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The setting can make or break a horror movie, and small town America has been the perfect home for a myriad of classic chillers. Unlike urban settings, which have a certain amount of grit, small town America is an unassuming location for a horror story to take place. That’s why it makes for such an effective movie setting.
Urban horror plays on fears of crime, while small town horror is about the decay of innocence. Clever horror filmmakers are able to craft stories that not only feature plenty of frights, but include commentary about the ideology of small towns. Small town America has plenty of secrets just waiting to be exploited by the right horror story.
Slashers often use small towns as their setting, but only the very best do it right. That’s not to say that all small town horror is the same. There is a surprising amount of variety, from sci-fi monster movies, to old-fashioned ghost stories, and everything in between. Regardless of the execution, small town horror typically features the same themes.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Though most horror is entirely fictitious, The Town That Dreaded Sundown chronicles a real-life murder spree. Set in late 1940s Texarkana, the proto-slasher concerns a series of gruesome unsolved murders that shock and terrorize the town. It features Oscar winner Ben Johnson in the lead role, but is mostly remembered as a schlocky exploitation film.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown is certainly rough around the edges, but it captures the essence of small town horror perfectly. The real-life case is simultaneously examined and mythologized, and it straddles the line between fact and fiction. Slasher films were still finding their footing, and The Town That Dreaded Sundown helped to solidify certain themes.
The Crazies (2010)
The Crazies is one of the few horror remakes that is actually better than its predecessor. A peaceful town is suddenly attacked by zombies, and the government arrives to quarantine the area before the infection can spread. The original George Romero film from the ’70s is a classic too, but the 2010 remake heightens the chills.
Horror and action mingle together, and it’s a violent and cynical experience. The Crazies is the kind of story that only works in small town America because it utilizes the isolation of the fictional Ogden Marsh to its advantage. It remains an underrated horror film to this day, and it’s one of the better examples of the 2010s zombie boom.
Phantasm (1979)
Don Coscarelli’s independent horror classic, Phantasm, is unlike anything that had come before in the genre. A precocious teen who lives in a small Oregon town begins to notice strange things happening to his neighbors, and he suspects the creepy mortician might be the culprit. What starts as a typical chiller, becomes a fantastical descent into pure terror.
Phantasm spawned four sequels between 1988 and 2016.
Phantasm introduced the Tall Man, a classic horror villain who has grown a fanbase. The film itself is noteworthy for its imagination and ability to surprise, and it plays out like a nightmare. The movie’s small town setting is crucial to the story, and it intentionally contrasts the dullness of its setting with the unbridled fantasy of its horror.
The Blob (1988)
Both The Blob and its remake are set in small towns, but while the original was cute sci-fi, the remake is gruesome horror. A group of high schoolers in a secluded California town discover a flesh-melting gelatinous creature, and must stop it before it consumes everyone. The remake borrows the original’s story, but modernizes its frights for the ’80s.
The movie’s kills are memorable for their stomach-churning effects, and the remake shows exactly what happens to victims of the titular goo. The Blob tells the “nobody listens to the teens” narrative, and the youngsters are viewed as outsiders by their own neighbors. It could have taken place in a big city, but its small town setting is even creepier.
Salem’s Lot (1979)
Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot is one of the best early interpretations of the legendary wordsmith’s work. A writer returns to his idyllic hometown to craft his latest novel, only to discover an ancient vampire is taking over from the shadows. A modern-day Gothic chiller, Salem’s Lot is shockingly competent for a TV movie.
The town is filled with rich characters, and it is both a realistic and idealized view of small town America. The frightening twists on the vampire mythos are fresh yet familiar, and the window scene is perhaps the scariest moment in vampire cinema. Essentially, Salem’s Lot is about the slow death of the American small town in the ’70s.
The Fog (1980)
A few years after John Carpenter made small towns scary in Halloween, he did it again with The Fog. A picturesque California coastal town is drenched in thick fog, and they are forced to reckon with the dark history of their hamlet. From its opening ghost story narration to its eerie ending, The Fog is a classic horror tale.
The film hearkens back to the ghost tales of the Victorian era, but it has touches of modernity that make it even scarier. The movie pokes holes in the values of small town America, showing the skeletons buried just beneath the surface of history. It’s a slow build to a brilliant payoff, and The Fog values atmosphere above everything else.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is one of the first ghost stories in American history, and Tim Burton’s 1999 adaptation made the folk tale even scarier. New York City constable Ichabod Crane travels to the town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of strange murders. The Headless Horseman is an iconic villain on the page and screen.
Tim Burton brings his distinct design choices to the table, and Sleepy Hollow accentuates the violence of the story’s origin. Like most small town horror stories, it quickly becomes clear that all is not as it seems in the little village of Sleepy Hollow. As far back as the early 19th century, American horror stories featured small town settings.
Scream (1996)
With horror scrambling to find its identity in the 1990s, Wes Craven delivered his irreverent statement on the genre in Scream. The idyllic town of Woodsboro is rocked by a series of murders by a masked figure who is obsessed with horror films. By 1996, the small town America trope had already been played out, so Scream inverted that too.
Though it has slasher scares, Scream is also quite funny. Every detail is referential to horror’s past to the point that it becomes an almost parody of itself. Woodsboro poses as Everytown USA, but it’s very clear that the wealthy California suburb is hyperstylized too. The franchise has since left its original setting, but Scream wouldn’t have worked without it.
A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
Because Freddy Krueger quickly became a slasher icon, it’s easy to overlook A Nightmare on Elm Street as small town horror. When teens begin dying in their sleep, young Nancy discovers that they’re actually being killed by the spirit of a murderer in their dreams. Eschewing the simplicity of other slashers, Wes Craven’s gem brought imagination.
Robert Englund’s performance as Freddy is legendary, and his personality helped make the villain even creepier. The movie tries to pass off SoCal as a tiny hamlet in the Midwest, but largely fails. However, A Nightmare on Elm Street is like many of its small town American counterparts, because the backstory involves the shattering of the idealism of smaller communities.
Halloween (1978)
With the fear of random crime rising in 1970s middle America, John Carpenter had his finger on the pulse of the country when he made Halloween. Years after murdering his sister, Michael Myers escapes and returns to Haddonfield, Illinois to continue his spree. Though other slashers predate Halloween, it really kicked off the genre’s boom period.
South Pasadena, California is the perfect substitute for the average American small town, and it’s slightly idealized to drive the movie’s points home. Every moment is tense, and seeing Myers stalk through the quaint community still strikes fear in the hearts of viewers. Halloween isn’t just a perfect horror movie, but a perfect small town horror story as well.
