Films regularly come and go on streaming services, and with a new crop to become available on HBO Max next month, sadly some are also departing to make room. There are a few great horrors exiting, too, so this is your last chance to check them out.
After The Mummy both debuted and destroyed the Dark Universe in 2017, the plight of Universal Monsters on the big screen seemed bleak until The Invisible Man came along last year and brought fresh hope. A modernized take on the famous tale about the power that comes from being concealed from prying eyes, it sees a woman first escaping her violent husband, then after his apparent suicide, a series of sinister events cause her to believe he’s still alive and is turning invisible using his skill in optical engineering to stalk her unseen and continue tormenting her with impunity. It has a lot to say about abuse and gaslighting, and how even after getting out of controlling relationships survivors aren’t always truly free of them, and is well worth a watch before it departs HBO Max.
Also leaving is An American Werewolf in London, one of the greatest ever features about lycanthropes which sees a pair of tourists attacked on the Yorkshire moors, one killed and the other suffering serious injuries. After the survivor is transported 200 miles away to London because apparently no other cities exist in England, the spirit of his dead friend informs him he’s now cursed to transform at the next full moon unless he takes his own life, damning all he kills to purgatory as a rotting ghost.
Meanwhile, HBO Max will also be saying goodbye to the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes and its sequel, where a clan of desert-dwelling mutant cannibals attack and kill those who intrude on their domain, Ma, in which a middle-aged woman befriends a group of partying teenagers only to become increasingly dominating, Open Water, where a scuba diving couple are accidentally stranded and must survive in shark-infested seas, and immortal classic The Exorcist, seeing the protracted spiritual purging of a young girl possessed by a powerful demon.