High school is already a horror movie: the fluorescent-lit hallways, hormone-fueled chaos, authority figures who just don’t understand and cliques that might as well be cults. The horror genre has always thrived in teenage terrain, where coming of age often means coming apart.

In the ’70s and ’80s, high school horror emerged as filmmakers began to realize the potential of the high school setting and the angsty teens who occupied it. I’d argue that the subgenre truly found its voice in the ’90s, cementing it with its own distinct identity, blending social commentary with supernatural or slasher horror to reflect the fears and struggles of adolescence.

The magic of this subgenre is that we don’t expect teens to be rational. They make terrible choices, they split up, they run upstairs instead of outside! But that emotional chaos is the whole point—high school is where everything is dramatic, hormonal and the stakes (social or otherwise) feel life-or-death.

While this starter pack serves as an introduction to the high school horror subgenre, it can also serve as a gateway to horror itself. There’s a universal relatability in a lot of these characters who are just dealing with the horrors of growing up. And since these films often genre-blend with comedy and romance, there are some chances to catch your breath.

So, grab your lunch tray and get ready for a crash course in high school horror. Don’t forget your hall !

Scream (1996)

The movie that changed everything. Scream didn’t just revive the slasher genre—it created the blueprint for a lot of the films on this list (and influenced me to get a giant tattoo). Sidney Prescott is the final girl of all final girls, navigating grief, gossip and gory deaths as Ghostface stalks her suburban high school. The dialogue is razor-sharp, the rules are iconic and the kills are still shocking. By making its characters horror-literate, Wes Craven made us all complicit. This was horror growing up without losing its teen angst. Smart, scary and endlessly quotable, Scream walked the hallways so every postmodern teen slasher could run.

Cherry Falls (2000)

A killer flips the slasher rulebook in this cult-favorite oddity, targeting virgins (who can’t drive) instead of the sexually active. That setup alone gives Cherry Falls a uniquely provocative angle, but it’s the off-kilter tone and Brittany Murphy’s iconic lead performance as a goth girl with daddy issues that cement its place in the canon. “Cherry Falls at times is really smart, but at other times it’s almost equally dumb,” says Kevflix. Throw in a scene where the entire senior class plans a group deflowering and you’ve got a cheeky comment on moral panic, abstinence culture and small-town repression. Weird, funny, bloody—just like being a teen.

Fun fact: to this day, it’s the most expensive TV movie ever made!

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Before defining ’90s high school horror, Wes Craven was busy scaring ’80s sleep-deprived teens. Craven’s original Elm Street fuses dream logic and teenage trauma with the introduction of Freddy Krueger, an iconic boogeyman who haunts your dreams… in a fedora! As Robert Englund puts it while reading your Letterboxd reviews with co-star Heather Langenkamp, “It’s dirty work, but he enjoys it.” It’s anchored in suburban high school life—Nancy is just trying to class, stay awake and survive. Beyond the memorable kills, it’s also about how adults refuse to listen, even when the kids are screaming. This series gets increasingly wild, but the first installment still hits hardest. Who knew that staying awake in high school might literally save your life?

For a deep dive into Freddy Krueger’s more than 40-year-long haunt, read Claira Curtis’s piece here.

Carrie (1976)

Few horror films capture the cruelty of high school as operatically as Carrie. “The term ‘cultural reset’ gets thrown around a lot these days but let’s talk about an ACTUAL one,” says Margianna. Based on Stephen King’s debut novel, Brian De Palma’s adaptation is soaked in Catholic guilt, locker room shame and telekinetic rage. Sissy Spacek is heartbreaking as the outcast no one would help—and terrifying once they finally push her too far. The slow build to that prom night climax is perfection: all glitter, soft lighting and then, absolute carnage. (If we ever cross paths, feel free to ask me about how my prom ended with me in a white dress, covered in blood.) It’s a story about fear, puberty and power—and how quickly sympathy turns to fear when a girl stops apologizing for herself.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Before Sarah Michelle Gellar made her a TV legend, Kristy Swanson’s Buffy was a Valley Girl with a stake in her purse. This original film is looser, goofier and far more comedic than the series—but there’s charm in its campy tone and neon-lit action. The high school-as-hell metaphor is literal here, and while it’s maybe a bit sillier than scary, it’s got the bones of something brilliant. According to Katia, “the only horror in this movie was Luke Perry’s soul patch.” With Paul Reubens hamming it up as a dying vamp and a baby-faced Perry brooding on the sidelines, it’s a fun reminder that high school was always full of monsters.

