10 Scary Movies to Watch Before Your Camping Trip
Spooky season is my favorite time of the year to go camping. The temps are perfect for curling up in a sleeping bag, the trees are showing off their gorgeous colors, and college kids are running through the forest, screaming in terror.
Well, hopefully not that last one. But if you’re like me, you enjoy the thrill of being a little creeped out while huddled around a warm campfire, miles from civilization.
During my college years, some friends and I went on extended float trips down the Buffalo National River in Arkansas. We would stow our camping gear in garbage bags, fill our coolers with food, and strap it all into our canoes for a long weekend of paddling and camping.
The night before each trip, after the hustle and bustle of packing gear and shopping for supplies, we had a tradition of watching a classic movie about a group of buddies who have a wonderful bonding experience while canoeing Georgia’s fictional Cahulawassee River. It’s called Deliverance, and absolutely nothing goes wrong in this heartwarming flick!
Okay, okay, maybe it didn’t have the happiest of endings, but it did provide a little bit of nightmare fuel for us college kids while we were lying awake in our tents, wondering if we were actually hearing that banjo music or not. If you are a sucker for this type of punishment, please enjoy the list I’ve curated for you.
Here are 10 scary movies to watch the night before your next camping trip. They are all set in the woods, and feature creepy cabins, poor souls getting lost, and a cornucopia of scares to get your heart rate going before you strap on your backpack.
I’ve also included a delightful, short animated series in this list, halfway down, just for those fraidy-cats out there. But otherwise, I’m just going to give a blanket trigger warning for every other movie in this list.
Bad things happen to pretty much everyone involved. So if there are particular things that make you squeamish, I can only say enter at your own risk. These are horror movies, after all!
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Best Scary Movies for Camping Trips
Wrong Turn
A group of college kids on a camping trip in West Virginia spend the movie being terrorized by a family of inbred cannibals. Our heroes make dumb decisions that will have you yelling at the screen throughout the entire film, which is always fun.
My favorite part was a chase scene that takes place in the upper branches of towering old-growth pine trees. It will make you think twice before taking shortcuts down unknown dirt roads!
Friday the 13th
Might as well get this one out of the way!
A horror film so ingrained in our cultural psyches that every time we see someone wearing a hockey mask, we give an involuntary shudder. This film is very low-budget, but that kind of adds to the creepy feel of being stalked through the woods by a crazy killer.
If you don’t like this one, there are 11 more in the series to choose from, not to mention all the summer camp movies that this series inspired.
The Blair Witch Project
A trio of film students venture into Maryland’s Black Hills Forest to film a documentary about a local legend, the Blair Witch.
They hear strange noises at night, get lost trying to get out, and eventually turn on each other. Although it’s not the original found-footage film, it did influence an entire genre of movies that relied upon shaky hand-held cameras to create a sense of scary realism.
It’s the things you don’t see on camera that makes this film creepy. Who wouldn’t be kept awake at night by hearing children cackling in the middle of the woods?
The Witch
Were you disappointed to not see any witches in The Blair Witch Project? If so, there are plenty of horrifying witchy scenes in this movie to freak you out.
It’s moody, atmospheric, and dripping with themes to ponder. Much of the film was based directly on historic accounts of 1600s New England, from the dialogue and costumes to the authentically built farm setting.
These characters are terrified of stepping a single foot into the woods at the edge of their farm, which makes it a perfect addition to this list.
Over the Garden Wall
Let’s dial it down a notch. If scary movies just aren’t your thing, this beautifully animated limited series is adorable, and has the perfect Halloween vibe.
Two brothers get lost in a mysterious forest straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and they stumble from one adventure to the next trying to find their way out.
And though they get swept up in many spooky situations, happy endings abound. It’s clever, funny, heartwarming, and safe for kids, who shouldn’t be watching any of the movies in this list.
Eden Lake
A couple goes camping at a lake in the English countryside to get away from it all, only to be harassed by a group of hooligan teenagers.
I didn’t think this premise sounded scary at first, until I watched the bully in charge of this gang manipulate his friends into doing bad things to this poor couple.
I always imagined that the woods of merry old England would be a pleasant place, but I was wrong!
Backcountry
Maybe you aren’t into witches or really mean hillbillies. How about cute fluffy bears, do you like those?
Very, very loosely based on true events, this is the story of a woman on her first backpacking trip, and her jerk of a boyfriend who got them lost on the hiking trail.
Did you know that your tent might not be the safest place to hide from a murderous animal? Sweet dreams, campers!
Dale and Tucker vs Evil
What if the hillbillies were actually kind-hearted good old boys, and that scary cabin in the woods was actually their fixer-upper vacation home?
Thanks to a series of ridiculous misunderstandings, a group of camping college kids become convinced that Dale and Tucker are chainsaw murderers, and hilarity follows.
This one is great if you want a laugh instead of a jump scare.
The Ritual
A group of mates go backpacking in Sweden to have a memorial service for their recently lost friend. When one of them strains his knee, they decide to take a shortcut through an expansive and dark old-growth forest. Great idea, right?
I don’t want to hint at what scary things they find, because it’s a lot more fun to go into this one blind. This movie does foreboding dread so well, and the cinematography is stunning at times.
It is well-acted, and has the best character development out of all the movies on this list.
Deliverance
Surely you knew this one would be included! This truly is a classic, and I would expect that you’ve heard of it at some point.
The Cahulawassee River is about to be dammed up, but not before Burt Reynolds bullies his friends into a quick canoe trip down what he calls “the last wild river in the south.” These guys are clearly in over their heads from the start, and everything goes wrong.
Cue that banjo music!
Whether you want a little thrill next time you go camping, or to just live vicariously through the misadventures of these on-screen campers, I hope you found something on this list that appeals to you! Happy camping!
Josh J has been a full-time RVer for six years, and a boondocker for the past two years. His love for the outdoors started with wandering the woods surrounding the farm that he grew up on in Arkansas. He spent his high school and college years hiking, backpacking, canoeing, and rock climbing every hollow and stream he could find in the Ozark National Forest. He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Master’s degree in Geography, and is now an author. His writing can be found at joshjones.pro, and you can follow his travels @cheesecloak on Instagram.
