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The Horror Summer Movie List

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Who said the Halloween feeling needed to be kept to the fall? There is something especially scary with the summer. The fact that creepy and horrendous stuff can happen on a bright, sunny day, on the beach and in the hot air, scares more than dark nights. And let us not forget about the deep, deep sea were the light never shines.

Midsommar

Released: 2019

Director: Ari Aster

Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, Will Poulter

Love, love, love, love it! Although not as scary as the typical summer slasher films, this movie is just excellent in every aspect. It is hard to make the internal fright scary on the big screen, but when it’s done right, it is the most scary thing ever.

Synopsis: The grieving Dani have problems dealing with the death of her parents and sister, leaving Christian, the only one she feels close to. He has planned a trip to Sweden with his anthropologist friends for the summer and Dani tags along. And what they think is some drug loving, hippy Swedes has a much darker side to it, even during the midsommar period when the sun never sets.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Released: 1997

Director: Jim Gillespie

Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Johnny Galecki, Bridgette Wilson

This have been on antother list, but this movie is just the perfect example of the summer horror slasher movie flicks we used to get during the slow, hot, humid times. When school was out and you were too young to care about getting a job, caring about politics and the likes. Or am I the only one getting nostalgic about it? It also spun some crazy sequels and a…. well, a sidequel? I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. And rumours that Amazon is producing a series on the franchise have been spread on the web. Anyway, for a revisit to the urban legend inspired roller coaster of 90’s nostalgia, check it out.

Synopsis: On the Fourth of July 1996 a group of friends drive to the beach. While driving along a coastal byway, they accidentally hit a pedestrian. The group decides to dump the body in the water and never discuss what happened. But a year later something is attacking them, one by one, and they are soon forced to face their actions.

Us

us

Released: 2019

Director: Jordan Peele

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker

Another instant classic from Jordan Peele, Us, takes a vacation at the beach and spins it into this crazy slasher, comedy, thriller, supernatural, apocalyptic roller coaster. All basking in the summer sun and hot nights by the beach.

Synopsis: In 1986, a young girl named Adelaide goes on vacation with her parents to Santa Cruz. At the boardwalk, she wanders off and enters a funhouse, where she encounters a doppelgänger of herself in the hall of mirrors. Years later she goes on a holiday with her husband and children. She is haunted by the memory, but it is seemingly just a normal summer vacation. That is until the family of doppelgangers turns up at their door in red clothing.

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Piranha

Released: Original released in 1978, but a franchise of movies have been released throughout the years.

Director: Joe Dante (1978)

Starring: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy (The 1978)

What is it about the summer horror flicks that just seems to break all the rules. The lines are blurred, the clothes are off, and the blood is gushing. And why do we just love watching pretty and shallow people die horrendous deaths? With boobs and blood being equally important, this movie is truly for the hot days when your brain need to just rest.

Synopsis: The film tells the story of a river being infested by lethal, genetically altered piranha, threatening the lives of the local inhabitants and the visitors to a nearby summer resort. And really. That is the basic plot of the rest of the franchise as well. And boobs. So much boobs.

Jaws

Released: 1975

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

No list without the master summer horror flick. This is one of those movies that will always stand the test of time, and will appear on any horror summer list. Read also our Summer Horror Reading List.

Synopsis: In the film, a man-eating great white shark attacks beach goers at a summer resort town, killing them, and killing tourism. This is prompting police chief Martin Brody to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter on his boat. But when on the water, they are no longer protected by the safe havens of dry land. They are in shark territory now.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Released: 1974

Director: Tobe Hooper

Starring: Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen

If you have seen this, like a thousand times, the summer is a good time to watch it another thousand times. If you still haven’t seen this horror classic, what are you waiting for? This is the summer to do so.

Synopsis: The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was banned in several countries, and numerous theaters stopped showing the film in response to complaints about its violence. It continues the story of Leatherface and his family with several sequels, prequels and remakes.

It Follows

Released: 2014

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary, Olivia Luccardi

The premise of the movie is more dream like than summer like. But the movie upholds some of the great summer vibes of beaches, summer dresses, bored days and a backyard pool.

Synopsis: The film follows a teenage girl named Jay, who is pursued by a supernatural entity after a sexual encounter. Like a transmitted haunting, she can only rid herself of by giving it to someone else. And it seems like nothing is able to stop it completely.

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Tourist Trap

Released: 1979

Director: David Schmoeller

Starring: Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Dawn Jeffory, Keith McDermott

A group of friends on the road, the desert wind and the heated sun that goes along with it. Compile it with a crazy killing tourist attraction and we got ourselves a horror summer flick.

Synopsis: The film follows a group of young people who stumble upon a roadside museum housing mannequins that wield supernatural powers.

Friday the 13th

Released: 1980

Director: Sean S. Cunningham

Starring: Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon

There is nothing new about making a franchise of successful slasher movies, but Friday the 13th really goes all inn. It is around twelve movies, it got its own TV series, its been written books and made video games. This is sort of like the

Synopsis: The franchise mainly focuses on the fictional character Jason Voorhees, who drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake due to the negligence of the camp staff. Decades later, the lake is rumored to be “cursed” and is the setting for a series of mass murders.

