also seen Timothée Chalamet's Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown" rocking the Hulu rankings, while Pamela Anderson's overlooked 2024 drama "The Last Showgirl" finally found an audience on the platform in late May. Considering how often these charts get clogged with some of the worst examples of streaming-age sludge, that's a pretty good run for Disney's streamer, and now we've got yet another interesting and unique entry on the Hulu charts in the form of "Presence."

The big conceit of Steven Soderbergh's supernatural thriller is that it's shot entirely from the point of view of a ghost haunting a suburban family home. Starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Callina Liang, Eddy Maday, West Mulholland, and Julia Fox, the movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024 before hitting theaters a year later. It fared well commercially and critically, bringing in $10 million on a $2 million budget and garnering widespread praise from critics. Still, $10 million is a relatively modest success in the sense that "Presence" clearly didn't get the audience it perhaps deserved. Now, though, Hulu is once again proving its worth by giving its 54.7 million subscribers the chance to experience Soderbergh's novel take on the haunted house tale — and evidently, they're loving it.

Alongside its impressive movie offerings, Hulu also has a great range of original series, making it an increasingly attractive prospect in an age where streaming seems to be slowly killing the concept of quality being a virtue in movie-making. "Presence" is just the latest example of the platform providing its viewers with something of substance, and it's encouraging that the movie is faring well on the streamer's charts.

"Presence" hit Hulu on June 3, 2025, and subscribers immediately jumped at the chance to stream the movie. According to FlixPatrol, a site that tracks streaming viewership numbers across the various platforms, Steven Soderbergh's supernatural thriller drew immediate attention, charting at number eight on the film rankings on June 4, 2025.

That's a pretty good debut for an R-rated horror film that's competing with the likes of multiple "Grown Ups" movies, which also happen to be charting at the time of writing. But it seems Hulu users are in the mood for some horror, considering "28 Weeks Later" is currently at number two on the movie chart ahead of the impending release of "28 Years Later." Whether Soderbergh's movie can continue to climb the charts is yet to be seen, but things are looking good at this early stage. What's more, "Presence" isn't the scariest horror watch out there, which always helps when it comes to boosting a film's popularity. Also helping is the fact it's just a really good movie.

2024 also saw the release of a horror movie that unfolds from the point-of-view of an evil presence rather than those being menaced by it. "In a Violent Nature" literally provided a new perspective on slashers by showing the events of the film almost entirely from the POV of the killer. The result was one of the gnarliest horror movies of the year, complete with some of the most disturbing kills of modern times.

"Presence," on the other hand, goes for a more subdued approach, searching for more than scares with its experimental style, which mostly fared well with critics. The film garnered an 87% "Certified Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is impressive considering the ghost POV could have backfired as an empty gimmick. Soderbergh managed to overcome that potential pitfall for the most part, with critics embracing his take on the haunted house story. In his "Presence" review, /Film's Brill Bria gave the suspenseful, terrific ghost story a 9/10, while Kevin Maher of the Times (UK) praised Soderbergh as "an assured film-maker," adding that the director is "so clear with his camera movements (he operated the camera throughout), that the film gradually acquires an eerie intimacy and a palpable sense of the ghost's, well, presence."

As such, you could do a lot worse than joining the Hulu crowds in their streaming celebration of "Presence." At the time of writing, the film has to overcome the aforementioned "Grown Ups" movies, "28 Weeks Later," and a 2022 thriller called "Into the Deep," which currently sits at number one on the Hulu charts. Let's hope it continues to climb in the coming week and bolsters the case for Hulu being one of the best streamers going.