Summer is a time for travel, for relaxation, for exciting new experience. That’s why filmmakers seem to find it so perversely exciting to ruin our vacations, year after year after year.
The “scary vacation movie” is one of the most popular tropes in the horror genre. Just take a group of characters without a care in the world, take them out of their element, and subvert all their expectations. They could be attacked by monsters, invaded by homicidal maniacs or simply undone by the environment they thought would be so entertaining to explore in the first place. As long as you undermine the whole concept of a peaceful vacation, you’ve got a solid foundation for terror.
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The scariest vacation movies ever are a varied bunch, about different types of people on different types of journeys, but they all have one thing in common. They take the escapism that you fantasize about and make it absolutely terrifying.
And here they are.
The Top 20 Scariest Vacation Movies Ever:
Top Photo: Columbia Pictures
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The Scariest Vacation Movies Ever
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An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Two hapless American backpackers run afoul of a local legend in John Landis's funny, tragic, and very scary werewolf classic.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Breakdown (1997)
Kurt Russell's wife is kidnapped on a cross country trip, and he has to do unthinkable things to rescue her. Jonathan Moscow ratchets the tension to impossible levels.
Photo: Paramount
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Cabin in the Woods (2012)
A group of college kids trek to a cabin in the woods and encounter unspeakable horror. You probably think you know where Drew Goddard's movie is going with this. You have no idea.
Photo: Lionsgate
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Deliverance (1972)
Four men decide to conquer the wilds of Georgia, only to discover their own terrified frailty in John Boorman's brutal, enigmatic survival horror classic.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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The Descent (2005)
A group of young women go spelunking, get trapped, and have to delve ever deeper into an unknown cave system in Neil Marshall's claustrophobic, terrifying thriller. Here there be monsters.
Photo: Lionsgate
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Escape from Tomorrow (2013)
Shot illegally at Disneyland and Disney World, this distressing nightmare tells the story of a man whose family vacation is undone by paranoia, weakness and - possibly - sinister conspiracies at the happiest place on Earth.
Photo: Film Buff / Cinedigm
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The Evil Dead (1981)
Sam Raimi's original, shoestring horror classic still has the power to make you squirm. A group of kids trek to a cabin in the woods, unleash unspeakable demons, and end up cutting each other to pieces. The sequels are slicker and funnier, but the original is still the freakiest.
Photo: New Line Cinema
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Funny Games (1997)
A home invasion at a posh family lake house unfolds in unexpected ways, challenging what we expect of horror genres, and what horror filmmakers think of their audience. Funny Games is frightening, damning, and bleak as hell.
Photo: Concorde-Castle Rock/Turner
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High Tension (2003)
Marie and Alex are visiting Alex's parent's house for the weekend, but when a homicidal maniac invades the house, it's up to Marie to rescue her best friend. What unfolds is a nightmare with an ending that may go five steps too far, but will probably thrill you anyway.
Photo: EuropaCorp
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The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
A family road trip goes horribly, disgustingly wrong when their camper is attacked by mutated maniacs in the desert. Wes Craven's film will shock you with its violence, and the questions it raises about mankind's violent nature.
Photo: Vanguard
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Honeymoon (2014)
Leigh Janiak's unsettling thriller stars Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as newlyweds who, in the midst of their honeymoon, realize something is terribly wrong. Maybe they never really knew one another, or maybe one of them is no longer who they seem. Honeymoon is a creepy, frightening, intimate horror film.
Photo: Magnolia Pictures
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Hostel (2005)
American tourists get their comeuppance in Eli Roth's cynical, wicked horror thriller about the world's most perverse vacation destination. It's as mean-spirited as anything you've ever seen, but this time, it works.
Photo: Lionsgate
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Jaws (1975)
Steven Spielberg's game-changing blockbuster will make you just as terrified to jump in the ocean as it did back in 1975. A monstrous shark is terrorizing a beach community, but the greedy, cowardly town leaders would rather risk the lives of the tourists than turn down all of their money.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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Open Water (2003)
A simple, shocking premise: two scuba divers are accidentally left out in the middle of the ocean, forgotten, starving, dehydrated, and seemingly destined to die. It's so uncomfortably plausible that it's horrifying.
Photo: Lionsgate
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Race With the Devil (1975)
Two married couples hit the road and run afoul of a sinister cult in Jack Starrett's suspenseful thriller, which manages to fuse paranoia and car chases into one classic, exciting shocker.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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The Ruins (2008)
American tourists sneak onto an isolated pyramid, but if they try to leave they are immediately murdered. The reasons are bizarre, but watching foolish people try to think their way out of a terrible predicament - and make their situation worse at every turn - insidiously undermines our own faith in our ability to survive a life-or-death situation.
Photo: Paramount
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The Shallows (2016)
Blake Lively goes surfing at an isolated beach, only to get stranded on a rock, with a pissed off, giant shark circling around her. Jaume Collet-Serra's thriller is gorgeously filmed and righteously suspenseful.
Photo: Columbia Pictures
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Tourist Trap
A group of vacationers wander into an old, cheesy tourist trap full of creepy old mannequins... which might be alive. David Schmoeller's film goes in weird, perverse, wholly unexpected directions and offers low-fi, but highly frightening scares.
Photo: Compass International Pictures
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Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)
A pregnant couple goes on vacation to a charming island full of homicidal maniac children, in a film that predates Children of the Corn (the story and the movie) and is 100% scarier. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's film pulls no punches, and is all but guaranteed to shock you.
Photo: Dark Sky Films
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Wolf Creek (2005)
Three backpackers find themselves trapped by a monster of a man in Greg McLean's vicious, violent, visceral thriller. This film is designed to attack your senses. Some people think it does too good a job.
Photo: Dimension
