Hot Days of Horror: The Best Summer Horror Movies
EJ Moreno gets ready for the summer movie season with some hot horror…
The grills are firing up, the swimsuits are coming out, and the hot days are here. While many want to spend their days in the sun, some will cozy up at home in the cool A/C. We’ve cooked up a collection of summertime horror movies for those who want to experience the heat through the screen.
The films on this list celebrate horror while keeping the theme of hot days and hotter scares. Sit back and prepare for the summer goodies…
Midsommar
In one of the more blatant picks for our list, Ari Aster’s Midsommar still feels like the modern king of summer-set horror movies.
The visuals and acting wholly immerse you. With its superb daylight cinematography, you don’t miss a moment of the horror. The sun beats down on our characters, giving us a chance to take all of the insanity, and you soon beg for the cover of night. The top-notch acting, especially from leading lady Florence Pugh, also puts it on a must-watch summer list.
As you prepare for all your summer solstice joy this season, remember the magic we saw in Midsommar and bask in the sunny, in-your-face horror.
It
Nothing feels more freeing during our youth than summertime. That’s why the scares stay with you when a killer clown haunts your holiday.
It, especially Chapter One, is a rare summer blockbuster and a horror film. It’s big and bombastic and beckons you to cool off from the heat with the Loser’s Club’s plight against Pennywise. It’s nostalgic without throwing it in your face, calling back to the days you rode your bikes with your friends and stayed away from your fears.
Stephen King’s iconic work with It feels timeless, something you can revisit, like looking back at the hot days of your youth.
Sleepaway Camp
While Friday The 13th is the more notable film, it doesn’t use its seasonal settings for scares as Sleepaway Camp does.
Everything from the hilarious 80s’ summer attires to the now-infamous baseball scene feels straight out of summertime madness. Then you add some great kills and a campy sensibility, making Sleepaway Camp a definitive summer slasher. And if you know the shocking twist ending, each watch gets better over time.
Sleepaway Camp deserves as much fame as the Jason Voorhees franchise received. The boundary-pushed slasher is a great watch.
Summer of 84
While 2017’s It celebrates the strength of summer as kids, even through trauma, 2018’s Summer of 84 lives in the terror of the dark days of youth.
One of the most overlooked indie darlings in recent memory, Summer of 84 is an absolutely brutal watch. It gives you a looming dread throughout and is capped off with one of the most haunting endings. By the end, you’ll crave the campiness of Sleepaway Camp or the optimism of It. It’s not easy viewing, but it is so incredibly well-acted that you need to see it.
As one of the lesser-known films included, Summer of 84 should easily be at the top of your watchlist. Give it the viewing it deserves.
The Ruins
00s horror is slim pickings for great horror, but when they got it right, like The Ruins, the gross-out gore of the time came with fun thrills, too.
As a commercial bomb at the time, it soon became the perfect film for the early days of Netflix rentals and Redbox pickups. It was one of those wild horror films that genre fans began sharing within their groups. In a Mexican vacation gone horribly wrong, nature pushes our characters into increasingly horrifying situations.
If you don’t want a slasher, The Ruins is the perfect alternative. It brings so many elements together, bubbling over into pure horror.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
When summer is in the film’s title, you have to include it. Regardless, this Southern summer slasher is a worthy entry for this list.
In the post-Scream slasher era, you’d expect I Know What You Did Last Summer to be super meta and witty. While the film has some intelligent humor, it’s more of a stylish whodunit tinged with good characters and good kills. For its own good, it’s more than just some hot young actors of the day getting picked off.
As slashers continue, you crave the simplistic nature and fresh summer vibes of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
X
Ti West kicked off his fan-favorite A24 trilogy with X, a summertime slasher filled with everything we love about hot days, minus the murder.
In a throwback to the era of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre and the rise of adult films, X allows us to follow a group of sexy young adults filming the adult movie that will change their lives. Led by Mia Goth’s Maxine, this hot and sticky slasher is so cool and new, even with it being a massive homage to the 70s. Ti West knows how to make the summer something you love and fear.
X is like a popsicle; it’s what you need on a hot day. And as we await the release of MaXXXine, West could have the best summer horror trilogy.
Jaws
“You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.” America’s summer celebration was never the same after Jaws dropped.
Without disrespecting any other film on this list, you don’t get any better than Jaws. Steven Spielberg’s career-defining film also changed how the film industry worked, inventing the summer blockbuster. No horror film has ever felt this big and mainstream, and you can thank Jaws for so much of what we love. And on its own? It’s a perfect horror film.
With the summer holiday vibes and the ocean-set final act, you don’t get any more summer than what Jaws cooks up: pure cinematic gold.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
You don’t get sweatier and scarier than the original. Nothing reeks of summertime horror more than 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
While Jaws was the mainstream summer horror delight a year earlier, we were treated to one of the most gritty and grimy looks at the hot season’s horror. Tobe Hooper created one of the genre’s most vital films, helping kick off the slasher genre and giving every filmmaker inspiration on what to do for summer horror films.
Even with all the sequels, remakes, and ripoffs, nothing has diminished what The Texas Chain Saw Massacre had done.
What are your favourite summer-set horrors? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