The Faculty (1998)

Aliens invade high school in this pulpy mashup of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and late-’90s teen tropes. Robert Rodriguez assembles a stacked cast of cool-kid archetypes—stoner, goth, jock, outcast—and lets them save the world between classes. “This one boasts a truly inspired and wonderful all-star cast including Josh Hartnett and his gravity defying disaster of a hairstyle and Elijah Wood who has done nothing but get cuter as he gets older,” says Tony. The metaphor is right there: your teachers literally aren’t who they say they are. It’s gloriously messy and very of its time (cue The Offspring needle drop), but the paranoia hits hard. Because sometimes authority figures really are the monsters.

Battle Royale (バトル·ロワイアル) (2000)   

Before The Hunger Games, there was Battle Royale—and it pulled no punches. This Japanese cult classic imagines a dystopian future where one class of high schoolers is forced to kill one another on a remote island as punishment for youth rebellion. Each student gets a random weapon and 72 hours to be the last one standing. It’s violent, absurd, emotional—and incredibly stylish. Director Kinji Fukasaku’s film is a brutal satire of authoritarian control, but it’s also a raw exploration of teenage relationships under unimaginable pressure. No notes. Just carnage.

Idle Hands (1999)

If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, that demon is coming nowhere near me and this 2,000-word article. But slacker teens beware! What if your hand got possessed and turned into a horny, bloodthirsty killer? That’s the premise behind Idle Hands, a stoner horror comedy that’s somehow even dumber—and more delightful—than it sounds. Devon Sawa plays a teen whose possessed hand goes on a murder spree, and instead of stopping it, he mostly vibes with the chaos. Add in undead best friends (Seth Green and Elden Henson), a killer soundtrack and Jessica Alba in fairy wings, and you’ve got a horror-comedy that is ridiculous in all the right ways. Pure slacker splatter.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Puberty is a monster—literally—in Ginger Snaps, a razor-sharp coming-of-age werewolf tale drenched in blood. When Ginger gets bitten by a strange creature just as she gets her first period, the changes are both metaphysical and metaphorical: hair where there wasn’t hair, cravings she can’t control, a sudden interest in boys—and tearing them apart. It’s a pitch-black allegory for adolescence that doesn’t flinch from menstruation, body horror or emotional transformation. “Body horror specifically is a subgenre that seems like a natural breeding ground for menstruation, but with the dominance of scripts and direction being done by cisgender men it was a topic that was rarely approached with any level of intimacy or authority,” writes Willow. Witty, gory and surprisingly moving, it’s a cult classic that asks: what if lycanthropy was just a really intense hormone surge?

It Follows (2014)

One of the most dread-soaked high school horror films of the 2010s, It Follows plays like a waking dream and sets the tone for this generation’s darker take on the subgenre. After a strange sexual encounter, Jay (Maika Monroe) is cursed to be stalked by a shape-shifting entity that moves slowly but never stops. David Robert Mitchell’s breakout hit takes teenage anxieties about intimacy, trust and consequence and channels them into a dreamy horror parable. With its eerie synth score, washed-out suburban landscapes and constantly creeping menace, the film feels like a waking nightmare. Every hallway, classroom or empty pool is haunted. It’s horror as slow, steady inevitability—and it lingers long after it’s over.

