The Best Summertime Horror Movies
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The days are long and the humidity is high. Well, I suggest that run like a masked figure with a knife is chasing you—and lock yourself within the cool A/C of your home. Because we're in the best season—that's right. even better than Halloween—to watch horror films. These movies may be set in sleepaway camps, beach towns, and idyllic European mountains, but their scares will have you trembling like it's spooky season. Sweating isn't just for sitting in the sun. You can break a sweat jus by watching these terrifying movies.
No matter what gets you shaking with fear, whether it's a modern take on a classic slasher like X, or a supernatural threat that bonds a group of kids like IT, or a creature feature like Jaws, we have 13 recommendations that'll scare your jorts off. Ranging from retro fright-fests to newly released horror features, let us know which one of these excellent scary movies makes it to your next movie night.
Us
Jordan Peele has become an expert at figuring out what gets under people's skin. With Us, he brought to life many people's greatest fear—a doppelganger. And these doppelgangers don't want to hang out and grab coffee. They want to hunt you down and grab weapons! The tranquil beachfront environment definitely doesn't alleviate the tension in this film.
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Friday the 13th
We can't talk summer horror and not mention the one that kicked off the huge popularity of the slasher genre, Friday the 13th. There wouldn't be quite the number of creative masked killers out there if it hadn't been for Jason (or really Mrs. Voorhees) and his scary masks. This film is a classic for a reason, the thrills still feel fresh even decades later.
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Fear Street: 1978
The entire Netflix Fear Street trilogy would work well as a summer horror marathon. But, Fear Street: 1978 taps into the beloved 70s slasher genre and gives it a modern sense of humor. Starring Sadie Sink from Stranger Things, this second installment of Fear Street takes place at Camp Nightwing, where a summer of fun games turns into deadly fight for survival.
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The Blackening
From director Tim Story—who created the Barbershop and the Ride Along movies—comes a summer horror film that you should see before it leaves theaters. In The Blackening, a group of friends meet up at a cabin to celebrate Juneteenth, but quickly discover that they're being hunted by a mysterious killer who is turning racist horror movie tropes on the protagonists. The Blackening features laugh-out-loud moments, along with classic slasher-film tropes that will delight any horror genre fan.
In theaters
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X
In 2022, X hit the horror scene with a splash with '70s exploitation style, plus its all-too-familiar setting in a remote Texas farmhouse. Mia Goth plays a double role as both Maxine—an adult film actress with big ambitions—and Pearl, an old woman who spies on the members of the young group, who are trying to shoot a pornographic film on her property. Things take a dark turn as the film crew realizes that their elderly hosts are not what they seem.
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IT: Chapter One
When it debuted, 2017's IT became the third-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. It's all thanks to stellar performances from its young cast—who comprised the ragtag losers club—and Bill Skarsgard's unsettling approach to the iconic villain, Pennywise. We can all relate to the precious memories made with our childhood friends in the summer between the school years. The group's charming chemistry, along with the spine-tingling visual scares, make It a must-watch for summer movie nights.
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Torso
Sergio Martino's Italian giallo horror movie, Torso, is considered by some as the first slasher film ever made. The film found popularity in the United States, often showing at drive-ins as a double feature with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (We highly recommend replicating this at home for an extra-spooky night.) The story follows a group of college girls who leave their school campus to escape a serial killer who preys on young women. They end up at their friend's country villa, but it turns out that the killer followed them there. What happens next is a cascade of violence that will leave you breathless—and make you think twice about going on a remote vacation with your friends.
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Midsommar
In the summer of 2019, this folk horror venture from A24 auteur Ari Aster was a an instant hit. Have you ever gone through a horrible breakup? Well, imagine experiencing that—except you're also trapped in a weird Swedish cult, while they're performing increasingly disturbing rituals. Midsommar's villains may be the cult members who are participating in abhorrent acts, but the real antagonist is Dani's negligent and uncaring boyfriend, Christian. The rituals amp up to a horrifying climax, which (like the rest of the film) takes place in a picturesque Swedish countryside under the warm summer sun.
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I Know What You Did Last Summer
This Jennifer Love Hewitt-led teen horror film released near the end of the teen slasher wave in the '90s. I Know What You Did Last Summer received criticism for its formulaic story and (sometimes) overwrought acting. Hopefully, enough time has passed that viewers can appreciate this campy horror film. The story focuses on a group of high school seniors who are looking forward to their bright futures after graduation—but on one wild drunken night, they end up running over a pedestrian. A year later, someone who claims to know what they did begins stalking them. Tune in for some all-time great horror scenes, including Sarah Michelle Gellar screaming at a beauty pageant for someone to save her boyfriend, as well as Love Hewitt's iconic performance of the line, "What are you waiting for?"
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Jaws
Jaws wasn't just a mega-hit thriller that put creature features on the map. It was also the roadmap for future summer blockbusters. Millions of people paid for a good summertime scare at the movies—and that many people can't be wrong, can they? You're probably already familiar with the plot of Jaws: a great white shark stalks the sleepy beach town of Amity Island—and a ragtag team of residents hunts down and stop the bloodthirsty predator. The suspense that the lurking creature creates in the film—without barely ever showing its face!—still manages to raise the hair on people's necks.
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
No horror movie evokes summer horror better than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's the the film's hotter-than-hell, small Texas town, with the sound of crickets and flies in the air, that plants the audience firmly in its suffocating atmosphere. Against all odds, this low-budget exploitation film—which was banned in several countries—became one of the most influential horror films of all time. Compared to the franchise's gory films of the early aughts, the explicit violence in this film is dialed back a bit in favor of an unsettling atmosphere and unhinged performances. At the very least, it'll have you looking at farmhouses in a different light.
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The Meg
Jason Statham, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, and ancient prehistoric sharks? This is 2018's The Meg, which is short for Megalodon, an extinct species of shark that was once one of the largest predators that ever dwelled on Earth. However, that didn't seem to daunt the oceanographers—played by Li Bingbing and Winston Chao—who are conducting research next to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench. Not that any of that is truly important. What really matters is that there's plenty of impossibly huge sharks terrorizing innocent sunbathers, and Jason Statham going mano on mano with what is basically a shark dinosaur. You won't want to miss one minute of this fight.
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The Burning
There's no such thing as too many horror films about teens who are stalked and hunted by a killer in the woods! Especially if those teens are at a summer camp. I know, you're probably thinking to yourself, I've already seen Friday the 13th. What could this film possibly have to offer? The answer is lots of laughs and a young Jason Alexander as a scream king. Think Wet Hot American Summer meets Jason Voorhees.
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