Academic institutions, including high schools, boarding schools, colleges, and university campuses, have historically been recurring settings for horror films. Film scholars have noted the prominence of educational institutions in the development of horror cinema, particularly in the subgenre of the slasher film. Critics such as Andrew Grunzke have cited the themes of bullying, sexuality, social acceptance, parent-child relationships, academic performance, and the development of morality during teenage and young adult life as primary reasons that many horror films have historically used the backdrop of high schools and colleges. Additionally, the universalization of education during the twentieth century, which coincided with the development of the horror film, helped foster a public audience for films set amongst students.
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Premise | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | The Body Snatcher | A college professor and his student find themselves continually harassed by a sadistic cabman to supply bodies. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1946 | The Brute Man | A college student becomes deformed. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1957 | I Was a Teenage Frankenstein | A guest professor from England at an American college begins to build his own Frankenstein. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1958 | Monster on the Campus | A university professor begins to devolve into a caveman after coming in contact with blood from a coelacanth. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1962 | Burn, Witch, Burn | A college professor is tormented after discovering his wife has been practicing witchcraft. | Originally titled Night of the Eagle | style=text-align:center | [1] | |
| 1981 | Final Exam | A man stalks the remaining students on a college campus just before summer vacation. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1981 | Night School | A serial killer is stalking and decapitating the women at a Boston night college. | Released in the United Kingdom as Terror Eyes | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1981 | The Prowler | College students hosting a graduation dance are targeted by a killer in World War II G.I. gear. | Released internationally as Rosemary's Killer | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1982 | Girls Nite Out | A killer in a bear costume with razored claws murders students during an overnight campus scavenger hunt. | Originally titled The Scaremaker | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1982 | The Dorm That Dripped Blood | Students cleaning an abandoned dormitory during Christmas break are stalked by a killer with a baseball bat encrusted in nails. | Released in the United Kingdom as Pranks | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1982 | Pieces | Juan Piquer Simón | A serial killer dismembers young women on a Boston college campus with a chainsaw. | style=text-align:center | [2] | |
| 1984 | Splatter University | An escaped mental patient terrorizes a local university. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1985 | Blood Cult | Christopher Lewis | A small town sheriff investigates ritualistic murders at the local college. | First direct-to-video horror film | [3] | |
| 1988 | Fright Night Part 2 | Charley Brewster, now a college student, encounters a group of vampires on his campus. | style=text-align:center | [4] | ||
| 1989 | After Midnight | A horror anthology film framed through college students taking a course on the "psychology of fear." | ||||
| 1995 | The Addiction | A philosophy graduate student in New York City is bitten by a vampire, which has major implications on her studies and personal life. | style=text-align:center | [5] | ||
| 1997 | Scream 2 | California teenager Sidney Prescott and her friends are stalked by a copycat killer dressed as Ghostface on their college campus in Southern California. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1998 | Urban Legend | A serial killer murders students at a New England college via methods based on urban legends. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2000 | A killer stalks students of a film school and murders them according to urban legends. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 2001 | Ripper | A massacre survivor believes a Jack the Ripper copycat is stalking her college campus. | Also known as: Ripper: Letter from Hell | style=text-align:center | [6] | |
| 2001 | Soul Survivors | A college student's grip on reality weakens after the death of her boyfriend. | style=text-align:center | [7] | ||
| 2002 | American Psycho 2 | An ambitious criminal psychology student resorts to murder vying for a prestigious teaching assistantship. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2004 | Decoys | Two male students vying to lose their virginity suspect the women on campus are not human. | style=text-align:center | [8] | ||
| 2005 | House of the Dead 2 | A zombie outbreak occurs on a university campus. | style=text-align:center | [9] | ||
| 2011 | The Roommate | A college student finds that her dormitory roommate is violently dangerous. | style=text-align:center | [10] | ||
| 2014 | Kristy | A young woman is pursued by a cybercult of killers while alone on an empty campus during Thanksgiving. | [11] | |||
| 2015 | Chain Mail | A group of people receiving a cryptic and unknown message from the internet, while others are ignoring it. Suddenly imminent danger follows them making them realize that this unknown chain letter is cursed by a demonic creature. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2017 | Happy Death Day | A college student is forced to relive her own murder in an endless time loop until she can solve it. | style=text-align:center | [12] | ||
