Justin Long vampire thriller climbs Hulu's Halloween top 10
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The vampire thriller starring Justin Long has cracked Hulu's US top 10 just in time for Halloween; the film premiered in theaters this past January.
Halloween season has pushed Night Patrol — the vampire thriller with Justin Long and Jermaine Fowler — to the top of Hulu consumption: the film landed as the eighth most-watched title on the platform in the United States, according to FlixPatrol data compiled by CBR. The feature, which premiered in theaters in January in a limited release, has found in streaming — and in the "spooky season" mood — the audience its box office denied it. Hokum, with Adam Scott, tops the ranking, and its list neighbors are all Halloween classics: Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus 2 and Coraline.
Eighth place in Hulu's ranking
The number came from FlixPatrol, a service that cross-references audience data from the major streaming platforms, and was compiled by CBR in late October. Night Patrol appears surrounded by seasonal titles: beyond those already mentioned, Hulu pushes an entire seasonal catalog on its homepage, from Hokum — the thriller leading the list — to reprises of classic franchises. The climb makes commercial sense: the run-up to Halloween is when horror audiences are most active, and platforms fight for that crowd with homepage spotlights and curated lists. FlixPatrol's daily rankings work as a thermometer for that game — and change composition every day as catalogs rotate. For a film that went unnoticed in theaters, a top 10 spot on streaming is a second life.
The premise: a vampire task force inside the police
Directed by Ryan Prows and written by a quartet — Shaye Ogbonna, Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson and Prows himself —, Night Patrol puts its own spin on the genre: LAPD officer Xavier Carr discovers that the "Night Patrol," the department's elite, secretive task force, is actually made up entirely of vampires — who prey on residents of the city's poor neighborhoods. Carr (Jermaine Fowler) is hesitant; his partner Ethan Hawkins (Justin Long) is eager to join the group and drags him into its intrigues. Eventually, Carr chooses to fight back: he rallies his brother and members of local street gangs against the task force, returning to the housing projects where he grew up — now hunted by the very department that swore to protect him. The premise squeezes the genre mix across 104 minutes of action and horror, with distrust of the police institution as the story's engine. A catalog clarification is in order: IMDb lists the film as a 2025 production, but its official theatrical release — and its Hulu success — both came in 2026.
The cast: rap, wrestling and horror regulars
The film bets on a curious cast, mixing established genre actors with stars from other worlds. Fowler carries the film as its lead; Justin Long, a familiar face of contemporary horror, plays the partner seduced by the vampire elite.
- Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America) — Xavier Carr, lead
- Justin Long (Barbarian, Tuck Everlasting) — Ethan Hawkins
- Freddie Gibbs, YG and Flying Lotus — rap and music figures in prominent roles
- RJ Cyler (Power Rangers) and Nicki Micheaux — main cast
- Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend's Wedding) and Jon Oswald — supporting
- Phil Brooks, WWE's CM Punk — appearance
The blend of rap artists with established genre faces made the film a curious casting case — and the bet ended up feeding the critical debate that follows.
Divided critics and a timid box office
Reception reflected the tug of war: on Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 56% critics approval rating, with 54 reviews counted so far.
"Night Patrol boasts a killer premise and committed performances, but Ryan Prows' scattershot direction and an overstuffed screenplay undercut its cinematic prowess."
Critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.
Among the reviews there are notable defenders: Matt Zoller Seitz of Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars, framing the film as a police-corruption thriller that is also a vampire story — and praising the very premise the critics consensus recognizes as the film's best asset. With audiences, the score drops: a 36% approval. In theaters, January's limited release grossed only US$372 thousand, according to CBR — small numbers even for a modest distribution from RLJE Films and Shudder. Then the film moved to streaming: it landed on Shudder in February and now appears on Hulu. The trajectory has become the genre's pattern in recent years: a modest theatrical debut followed by a swollen streaming audience when the title joins a major catalog, as happened with other horror names that defined the season.
The Hulu horror slate for Halloween
Night Patrol joins a catalog the platform pushes for the season: modern titles like Barbarian, Hereditary, In a Violent Nature and X share the homepage with classics like American Psycho, Signs, Sinister and the Scream franchise, plus recent releases like The Substance and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. It's worth remembering that Hulu is exclusive to the United States — in Brazil, access to the film went through Shudder and AMC+, the horror labels from the same distribution family. The strategy of pairing new releases with nostalgic hits is the same as previous years — and the performance of Prows' film reinforces the playbook: streaming gives new life to theatrical releases nobody saw. The vampire wave, meanwhile, keeps surging in Hollywood: Hunter Schafer has already filmed A24's new vampire film, and the subgenre is back at the top of studios' bet lists.
For anyone building a spooky-season marathon, the streaming guide with 5 must-watch movies and series and the roundup of the best horror movies on HBO Max round out the menu. Night Patrol is currently streaming on Hulu in the United States.
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