Celebrate the End of Spring With These 10 Horror Films Designed To Keep You Safely Indoors

While spring typically conjures images of life with blossoming flowers, frolicking rabbits, and longer sunny days, it can also serve as the breeding ground for a lot of death. So, now that we’re halfway through spring, it’s time to celebrate its closure with 10 spring-themed horror films, crafted to keep you from exploring the blooming terror that lies beyond your living room couch.

10.) Nightmare Beach

There’s no spring without spring break, and there are plenty of horror films to choose from around this theme that offer enough escapism to rival a week-long vacation — one your boss will unfortunately, probably never grant you because Janet can’t write those reports quite like you can. 

From directors James Justice and Umberto Lenzi, who also served as writers alongside Vittorio Rambaldi, this story will take you on a wild motorcycle ride through 1989 with a helmet-sporting killer who murders spring breakers in sunny Florida.

9.) Prom Night

We had to find a way to highlight our favorite Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis, and we couldn’t include Halloween because, ahem, it doesn’t take place during the season du jour. Therefore, this prom-themed horror will have to make do.

Written by William Gray and directed by Paul Lynch, this 1980 slasher flick features high school seniors who not only need to worry about who will wear the crown for prom king or queen, but they also need to worry about who’s wearing the ski mask and murdering their peers. The murderer may just be a vigilante with a good heart, as they’re seeking retribution for a girl who was killed six years prior, but they’re also slicing and dicing teenagers.

8.) The Village

After being cloistered inside during the frigid winter months, it’s good to get back out into nature. Whether you liked it or not, M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 hit The Village capitalizes on the concept of immersing oneself in the woods, even if the woods are undertaken in 19th-century garb, by those completely isolated from the rest of society.

Besides the scenery with vegetation that alludes to spring, the plot focuses on how the color red is outlawed in the remote village. Moreover, we can only assume this hatred of red further bolsters the argument that this is a spring-centric film and not a Christmas one, as the color red is synonymous with that time of year… or Valentine’s Day, depending on who you ask.

7.) Crocodile

We said there were tons of horror films about spring breakers, and this tale is so bad that it’s actually good — well, good for the audience watching it and bad for the teens on holiday who go haplessly poking around crocodile eggs.

In this horror-action film from Tobe Hooper with the story penned by Boaz Davidson, eight college kids venture off on a boat trip on a So-Cal lake, and while vacationing, piss off a territorial crocodile mother that takes lethal nibbles out of her youthful prey.

While initially premiering direct-to-video, the campy flick became so outlandishly popular that it spawned more crocodile eggs and even a sequel — a sequel that had nothing to do with the original, except the ginormous, human-eating crocodile.

6.) Rites of Spring

Statistically speaking, crimes tend to peak in the summer due to the heat, but that doesn’t mean the preceding season is immune to grisly deaths. With “fear has a season” as its tagline, it couldn’t be left off this spring-horror countdown.

Written and directed by Padraig Reynolds, this 2011 film focuses on kidnappers, whom karma has a field day with when their ransom scheme turns them on their heads and they get a taste of their own gory medicine.

5.) April Fool’s Day

If we learned anything from reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in high school, it’s that nothing good happens when you leave a bunch of kids unchaperoned on an island. Pair them with a really rich girl who has a sadistic taste in pranks, and you’ve got a bloody, strange recipe.

This 1986 film from director Fred Walton with writer Danilo Bach features college kids who, despite their age, find themselves in a precarious situation reminiscent of Golding’s classic novel. They should be more savvy than little boys, but alas, they don’t have their executive functioning fully developed as it maximizes when you’re 25. So when these collegiate pals go to the remote island of their uber-wealthy friend, Muffy St. John, their weekend of practical jokes turns to horror as a killer begins poking bloody holes in their fun — and skulls.

4.) Willard

Spring is thought of as mating season, so this film makes an appearance because of the mating of all the, well, rats. And in the spirit of doubling things through reproduction, we’re including two Willards — the 1971 and the 2003 versions.

