I Know What You Are Doing This Summer: Horror Movies To Haunt Your Upcoming Break
Al Stone-Gebhardt | April 18, 2024
With summer just around the corner and the temperature ramping up, some slashing and blood might be just up your alley. The correlation between summer and horror has always been and will never stop being.
1. Friday the 13th
“Friday the 13th” is a cult classic that has been made into many incredibly bad spinoffs and remakes and will be forever seen as THE summer horror movie. With a summer camp being the perfect place for a massacre and screams never being heard besides Jason himself, “Friday The Thirteenth” is about the killings of Jason Voorhees at Camp Crystal Lake in New Jersey. It is a suspenseful thrasher that at times is quite cheesy, but it is forgivable it being the 80s. The movie sparks terror and laughs and seeing who will get out of the camp alive is a great aspect of it. Even if you have watched this movie before revisiting it or even watched the many sequels and remakes is always so much fun. This movie is perfect for those nights where the only sounds are the crickets outside, and maybe even that muffled clicking.
2. I Know What You Did Last Summer
Are you a fan of friendships? How about unlawfully killing another person without malice aforethought, and then being the accessory of a cover-up? Yes? Then you will love “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” The movie is the story of four friends who hit and killed a fisherman and then proceeded, instead of calling officials, to cover up the body and make their crime way worse! “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is another beautiful summertime classic having been made in 1997 and has continued to be watched since. It discusses the consequences of this manslaughter and cover-up with the four kids being sent a threatening letter the next summer and having to evade a killer after revenge.
3. Midsommar
“Midsommar” is a beautiful A24 contemporary horror film that focuses on the aesthetics of cinematography while offering a spine-chilling story and thrilling horror. Dani, an American student, feels as though she is on a bad luck streak with her parents dying in a gas leak in her house. Feeling hopeless and done with it all, she decides to come with her boyfriend and his friends to Sweden where they are researching a traditional group of people. What ensues is both amazing and horrific with exploring non-Western traditions that lead to a travesty for the group of friends. “Midsommar” tackles how beautiful horror can be and how calmness is the most terrifying thing of all.
4. Summer of 84’
“Summer of 84’” is a contemporary horror movie about the Summer months of 1984. With the missing children's milk carton program in full swing, everybody is on their toes trying to weed out potential kidnappers in their small towns. A group of teens think they are onto their neighbor who is a cop. After conscience and investigation by this group of teens things take a turn for the worse and what they find might be a little too much for anyone. This film was made in 2018 and is beautifully done. It is a little cheesy at times, but what horror movie is not? It leaves you on the edge of your seat and is a perfect summer's night watch.
5. The Burning
“The Burning” is another summer camp horror film created in 1981, about a prank done on a camp counselor that goes wrong, leaving him burned and dead, or so the camp members thought. Years later the burned and supposedly dead camp counselor comes back to correct the wrong that had been done to him and terrorizes the camp. This beautifully cheesy and scary horror movie leaves nothing to the imagination and is a great movie to watch with friends.
6. Fear Street Trilogy
The Fear Street Trilogy is a personal favorite of mine coming out only a couple of years ago. This trilogy is an adaptation of R.L. Stine's books boasting the same name. The trilogy revolves around the cursed town of Shadyside and a group of teens attempt to break it. Why this series is so good to me is the Goosebumps feel it promotes (Goosebumps being R.L Stines most notable series), and the nostalgia that brings the viewer. However it's not all just memory and smiles, the Fear Street Trilogy, which can be found on Netflix at the time of writing this, is a terrifying show for these warm days that are creeping around the corner.