Spring Break Horror Movies

By RodneyHatfieldJr for Movies

I hope everyone enjoyed, is enjoying, or will be enjoying their spring holiday break. I am having a mini-break here at my parent's house. While spending 3 days while sporadic internet and farm animals, I noticed something. Spring break (and summer) is peak murder season in the horror genre. We have coeds stabbed galore at the beach. Groups of Friends beening torn apart on road trips. Couples running into cannibals while traveling. And camping hijinks in the forest. Spring break is not a good time to be in the friend circle of any horror movie. That’s why I’m here with my list. We will be celebrating what horror movies make us believe is the deadly right of passage called Spring Break. 

Like all my lists, these will not be in any order other than when my little brain thinks of them. I will also try to sprinkle a few lesser-known films that you may not know exists. Who knows, you might find a new favorite.


Piranha 3D 2010


Prehistoric carnivorous piranhas are unleashed on Lake Victoria.

This is supposed to be a loose remake of Piranha (1978), but with a packed house of famous people. I honestly have no idea how they acquired so many stars to play in this. I can only assume it was porn-related or drugs. Either way, it is a fun yet gory remake.


Spring Break Massacre 2008


A spring break sleepover is ruined by whoever starts to kill the group one by one. 

Naturally, this title belongs on this list. And just like the title, it is your average run-of-the-mill slasher. You could create a slasher scorecard and just click off the boxes it is so predictable. However, some of the kills are worth watching. 


WTF! 2017


Rachel was the sole survivor of a brutal massacre three years ago. Now she’s in college and ready to try this spring break thing again! 

You read that correctly! Rachel the lone survivor of a massacre, instead of never doing the whole vacation thing again because of the obvious case of PTSD, decides what are the odds. Yet you and everyone else knows this is going to end in another murdered friend circle. The acting and story are average, I only chose this for the penis scene. Head decapitations: yea. Dismemberment: so. Stabbings: big deal. Penis trauma: OMG. It hurts just thinking about it. Few movies make everyone with a weewee in the audience go Hooooooo, and this is one of them.


HALLOW GRAVE 1987


Four Catholic schoolgirls on a road trip from Virginia to the popular Spring Break destination of Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately, the girls get a flat tire in a small town, and one of them witnesses a murder. 

This one is an obscure film directed by Richard Styles. It is average but it is also engaging, occasionally disturbing, and somewhat baffling. But this is why we have lists, to introduce people to new movies.


THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE 1991


It’s Spring Break and six teenagers have decided to spend their vacation at a cabin in the woods, where they end up getting picked off one by one. 

You know those movies that should just say they took a bunch of other popular movies and mashed them together? This one does exactly that. Long before Scream and The Cabin in the Woods made fun of the horror genre, this one was showing how it was done. What sets this apart from other films is the villain. You are thinking some slasher going after these characters. Nope, it’s a small alien creature that can control people’s minds with the green light that shines from its eyes. 


Tucker and Dale vs. Evil 2011


Tucker and Dale, the title characters are innocent and very loveable West Virginians who find the ultimate vacation home, a dilapidated shack deep in the woods. When a group of college kids on spring break happen upon their home, it sets in motion a hilarious sequence of accidental deaths that are pinned on the duo.

I have a desire to rant today. As I sit writing this on the porch of my childhood home, I am watching half a dozen chickens pecking in the yard. I see 3 ducks and 2 geese playing in the small pond. On the far side of the property, I watch the dog dart in and out of the bushes; most likely looking for a rabbit or some other small creature. All while the buzz of hummingbirds eating from a feeder fills my ears. People would and do pay hard-earned money to experience this for a few days a year, while I have experienced this more times than I could possibly count. This isn’t special or extraordinary, this is normal, this is my life. Yet in horror movies, people from south of the Mason-Dixon line are usually portrayed as backwoods genetic defectives living in squaller who prey upon outsiders. Hell, every genre of movie portrays southerners as inbred, uneducated, killers, or all three. Well, we are not. And the whole ignorant uneducated stereotype that started this stems from a medical condition from having hookworms(look it up) back in the 1900s. And once a stereotype starts, it never ever ends. This is why I love Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It shows how we hillbillies really are. We are just like everyone else, except we stand at attention when ‘Country Roads’ is played(we also don’t talk when it is being played, however we may and most do sing along. It is our state's anthem). Don’t get me wrong, I also love the hillbilly villain. Wrong Turn is classic hillbilly villains. Leatherface and Hills Have Eyes to a lesser extent. But not every time we have them in movies do they need to be one or all three. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had relations with my sister, stared into the sun for hours, or made deathtraps on a hiking trail (Joke. These are jokes). You may stereotype or make fun of us, but we have the last laugh. We live in Almost Heaven.


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