The original was written by Gilbert Ralston, based on the novel Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert, and later brought to life by director Daniel Mann. Moreover, the 2003 interpretation was written and helmed by Glen Morgan. 

This is one of the rare instances where the remake beats the original, as it provides more satisfyingly get-under-your-skin-level horror instead of a twisted drama. Plus, the reboot has Crispin Glover, who nails the cringe-worthily disturbing role, while simultaneously garnering empathy for his complicated, mama’s boy character — no easy feat.

3.) Death Spa

Spring is all about renewal and self-care, which the wellness industry delightfully exploits to the tune of billions of dollars. Advertising tells us that after the seclusion of winter, we need to get ourselves to the gym to be “beach body ready” for summer. However, the gym in Death Spa has more sinister ideas and ends in bloodshed in a 1989, campy way.

Directed by Michael Fischa and written by James Bartruff and Mitch Paradise, the plot is wildly more complicated than you’d expect and surprisingly progressive at times despite its veneer. Another nuance includes a suggestive shot feeding a blind loved one asparagus. We’re not really sure what to say about this aspect, other than we promise you’ll never look at this perennial flowering plant species the same way again. What’s important is that this underrated horror gem is so weirdly entertaining that your explosion of laughter will inevitably count toward your dose of much-needed self-care.

2.) Carrie  

This movie will make you rethink your dysfunctional relationship with your mother — it isn’t all that bad, by comparison.

You don’t get much more horror-movie-that-takes-place-in-spring than this Stephen King classic novel that was later directed onscreen by Brian De Palma in 1976. Legendary Sissy Spacek portrays Carrie White, a teen who just can’t catch a break — with a sanctimonious yet abusive mom at home and relentlessly cruel peers at school.

After enduring incessant bullying, it feels cathartic when Carrie finally gets her comeuppance — even when she takes back her power in some, well, supernaturally creepy ways.

1.) Spring

In case you forgot what this lengthy yapping about horror films was for, the title will jog your memory. Written and directed by Justin Benson with co-director Aaron Moorhead, the final, aptly-titled Spring has Lovecraftian influences and provides a cautionary tale about not putting a romantic interest on a pedestal because they have a long way to fall, or a long tentacle line — because the beautiful leading lady does, in fact, have tentacles.

What makes this 2014 film unique is how the female monster refuses to be defined by genres. She starts out as a stereotypical siren who lures in the male protagonist, and then becomes a horrendous monster, who is not in control of her body, akin to a werewolf. But if this description of a subversive horror creature doesn’t sell you, just read the endorsement of Guillermo del Toro, who named it as “one of the best horror films of this decade.” 

Until one of us creates a thriller as good as Pan’s Labyrinth or a monster as terrifying as the excess-skin-laden Pale Man, del Toro’s recommendation will have to suffice for the number one slot on our list.

*Honorable Mention*

Kin-dza-dza!

What does this 1986 sci-fi black comedy have to do with spring or horror? Very little — that’s what. However, like other favorites on the list, it’s got dystopian vibes and some spring imagery thrown in, including very pink florals in a hallucinogenic, trippy field, making it qualify as a horror slash spring movie.

Directed by Georgiy Daneliya with co-screenwriting by Revaz Gabriadze, this absurdly humorous Soviet satire revolves around two humans from earth who meet Kin-dza-dza aliens in space.

The soundtrack is the real star, making any office a lot more poppy and exciting. Although, be forewarned that your coworkers will start bobbing when you blast the catchy hooks in your cubicle. 

If you’re still not sold on whether it qualifies as a spring film, it features characters in cardigans and even short sleeves, indicating warmer weather. Sure, they’re also wearing gas masks in the same shots, but that’s besides the point.

At Gore Culture, we want you to stretch your imagination beyond the comforts of blood and gore and death, so enjoy this lighter palate cleanser. Hopefully it will encourage you to get outside to enjoy some sunshine, because contrary to what we initially told you, you do actually need to leave that couch in order to survive.