| 2018 | Truth or Dare | A group of college friends travel to Mexico before graduation. Playing a game of Truth or Dare awakens a demon that follows them home. | [13] | |||
| 2019 | Happy Death Day 2U | A young woman, previously trapped in a loop of her own murder, is transported to another dimension where a killer is on the loose. | [14] | |||
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Premise | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1932 | Thirteen Women | Thirteen sorority sisters have their futures foreseen by a psychic paid to manipulate them into committing suicide. | style=text-align:center | [15] | |||
| 1974 | Black Christmas | Sorority sisters are stalked and harassed by an unseen killer during Christmastime. | See note | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1976 | Sisters of Death | A man whose daughter died during a sorority prank takes revenge on the sorority seven years later. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1978 | The Initiation of Sarah | A shy woman with psychic powers joins a college sorority. | Television film | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1981 | Hell Night | Sorority and fraternity pledges must stay in a reportedly haunted house near their campus. | See note | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1983 | The House on Sorority Row | Sorority sisters are murdered by a killer during their last night in their sorority house. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1984 | The Initiation | Sorority pledges are murdered by an unseen assailant during an initiation ritual. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1984 | Silent Madness | A serial killer returns to the sorority house where he committed previous crimes. | style=text-align:center | [16] | |||
| 1986 | Killer Party | Sorority pledges are murdered during a party at an abandoned fraternity house. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1986 | Night of the Creeps | Alien parasites that turn humans into murderous zombies infiltrate a college fraternity. | style=text-align:center | [17] | |||
| 1986 | Vamp | Two college students hire a stripper for their fraternity party who turns out to be a vampire. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1986 | Sorority House Massacre | A sorority pledge experiences déjà vu while visiting a sorority house, followed by the appearance of a psychotic killer. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1987 | Blood Sisters | Sorority pledges are forced to spend the night in an abandoned brothel. | style=text-align:center | [18] | |||
| 1988 | Rush Week | A student reporter uncovers a series of murders and disappearances on her college campus. | [19] | ||||
| 1990 | Sorority House Massacre II | Five women restoring an old home as their new sorority house are murdered one by one. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1992 | Happy Hell Night | A psychotic priest stalks pledges during pledge week at a rural college. | Released in the United Kingdom as Frat Night | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2004 | The Hazing | Sorority pledges are stalked by a deranged professor during pledge night. | Also released as Dead Scared | style=text-align:center | [20] | ||
| 2006 | The Initiation of Sarah | Twin sisters with psychic powers join a sorority. | Remake of The Initiation of Sarah (1978) | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2006 | Black Christmas | Sorority sisters trapped in their sorority home during a Christmas snowstorm are stalked by a serial killer. | Remake of Black Christmas (1974) | style=text-align:center | [21] | ||
| 2007 | The Haunting of Sorority Row | Bert Kish | A sorority ritual leads to a ghost seeking revenge on sorority members. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2009 | Sorority Row | Sorority sisters graduating from college are stalked after covering up the death of a fellow sorority sister. | Remake of The House on Sorority Row (1983) | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2019 | Pledge | Freshman outcasts pledge a fraternity where each task turns increasingly more dangerous and a secret motive is revealed. | style=text-align:center | [22] | |||
| 2019 | Black Christmas | Sorority sisters are targeted by a psychotic killer during Christmas. | Second remake of Black Christmas (1974) | style=text-align:center | [23] | ||
| 2020 | Initiation | sortname | John Berardo | Multiple fraternity brothers are murdered by an unknown assailant, including a sorority sister's brother. | style=text-align:center | [24] | |
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Premise | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Suspiria | An American ballerina arrives at a German dance academy plagued by disappearances and deaths. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 2008 | The Haunting of Molly Hartley | A teenager struggles at her new preparatory school after her mentally-ill mother attempts to murder her. | style=text-align:center | [25] | ||
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Premise | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Les Diaboliques | A woman conspires with her husband's mistress to murder her husband, the principal of a boys' boarding school. | Released in the United States as Diabolique | style=text-align:center | [26] | |
| 1969 | The House That Screamed | At a 19th century boarding school for girls, students have begun to disappear under mysterious circumstances. | Also released as La Residencia. | style=text-align:center | [27] | |
