Features and Columns · Movies

10 Creepiest Horror Movie Towns Harboring Deep, Dark Secrets

Major metropolises aren’t the only hot beds for murder and mayhem. Wait ‘till you get a load of the unrelenting horror these towns and neighborhoods can quickly cook up.
Creepiest Horror Movie Towns
By  · Published on October 7th, 2022

5. The 7th Victim (East Village, Manhattan)

Th

What if the sinister town in question was less of a town and more of New York’s East Village? In this Val Lewton-produced classic, a woman heads to New York when she finds out her sister has stopped paying her school tuition fees and has seemingly disappeared. Turns out, her sister was involved in a Satanic Cult and now wants out. But with members lurking around every corner, who can they trust? Notoriously, The 7th Victim had several important scenes cut from the final edit, leaving certain moments rather baffling. But once you get past the oddities, the film is engrossing and unsettling and is particularly notable for how terrifying it renders New York. (Anna Swanson)


4. The Wicker Man (Summerisle)

Wicker

Not the bees! Not the bees! Ahhhhhh, they’re in my eyes!!!… Oh, no? Not that one? I’m on the wrong list. Oops. We’re talking about the original Wicker Man and the creepy residents of Summerisle. The remake will have to be celebrated at some point on some other horror list. Right? Right?!

The OG Wicker Man creates a heavy fog that falls upon its hero the moment he lands on the island. He’s a righteous dude, foolish enough to be confident in the power he wears on his uniform. Howie, the ultimate dope, hits Summerisle looking for a missing girl. As he bashes against the populace and their frequently nude bodies, he begins to suspect that they’ve sacrificed one of their own to cement a splendid crop. Only at the end, mere seconds before he gets placed in the titular pyre, does he realize his true purpose. He was born to burn, and his god offers him no solace as Summerisle folk dance and sing around his cooking body. Their glee is our horror. (Brad Gullickson)


3. Fire Walk With Me (Twin Peaks)

Fire

Few places ever put to screen are categorically weirder than Twin Peaks. By the time Fire Walk With Me hit theaters in 1992, audiences already knew how strange the Pacific Northwest town that people, as varied as the Log Lady, the demon BOB, and The Man from Another Place called home was. Except, they didn’t, not really. David Lynch and Mark Frost’s surreal, bizarre, masterful TV series turned out to be a walk in the park compared to the more outright nightmarish – and experimental – story Fire Walk With Me had to tell.

While some films on this list have just one secret, Twin Peaks has too many to count. But by bringing Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) back from the dead for a prequel plot that enlightens viewers about her final days, Lynch simplifies our focus, drawing it to one of the darkest yet most disturbingly common secrets of all: incest. The film makes Laura’s sexual trauma and its painful and wide-reaching ripple effects clear. As a result, the three-year constellation of disorienting, impressionistic scenes surrounding her and the town of Twin Peaks finally comes into focus as well. (Valerie Ettenhofer)


2. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (Rural Connecticut)

Jesisca

With a title perhaps more well-known than the actual contents of the film, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is a slow-burn reimagining of the Carmilla story, colored by the anti-hippie sensibilities of the United States during the Vietnam War. However, the story sinks its teeth into the viewer through a wispy, dreamlike narrative that intersects a woman suffering from a mental illness with an existential, supernatural threat that seems to be bubbling up from every crevice of the little town our characters frequent. The secret the town is keeping surfaces in the film’s final act but delivers the images we anticipate from a story like this: a bunch of stone-faced old folks hungry to watch someone die. (Jacob Trussell)


1. Messiah of Evil (Point Dume)

Messiah

Point Dume, CA, is a perfect name for a town filled with an escalating mountain of evil. A young woman arrives looking for her father, and after numerous warning signs and ominous observations, she and her friends fall prey to townspeople consumed by history and horror. The backstory about the town’s founding pulls from real-life tragedies, and the scenes of attacks by carnivorous mobs are legitimately horrifying. That’s no small feat, especially given the film’s budget, but both the supermarket scene and the movie theater set piece are all-time nightmare inducers. Note to self, nothing good ever happens in an artists’ colony. (Rob Hunter)


Maybe check out more of our 31 Days of Horror Lists *before* you visit that quaint little town next weekend…

Pages: 1 2

Related Topics:

Jacob Trussell is a writer based in New York City. His editorial work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Rue Morgue Magazine, Film School Rejects, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the author of 'The Binge Watcher's Guide to The Twilight Zone' (Riverdale Avenue Books). Available to host your next spooky public access show. Find him on Twitter here: @JE_TRUSSELL (He/Him)