Christine (1983)

What if your crush was… a car? In Christine, a bullied teen named Arnie (Keith Gordon) finds confidence—and eventually obsession—after restoring a sinister cherry-red 1958 Plymouth Fury. Directed by John Carpenter and based on a Stephen King novel, this is part supernatural horror, part tragic character study. As Arnie’s bond with Christine deepens, his personality shifts, friendships fall apart and the car starts killing people. “Carpenter wrings every bit of horror out of this otherwise silly premise,” says Bryan. It’s high school horror filtered through grease-stained hands and masculine rage, but there’s a surprisingly emotional core. Underneath the chrome and carnage, it’s really about how loneliness can make monsters out of misfits.

Prom Night (1980)

An essential entry in the teen slasher canon, Prom Night helped solidify the “trauma turns deadly on a big night” template that many horror films would follow. Jamie Lee Curtis leads the cast with steely charisma, and while the kills are spread out, the atmosphere is thick with paranoia and disco lights. The slow build gives way to a memorable finale that ties grief, guilt and revenge into a bloody bow. And while I tip my hat to the legacy of the original Prom Night, for a better time, maybe cue up Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. It’s a sequel in name only and a total tonal shift: surreal, horny and soaked in neon Catholic guilt. Think: Carrie meets A Nightmare on Elm Street with more ghostly prom queens. Both films belong in the high school horror hall of fame, but for pure chaos? Mary Lou reigns supreme.

Disturbing Behavior (1998)

Welcome to Cradle Bay, where the teens are perfectly polite, terrifyingly preppy and maybe just a little too Stepford. This post-Scream paranoia thriller leans hard into ’90s conspiracy vibes, with James Marsden playing the new kid who suspects the school’s bad kids are being forcibly “corrected” into robotic perfection. It’s The Faculty, but more self-serious and drenched in Pacific Northwest melancholy. The teen slang is incredible (“Chug me, bitch!”), the blue filter is relentless and the soundtrack is peak alt-rock angst. Messy, yes—but if you were a misfit in high school, it still hits.

Massacre at Central High (1976)

A bleak and brilliant pre-slasher, Massacre at Central High tackles teen politics with chilling precision. When a new student disrupts the school’s brutal social hierarchy, the power vacuum that follows turns even more deadly. “If you fell asleep reading Orwell’s Animal Farm with a TV blaring Heathers in the background, you might dream something as cynical, blackly comedic and weird as Massacre at Central High,” says Laird. There’s barely any score, and the tone is eerily detached, giving the violence an extra sting. It’s a smart, cynical take on how systems of power regenerate, even among teenagers. Set in a strangely adult-free campus, the film skewers high school social hierarchies and suggests that maybe it’s not just the bullies who are the problem—it’s the system itself.

Whispering Corridors (여고괴담) (1998)

This South Korean horror film kick-started an entire wave of school-set ghost stories, and its legacy is well-earned. Set in an all-girls school haunted by both literal spirits and institutional cruelty, Whispering Corridors blends coming-of-age melancholy with supernatural terror. It’s slower and more emotional than some of the other slashers on this list, but the mood is heavy and the scares are earned. The film quietly critiques the rigid academic system, where fear and repression run deep. If you like this, definitely check out the other films in the loosely connected series—Wishing Stairs being a standout.

Fear Street: 1994 (2021)

Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy is a glossy love letter to horror fans adapted from R. L. Stine’s young adult series of the same name, and the 1994 entry is where the teen horror heart beats loudest. Set in Shadyside High, it follows a group of outcast students caught in the path of a centuries-old curse. The series wears its influences proudly—Scream, The Faculty and definitely Stranger Things—but still carves out its own mythology. Queer romance and surprisingly gnarly kills all elevate this from nostalgia bait to something with real stakes. “Feels exactly like an R. L. Stine book with lesbians, sex, gore, drugs and cursing added in,” says Sydney. It’s not just horror for teens—it’s horror that respects them.