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What The Truly Terrifying Thing About Cult Movie Antrum Is

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The 2019 faux movie-within-a-movie type of horror has taken up interest again, the movie, “Antrum, the deadliest film ever made”. I can’t really remember that a so popular movie have fooled so many people since Blair Witch. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the trending now is challenging people to watch it, believing the intended myth behind this mockumentary-found footage type of movie. The premise of the cursed horror movie is of a real cursed movie from the 70s, now resurfaced. After watching it, jumping on the wagon a bit late, I couldn’t help noticing, what truly terrified me after watching. So after the initial hype has died out, and the truth is sort of “out there”, this is my take on it.

Spoilers ahead, so be warned.

Synopsis

The movie opens with a documentary type of style, talking about a horror movie from the 70s allegedly from the Soviet that caused the death of many many people, from casual movie goers to film festival leaders. It claims that it caused the death of 56 people in Budapest when it screened in a cinema that burned down in 1988. And also it injured and killed a woman in San Francisco in 1993 when someone laced the popcorn with LSD. Then it does a countdown of a clock, and the movie Antrum starts. Simple, but so effective. Then the “real” movie begins.

Source: IMDB

It tells the story of a teen sister and her kid brother, hiking. They recently lost their dog, and the boy is convinced the dog went to hell. So they travel to a place and try to dig their way to hell to get the dog back. They follow the instruction of a book the sister claims she got from a certain “Ike”. All told through a beautiful European art-house film from the 1970s filter, but with a horror twist in the cinematography. The rest of the movie is them battling hillbillies, what is dream, what is reality and the lurking shadows in the corner of their eyes. An honest discussion about what happens when one believes a lie.

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Background of the “movie legend”

Of course, none of this is true, but it is some of the allure of the movie, and in my eyes, some of the social commentary the movie Antrum brings to the table, elevating it from mere horror-flick, to more of a drama with a purpose and moral. We learn halfway through the sister is behind it all, making the book, lying about meeting the devil and that it was all made up in order to help her brother, suffering from nightmares and the belief that the dog went to hell. But the fiction turns on her, making her lie true because of people believing in it.

Source: IMDB

Perhaps, it is a long time since a mockumentary was able to fool as big of an audience as it did. What is truly frightening is the way some with so many followers, like the teens on Tik-Tok, blogs and YouTube channels fuels this “found footage” story. Isolated, this is fun. Harmless lies we tell in the dark as we always have, as good horror intends to. It is also fascinating that even in the time of internet, were the truth is literary one google search away, people still believe the hype, the narrative, the story. On the other side, it is in these time of “fake news”, a bit sad of when we see how actual important news, fake as well as real, can be manipulated, believed and not believed in. But never mind that (puts the media education away) let’s look at how genius they did it (puts on horror loving hat):

Yes, hell is real
source: IMDB

For one, it is clear they put a lot of effort in making it be in the 70s. From the clothes, filming style, the grainy filter and color palette. Even down to that creepy CGI of the squirrel. A truly demonic entity that is.

As with other cult movies, they did something cool in the way they let the influencer who were fooled market the thing for them, making the viewing something of an event rather than just a standard movie night. Also it is something quite endearing about the collective watching of it that is only found in the horror community, I think.

Even with my obsessive googling, it took a couple of searches to truly find evidence of the falseness. Even down to the actors’ age was removed from their IMDb profiles, making it easier to keep up the belief. It is also cool about how it is finally a movie thinking more about the movie being bigger than the actors, not the other way around.

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The terrifying thing about the movie Antrum

Is this a scary movie? In some regards, yes. Like the Blair Witch Project, it is the format that makes the scares, the legend behind it, the myth bigger than a simple movie. And the way the shaky camera movements from most found footage makes movies unpredictable and scary, it is the the overlaying of “cut in clips no one knows were came from” and the clip in of the sigils and Latin phrases making one question: Could it really be?

Is it truly “bad” enough to be believed in though? I think not, and I was sort of bothered about how perfect it all looked from a Soviet movie from the 70s. But then again, it did sort of look too rough to be a more “proper” movie. Also they spoke English, and none of the non-English speaking people can sort of believe that mash up. It just seems weird and sort of a very American thing to do, making it in English instead of just putting subtitles on.

What my main take of it was that it was more of a heart felt movie than a demonic one. I felt more sympathy for the siblings and believed in their relationship than I believed I was cursed by Satan after watching it.

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It occurred to me mid movie, what scared me the most though. Even the myth, claims I would die few days after watching it, and that creepy demon between the trees, it was none of them though that made my heart race. It was the threat of people:

True, jump scares don’t really work on me in the long run, great costumes sort of blend in when watching as many horror movies as I do. But what never cease to scare me, are the threat of real humans. It never goes away. In the movie, not only do they have to fight of demonic entities, but some good old fashioned hillbillies, that does these random gruesome things like: fucking dead animals, boiling people alive, shooting children and wear antlers on a trucker hat. Yes, not really the most original or in depth type of characters. But when checking my pulse throughout the movie, it is sort of only in those scenes a steady rush of fear comes. I found that very interesting. That no matter how much of a supernatural, demonic myth, claiming it would take your life, nothing is as scary as the threat of real humans, wanting to do you harm.

And that is what really was terrifying about this cursed movie.

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