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These 9 Summer Horror Movies Are a Killer Way to Beat the Heat
Why should fall have all the fun?
By Maggie Fremont and Erin Corbett
June 11, 2025
Best 9 Summer Horror Movies For a Killer Way to Beat the Heat - Netflix Tudum
Hot take: October’s got nothing on the summertime when it comes to the perfect atmosphere to take in something truly screamworthy. Think about it. Swimming with sharks? Terrifying! Vacations gone wrong? Bone-chilling! Two weeks at summer camp? Very murder-y, actually! Summer is full of things that go bump in the night — and in the broad, steamy daylight, too — that are sure to get your heart rate going and fix any craving you might have for a horror flick. If you’re looking for a few summer scaries to get you through to fall, Netflix has you covered. Here are seven movies that are helping to redefine when the real spooky season is.
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Fear Street Part 2: 1978
It’s happening again. The second film in the R.L. Stine Fear Street trilogy takes us back to Shadyside where, as we saw in Fear Street Part One: 1994, Deena (Kiana Madeira) and Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) are looking for a way to save Deena’s girlfriend, Sam (Olivia Scott Welch). The Shadyside witch has possessed Sam — and has been wreaking havoc on the town for centuries. Deena and Josh seek out the assistance of C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs), one of the only survivors of the 1978 Massacre at Camp Nightwing. C. Berman tells them the story of what happened that night at camp. Long story short: so much blood! Definitely at least one decapitation! Is that summer camp nostalgia tugging at your heartstrings or what?
Gerald's Game
Mike Flanagan’s 2017 horror film takes the idea of a getaway-gone-wrong and dials it up to 100. Married couple Jessie (Carla Gugino) and Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), looking to spice things up, head out of the city to their vacation home for a few days — but for Jessie, it turns into a complete nightmare. Gerald’s idea of “romance” is to handcuff his wife to the bed and attempt to enact a sexual assault fantasy. Things only get worse from there: Gerald has a heart attack and dies on top of her, leaving her trapped. It doesn’t take long for Jessie to become consumed by repressed memories, vivid hallucinations, and something extremely sinister and perhaps very real as she fights for survival. Gerald’s Game is an excellent addition to the psychological horror genre and contains an absolute master-class performance from Gugino.
“What are you waiting for, huh?!” That’s the question Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character Julie James asks — or, well, screams — to the skies in hopes the mysterious killer stalking her and her friends will hear, but it’s also the question one might pose to anyone who’s yet to watch this iconic 1997 teen slasher film. Now a staple of the genre, I Know What You Did Last Summer came on the heels of Scream’s success and is about as “summer scary” as you can get. (It’s right there in the name!) On the night of the Fourth of July, Julie, her boyfriend Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), and friends Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Barry (Ryan Phillippe) hit a man in the road and dump his body in the ocean. A year later, Julie receives a mysterious note in the mail — “I know what you did last summer!” — and the mind games and murdering begin.
In the Tall Grass
You can practically smell summer when you see wind whipping through that grassy green Kansas field — but leave it to Stephen King and Joe Hill, who wrote the novella that In the Tall Grass is based on, to make that idyllic notion as scary as possible. While traveling through Kansas on their way to San Diego, siblings Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) hear a boy yelling for help in the grassy field right off the road. They head into the field to offer their help and wind up fighting for their lives. Becky and Cal quickly learn that in the tall grass you can’t trust other people, your own senses, or even the ground beneath your feet. It’ll make you rethink the phrase “I’m just stepping outside for a little fresh air.”
IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE
Ah, weddings and college-friend reunions. These two summer-friendly events are perfectly used by It’s What’s Inside writer and director Greg Jardin to get his cast of characters together in the same house for a body-swap horror adventure. This group of old friends are already locked and loaded with a whole bunch of hang-ups and jealousies when they arrive at Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) house the night before his wedding, all of which cleverly get exacerbated when their friend Forbes (David Thompson) shows up with a machine that allows them to swap into each other’s bodies. Not surprisingly, this little game goes wrong pretty quickly. The highly stylized film manages to keep the paranoia chugging along while also offering up a satire on Gen Z insecurities.
Leave the World Behind
If straight horror isn’t your thing, but you’re still looking for a summer movie that spends its entire runtime filling you with dread and anxiety, Leave the World Behind –– starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke –– is for you. Equal parts social commentary and psychological thriller, the movie, directed by Sam Esmail and based on the novel by Rumaan Alam, follows the Sandfords as matriarch Amanda (Roberts) plans an impromptu vacation for her family. It’s supposed to be all relaxation, beach time, and family hangouts, but almost immediately things go haywire: The internet is down, there are widespread blackouts, and no one really knows what’s going on in the outside world except for the fact that society is imploding. Add to that chaos the fact that when the blackouts first start, the owner of the house the Sandfords are staying in — Ali’s G.H. Scott — and his daughter (Myha’la) want to seek safety in their own home, throwing Amanda (and her biases) off-kilter.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
If you’re thinking about quintessential summer horror movies, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre must be high on the list — it’s a classic. Set 50 years after Leatherface’s original summer of ’73 murder spree, the 2022 sequel finds that pesky guy with the big power tool back at it. This time, he’s after a new group of young adults (the cast includes Elsie Fisher and Sarah Yarkin), as well as Sally (Olwen Fouéré), the sole survivor of the 1973 killings — now a Texas Ranger looking for payback. It’s a new year with new victims, but the same old Leatherface.
Under Paris
Ah, the City of Light! Paris sure got to show off its sparkle during the 2024 Olympics, didn’t it? Well, what if the city was under attack by giant killer sharks that have adapted to live in the Seine? That’s Under Paris. Terrifying shark movies are a tried-and-true staple of summer horror, and in this take on the genre, you even get a little environmentalism thrown in for good measure. Here, Bérénice Bejo stars as Sophia, a marine biologist who must work to save Paris from the same giant shark that killed her entire team — including her husband — three years prior while trying to study the effects of the Great Pacific garbage patch. Now that shark is back, deadlier than ever, and a triathlon is about to fill the river with a buffet of unsuspecting swimmers.
Us
Nothing says “summer” like a beach house, but in director Jordan Peele’s psychological horror Us, the Wilson family’s vacation becomes a nightmare. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) is reluctant to return to the beachfront town where she once experienced a traumatic childhood incident. Despite her anxieties, she ultimately agrees to join her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) on a trip to Santa Cruz. Once there, the family experiences a number of strange occurrences, as Adelaide grows worried that something terrible might happen again. Her fears become reality when four mysterious people break into their home one night — and the intruders look just like them.
Horror Movies to Stream NowFrom horror-comedies to classic hauntings, these movies will creep you out.
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