The hottest months of the year are not typically associated with things that are dark and creepy, and yet, there are entire media subgenres devoted to this juxtaposition–from Southern Gothic to just about any shark movie. Summer horror films, or ‘Summerween,’ also extend to the majority of slasher or summer camp-set movies, which lend themselves both to the stickiness of the hot outdoors and flesh-on-flesh canoodling.
Haunted cornfields, remote holiday homes, and the hot tarmac of suburbia are also common features of the movies that make up this unofficial subset, providing subversively alternative thrills to getting a sun tan and fresh air. If all that sounds worth staying in for, here are 13 of the best summer horror films, and where to watch them.
Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster outdid his brand of surreal, psycho drama in Hereditary with this follow-up. With its saturated Nordic palette, Midsommar borrows a lot of the off-kilter, floral freakiness of The Wicker Man, one of the defining folk horror films, and one that deserves an honourable mention here, despite being more springtime than summer.
Florence Pugh’s character, Dani, is our main inroad within a druidic commune-cum-cult, wherein Aster leaves us with about as much clue as to what’s really going on as he does her. A beautiful getaway of feasts, dances, and steamy hook-ups – like Mamma Mia!, but with the odd human sacrifice.
The Woman In The Yard (2025)
Trapped indoors through hot, dry weather can be both a blessing and a curse; in The Woman In The Yard, a widowed mother and her two children learn this the hard way when a black-veiled entity parks herself outside of their house and refuses to leave. In fact, the more they do to get rid of her, the closer she inches to their front door.
More of a classic ghost story than a modern jump-scare thrill ride, The Woman In The Yard grapples with weighty topics like survivor’s guilt and suicidal ideation, its shadows lengthening with the setting of the Georgia sun until all hope is blotted out.
Jaws (1978)
From Sharknado to The Meg, shark movies are reliable suppliers of summer screams, though perhaps no longer as scary as the one that started it all. Jaws may seem hokey to audiences weaned on shlockier fare like Deep Blue Sea, but there’s a reason Steven Spielberg’s breakout is considered the first real blockbuster.
Using a seaside resort as its setting adds an extra layer of terror, as holidaymakers and locals alike are caught completely off guard by the arrival of an undersea monster. The film was such a titanic hit in the late ‘70s, it had the same effect on real-life beach attendance, making it as much of a summer-ruiner as it is a maker.
Friday the 13th (1980)
Coming hot on the heels of the first ‘proper’ slasher movie, Halloween, the original Friday the 13th lets a mindless, faceless (initially) evil run amok in an American summer camp, hacking down campers and counsellors alike. Like Jaws, it twists an idyllic holiday spot into a bloody playground, a simple formula that has proven effective enough to be repeated for decades.
The first one remains a classic, but if you’re overly familiar with it, I’d recommend Jason Lives, in which the hockey-masked killer is hilariously accidentally resurrected, Jason Takes Manhattan, in which he boxes a guy’s head clean off, or Jason X, in which he bashes a victim to death inside a sleeping bag, Hulk-and-Loki-style, in augmented reality, in space. Bless this franchise.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
If The Texas Chainsaw Massacre looks hot on-screen, it’s because it was. During filming at the end of July, the temperature climbed to a sweltering 43°, and you can imagine the effect this probably had on the real animal bones, blood, and carcasses collected from slaughterhouses for the set dressing…
The muck and grime, both literal and thematic, all come through horribly well in this infamous, cautionary Texan fable about the perils of going off the beaten track and into a nest of cannibalistic hillbillies. Without relying on gore or jump scares, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is horror at its purest and rawest.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Riding on the teen horror revival period of the late ‘90s to early ‘00s, the first I Know What You Did Last Summer has the campy tenor of the superior Scream but greater staying power than rival revenge slasher Urban Legend, which also revolves around the mistakes of youth coming back to haunt its principal characters.
