Summer-Themed Horror Movies by Category


You're stuck in snow, but you're dreaming of warm waters. It's time to put on some summer-themed horror movies and get yourself in the mood. 

I've broken down the summer-themed horror movies by category depending on how you see your summer dreams playing out; RVs/camping, water/beach, desert, summer camp, or theme parks. 


BTW, I also put a * next to the movies I most love to pull out and watch to get in the mood. 


RV's and Camping




(Descriptions from IMDB - the place to find out about movie stats*)

*RACE WITH THE DEVIL
(1975) Two couples vacationing together in an R.V. from Texas to Colorado are terrorized after they witness a murder during a Satanic ritual.




JEEPERS CREEPERS 2
(2003) Set a few days after the original, a championship basketball team's bus is attacked by The Creeper, the winged, flesh-eating terror, on the last day of his 23-day feeding frenzy.




*CAMPFIRE TALES
(1997) Anthology of famous, scary urban legends done with a modern twist.



REEKER
(2005)  Strangers trapped at an eerie travel oasis in the desert must unravel the mystery behind their visions of dying people while they are preyed upon by a decaying creature.




REST STOP
(2006) The film follows Nicole Carrow, a young woman who is threatened by a maniac serial killer, after her boyfriend Jess, is abducted in a rest stop.




JUST BEFORE DAWN
(1981)  Five campers arrive in the mountains to examine some property they have bought, but are warned by the forest ranger Roy McLean that a huge machete-wielding maniac has been terrorising the area. Ignoring the warnings, they set up camp, and start disappearing one by one. If that sounds too run-of-the-mill, there's a genuinely shocking plot twist half-way through....







*THE HILLS HAVE EYES
(1977) On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.




PAUL
(2001) Two British comic-book geeks traveling across the U.S. encounter an alien outside Area 51.




FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
(1996) Two criminals and their hostages unknowingly seek temporary refuge in an establishment populated by vampires, with chaotic results.




MOTOR HOME MASSACRE
(2005) Seven young friends climb aboard a vintage RV headed for a fun-filled weekend in the woods when they encounter a night vision goggled, machete-wielding psychopath.




RAWHEAD REX
(1986) Ireland will never be the same after Rawhead Rex, a particularly nasty demon, is released from his underground prison by an unwitting farmer. The film follows Rex's cross country rampage, while a man struggles to stop it.




CROWSNEST
In late summer of 2011, five young friends on a road trip went missing after being attacked by nomadic cannibals in a huge RV. Video was recorded by the victims and recovered by police as evidence in their still-unsolved murders.



*DAY OF THE ANIMALS
(1977) A battle for survival as hikers encounter a chemically imbalanced forest.






BEACH/WATER


UNINHABITED
(2010) A young couple go to a remote and deserted coral island for a camping holiday, only to find that the island is inhabited by a ghost seeking retribution for a past outrage.








*I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID  LAST SUMMER
(1998) The murderous fisherman with a hook is back to once again stalk the two surviving teens, Julie and Ray, who left him for dead, as well as cause even more murder and mayhem, this time at a posh island resort.




*DEAD CALM
(1989) A mass-murderer kidnaps and seduces a young woman after leaving her husband to die on the vessel whose crew he's just slaughtered.




*JAWS (my favorite movie of all time)

(1975) When a gigantic great white shark begins to menace the small island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman set out to stop it.



*THE FOG  
(1980) The centenary of the small seaside town of Antonio Bay, California is approaching. One hundred years ago, the wealthy leper Blake bought the clipper ship Elizabeth Dane and sailed with his people to form a leper colony. However, while sailing through a thick fog, they were deliberately misguided by a campfire onshore, steering the course of the ship toward the light and crashing her against the rocks. While the townsfolk prepare to celebrate, the victims of this heinous crime that the town's founding fathers committed rise from the sea to claim retribution. Under cover of the fog, they carry out their vicious attacks, searching for what is rightly theirs.





CLUB DREAD
(2004)  When a serial killer interrupts the fun at the swanky Coconut Pete's Coconut Beach Resort -- a hedonistic island paradise for swingers --- it's up to the club's staff to stop the violence ... or at least hide it!




LONG WEEKEND
(2008) A vacationing couple in the wilderness learns what happens when they disrespect nature.








THE HORROR AT PARTY BEACH
(1964) Sea creatures created from radioactive sludge terrorize a beach community.