| 1972 | Fear in the Night | A woman is tormented by an assailant at an empty boarding school where her husband has taken a job. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1973 | Satan's School for Girls | A new student at a girls' school suspects her peers of witchcraft. | Television film | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1975 | Picnic at Hanging Rock | The populace of an Australian women's boarding school is shaken by the disappearance of several students. | style=text-align:center | [28] | ||
| 1977 | The Possessed | Female students at a boarding school are plagued by satanic forces. | Television film | style=text-align:center | ||
| 1978 | Jennifer | A poor student at an elite boarding school takes revenge on the students who torment her. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1980 | To All a Goodnight | A group of girls at a finishing school are murdered by a killer in a Santa Claus suit during Christmas. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1985 | Phenomena | A girl who can communicate with insects helps solve a series of murders at a boarding school in the Swiss Alps. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1987 | Zombie High | A teenager suspects her boarding school classmates are under a mysterious influence. | style=text-align:center | [29] | ||
| 1998 | Laurie Strode, now the principal of a prestigious California boarding school where her son attends, is stalked by her brother, Michael Myers. | style=text-align:center | [30] | |||
| 2005 | Cry Wolf | An e-mail chain inspires pranks and potentially murder among students at a rural boarding school. | style=text-align:center | [31] | ||
| 2006 | The Woods | An outcast teenager in 1965 suspects sinister goings-on in the woods surrounding her new boarding school. | style=text-align:center | [32] | ||
| 2011 | The Awakening | A paranormal debunker arrives at a boys' boarding school to disprove alleged hauntings. | style=text-align:center | [33] | ||
| 2012 | The Moth Diaries | A female boarding school student suspects a new peer is a vampire. | style=text-align:center | [34] | ||
| 2015 | The Blackcoat's Daughter | Two young women encounter a mysterious demonic force while alone at their boarding school during a winter break. | Also released as February | [35] |
| Year | Title | Director(s) | Premise | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | I Was a Teenage Werewolf | A troubled high school student transforms into a werewolf. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1976 | Carrie | A bullied female student unleashes telekinetic powers at her high school prom. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1976 | Massacre at Central High | A high school is plagued by revenge killings involving bullied students and their oppressors. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1978 | A group of people trapped inside their high school during their ten-year reunion are killed off by a psychopath. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1980 | Prom Night | A killer stalks the teenagers of a local high school to avenge the death of a young girl years earlier. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1981 | Fear No Evil | A teenage outcast realizes he is the Antichrist, and seeks revenge against his high school classmates. | style=text-align:center | [36] | ||
| 1981 | Student Bodies | A killer stalks the students of a high school. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1981 | Graduation Day | The students on a high school track team are stalked and killed leading up to their graduation. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1981 | Happy Birthday to Me | Students at an upper-class academy are stalked by a killer leading up to a popular student's birthday. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1985 | Teen Wolf | A small-town high school student transforms into a werewolf. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1986 | Slaughter High | Eight people are invited to a ten-year high school reunion by a killer seeking revenge over his disfigurement in a prank gone wrong. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1987 | The ghost of a woman killed at her prom in 1957 possesses a current student. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1987 | Return to Horror High | The staff of a film company making a movie about real-life murders on location at a high school are stalked and killed. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1989 | Cutting Class | A problematic teenager's return to his high school coincides with a string of serial murders. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1990 | A high school student meets a female ghost at his high school and begins a relationship with her. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 1996 | Scream | A high school student is stalked by a masked killer who begins murdering her friends. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1998 | Disturbing Behavior | Three outcasts at a Washington high school suspect their too-perfect peers may be under a sinister influence. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1998 | The Faculty | Students at an Ohio high school suspect an alien life force is taking over their school. | style=text-align:center | |||
| 1999 | An outcast teenager (and half-sister of Carrie White) takes revenge on her tormentors during a high school party. | style=text-align:center | ||||
| 2000 | Cherry Falls | A serial killer stalks virgin students at a small-town high school. | style=text-align:center | [37] | ||
| 2002 | Carrie | A female bullying victim unleashes her telekinetic powers during a high school dance. | Television film | style=text-align:center | ||
| 2007 | Someone Behind You | A young female student is stalked by a lethal curse, causing her family and friends to attempt to kill her. | Released in the US in 2009, retitled as Voices | |||
| 2013 | Carrie | A female bullying victim unleashes her telekinetic powers during a high school dance. | style=text-align:center | [38] | ||