Having ‘summer’ in the title doesn’t automatically qualify it for a spot on this list. Still, the Southport backdrop of luxury yachts, tropical foliage, and winding, hot tarmac sets a seasonal tone. Summer is all fun and games until you hit a hook-handed weirdo with your car, kids.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Perhaps the only summer camp horror that can rival Friday the 13th for cult status. Giving a single moment of what happens in Sleepaway Camp away is tragically detrimental to newcomers’ enjoyment of this so-bad-it’s-good classic, so let's just leave it at a very disturbed young child goes to camp, and killings ensue around them.
With iconically strange line deliveries and a foster mother so deranged she makes Pamela Vorhees seem well-adjusted, the low-budget ‘80s film is an accidental(?) black comedy right up to its infamous final minute reveal, which will make you reevaluate everything you just watched.
It (2017)
The clown horror that defines clown horror, and if Tim Curry’s ‘90s portrayal of Stephen King’s Pennywise wasn’t bad enough (bad in a good way, here), Bill Skarsgard’s drooling, dancing version is positively horrendous. The idea of something meant to entertain kids being monstrous is at the heart of the whole ‘killer clown’ thing, just as a sunny setting provides a jarring contrast for a horror film’s content.
To that end, It uses King’s perennial muse Maine – the town of Derry, specifically – to heighten the horror lurking in every drain and fun fair; the bright summer of 1989 in quiet suburbia becoming lastingly traumatising for the preteen Losers Club.
Fear Street trilogy (2021)
Based on R.L Stine’s hit book series, Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy captures that same summery, small-town vibe of It. Part One: 1994 makes good use of a ‘90s mall, home of the bored mallrat when school’s out, while Part Two: 1978 goes further back in time to a summer camp massacre.
An obvious YA spin on Friday the 13th, unsuspecting youngsters at Camp Nightwing are mowed down in typically brutal, slasher fashion in musty log cabins and fields of parched grass, building on the generational lore introduced in the previous instalment that’s fully revealed in the finale, Part Three: 1666.
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
With the emergence of the ‘torture porn’ genre, the ‘00s were a bleak time for horror. Jeepers Creepers is a particularly cynical, mean-spirited example, luring you in with boundless fields of golden corn and blue skies, only to shove you down a funnel into a subterranean circle of hell.
Its demonic serial killer combines all the hallmarks of rural horror: a beat-up truck, an antiquated weapon, and a quasi-scarecrow costume reminiscent of another, more obscure summer horror subgenre based around the farming mannequin (more on that later). If you’re already nervous about the idea of a summer road trip, this tailgating nightmare will put you off forever.
From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)
Vampires are cold-blooded creatures who prefer dark places, but there are some notable cinematic exceptions: Sinners is a recent hot and heavy exemplar, while Interview With The Vampire and Dracula 2000 are older Southern sizzlers with plenty of dangerous frolicking. But From Dusk Till Dawn remains quintessential for red-hot vampire summers.
Co-written by director Robert Rodriguez with Quentin Tarantino, who also stars in it alongside George Clooney, the film is a Western-inspired standoff against hordes of sexy undead in a Mexican saloon; a tumbleweed, desert locale and sunset colours bringing the heat of fired gun barrels and sweaty bodies–alive and undead.
Us (2019)
Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the seminal 2010s horror Get Out takes audiences on a Californian vacay, including the historic Santa Cruz Boardwalk and a Calabasas lakeside villa. Aside from the main family being stalked by masked, mute clones, it’d be a top-scorer on TripAdvisor. In Us, the dream of leaving it all behind for the summer is impossible when your mirror image is dying to replace you.
Peele’s next film, Nope, isn’t quite as terrifying, but it makes great use of another feature of sunny California: dusty, wide-open plains, primed for secret alien abductions.
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Scarecrows aren’t as prominent figures of fear in people’s minds as clowns, but no one needs convincing of their eeriness. Dark Night of the Scarecrow was the first film to use a scarecrow in this way, appearing in fields around a tiny Southern town as an omen for a group of men who go unpunished for a horrendous crime.
Despite being a made-for-TV movie, its Southern Gothic aesthetic is paired with a slow-burning atmosphere of increasing dread, bristling with dry decay and cloudless horizons that perfectly match a dead-end, small-minded community that’s reaped what it sowed.
Where to Watch More Summer Horror Movies Online
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