ISLE OF DR. MOREAU
(1977)  A shipwrecked survivor discovers a remote island with a mad scientist.




*THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE
(1974) A husband, wife and their son are stranded on a remote island with no way off; as the son grows older, sexual tensions emerge.




*PIRANHA
(1978) When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.




EMPIRE OF THE ANTS
(1977) Sleazy scam artist Joan Collins tries to sell phony real estate deals down in the Florida everglades. What she and her unsuspecting buyers don't know is the area has been taken over by giant ants!




ANTHROPHAGUS
(1980) A group of tourists become stranded on an uninhabited island where they are stalked by an insane, violent, and grotesque killer that slaughtered the town's former residents.



BLOOD BEACH
(1980) Something or someone is attacking people one by one on the beach. Some of them are mutilated, but most of them are sucked into the sand, disappearing without a trace. What is the creature responsible? Where does it live, and where did it come from? And is there any chance of it reproducing? Meanwhile, David Huffman and Mariana Hill are once-almost-married old friends, reunited over the death of her mother on the beach, and searching for clues in the abandoned buildings where they used to play when they were young.



*TERROR ON THE BEACH
(1973) A family's outing turns out badly as they are terrorized by a gang of young thugs.



*CAPE FEAR
(1991) A convicted rapist, released from prison after serving a fourteen-year sentence, stalks the family of the lawyer who originally defended him.






DESERT

*THE HITCHER
(1986) A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped.





*GARGOYLES
(1972) An anthropologist/paleontologist and his daughter, while travelling through the southwestern US, stumble upon a colony of living, breathing gargoyles who in the end only want to be left alone.





*TREMORS
(1990) Natives of a small isolated town defend themselves against strange underground creatures which are killing them one by one.




*JOY RIDE
(2001) Three young people on a road trip from Colorado to New Jersey talk to a trucker on their CB radio, then must escape when he turns out to be a psychotic killer.




DUEL
(1971) A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by a malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.




THEM
(1954) The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.




*THE CAR
(1977) A sleek, possessed black car terrorizes everyone it comes in contact with in a small town in Utah.




COWBOYS AND ALIENS
(2011) A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way.




HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES
(2003) Two teenage couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of murder end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.








SUMMER CAMP

*FRIDAY THE 13TH
(1980) Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.




SLEEPAWAY CAMP
(1983) Slightly traumatized and painfully shy Angela Baker is sent away to summer camp with her cousin. Not long after Angela's arrival, things start to go horribly wrong for anyone with sinister or less than honorable intentions.




THE BURNING
(1981) A former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank gone wrong, lurks around an upstate New York summer camp bent on killing the teenagers responsible for his disfigurement.



MADMAN
(1982) At a summer camp for youths, cockey pre-teen calls out the name of mass serial killer "Madman Marz". Suddenly, counselors are being maimed and slaughtered in various ways by the backwoodsman who has returned when his name was called.




CAMP FEAR
(1991) Some sorority sisters opt for camping in the woods with a handsome professor instead of a Palm Springs spring break. However, their orgy is interrupted when some Druids find them and decide they need to sacrifice them to prevent the apocalypse at the start of the new millennium.




CAMP BLOOD
(2000) Out and about on a camping trip in the woods without a care in the world, four campers found themselves in an unknown world. With the death of their guide and at the mercy of a cold blooded killer, the trip of fun in the sun soon took a wrong turn. With friends slowly disappearing, so does the chance of getting out alive.





THEME PARKS 


*THE FUNHOUSE
(1981) Four teenage friends spend the night in a carnival funhouse and are stalked by a deformed man in a Frankenstein mask.




*THE LOST BOYS
(1987) After moving to a new town, two brothers are convinced that the area is frequented by vampires.




CARNIVAL OF SOULS
(1962) After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.




ROLLERCOASTER
(1977) The plot is about a guile young terrorist who is able to blackmail a series of companies by placing home-made radio controlled bombs within the central attraction of amusement parks; roller coasters. The young man played by Timothy Bottoms gives a hard time to the cops after they give him UV marked money. He then wants revenge and places a bomb in a roller coaster at the most important amusement park event of the year.




*TOURIST TRAP
(1979) A group of young friends stranded at a secluded roadside museum are stalked by the owner of the place, who has the power to control his collection of mannequins.




* means it's one I especially enjoy

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