9 Campy Horror Movies to Watch this Halloween

Is there a more iconic duo than the month of October and watching scary movies? We don't think so. October means that Halloween is coming, and what better time to sit back and well...not relax, but sit back and get ready to be terrified by some good old-fashioned horror.

In honor of Halloween, we've taken a look at the campiest horror movies – those films that revel in excess, the outrageous, the theatrical, and the downright ridiculous. They're also really scary! Here are some of the campiest horror movies for your Halloween horror marathons.

"Sleepaway Camp" (1983)

Summertime offers a wonderful opportunity for kids to get away from their parents and have the ultimate summer getaway: summer camp. It's also teenagers to explore their sexuality without adults (camp counselors excluded). In "Sleepaway Camp," Angela (Felissa Rose) is shy, but she's looking forward to going to summer camp with her cousin. You know what happens next: things turn quickly south when the bodies start piling up.

"Sleepaway Camp" is also very much a product of its time. It's chock full of guys with impossibly short-shorts glistening in the sun. As camp as it is, it's also got some real issues, garnering a healthy amount of valid criticism for its transphobic killer motivations, but it is very much a product of its time. It's a valuable part of queer horror history, and it's frequently outrageous, very, very weird, and a whole lot of fun.

"Fright Night" (1985)

Not to be confused with Spider-Man, director Tom Holland (who also directed "Child's Play") made his mark with his debut film "Fright Night." The film is delightfully camp and queer – vampire Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) and his manservant (Stephen Geoffreys) live together under the guise that they antiquers. To make things ever queerer, the teenage boy living next door becomes obsessed with Jerry, to the point of neglecting his own girlfriend! Naturally, a story about a vampire hiding behind homosexuality to help ensure trust is absolutely loaded with subtext, and "Fright Night" more than delivers chills, thrills, and having a camp old time.

"Jennifer's Body" (2009)

Unfairly maligned when it was first released in 2009, Karyn Kusama's "Jennifer's Body," written by "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody, is one of the great horrors of recent memory. It's wickedly funny and features an excellent Megan Fox as Jennifer, who gets turned into a demonic succubus after a failed sacrifice. In order to sustain herself, she devours the boys at her high school – and importantly, she only kills men. It's also a great film for bisexuals, as Needy (Amanda Seyfried) loves her boyfriend, but also finds herself very much drawn to her bestie Jennifer. Responsible for many queer women's sexual awakening, "Jennifer's Body" is witty, vicious, and wonderfully camp.

"House" (1977)

One of the most outrageous movies ever made, Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi's "House" wears its campness like a badge of honor. The film follows a group of girls on an awesome summer vacation to a beautiful old home in the countryside. Things quickly get weird – and my word do they get weird with a capital W – as the house is extremely haunted. It's a film that's practically impossible to put in a box as it dances around every genre, but what it does deliver is camp for days, weeks, months, and years. A piano murdering someone? Check. Absolutely bonkers visual effects? Check. Severed heads laughing? You bet. When it comes to horror, it doesn't get much more fun than "House."

"Bride of Chucky" (1998)

The "Child's Play" franchise has been a staple in horror for quite some time now, recently getting a really solid reboot in 2019. It's also been a hit with queer audiences – it's got a freaking doll killing people! How could it not? Of all the films in the series, it's the hilariously gruesome "Bride of Chucky" that's the campest. A big reason for that is the introduction of the wonderful queer icon Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly). She was human, but gets turned into a doll (I don't know a camper sentence). She and Chucky then get together and start murdering, as a couple – how romantic! They even have a gender nonbinary child named Glen along the way.

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space" (1988)

Sometimes camp needs an explanation, and other times, a group of killer clowns appears from another planet to massacre humans, essentially rewriting the very notion of camp. It's absolutely, completely, and utterly nonsensical, but that's exactly what happens in the very literal and informative title "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". If you're scared of clowns, you probably won't survive more than a few seconds of the trailer, but it gives you a great idea of just how exaggerated and silly this movie is. In one scene, a giant clown emerges from a puppet show, shoots a kid, and kills him by...turning him into cotton candy. You really can't make this stuff up. Seriously, the clowns turn people into cotton candy to kill them! We can't believe "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" didn't sweep the Oscars.

"Cabin in the Woods" (2012)

If you like horror movies with a monumental amount of referential humor, you've found the movie of your dreams in "Cabin in the Woods." Directed by Drew Goddard, the film follows a group of friends who head to a remote cabin in the woods. It's the kind of movie that isn't afraid to make fun of itself, which lends itself to a huge number of laugh-out-loud moments. "The Cabin in the Woods" mocks modern horror and everything wrong with it with irreverence. It's all wickedly over-exaggerated, brimming with a delightful theatricality and know-it-allness that lends itself beautifully to being an unexpected camp classic.

"So Vam" (2021)

A young teen in a conservative Australian town dreams of leaving it all behind when he's old enough to pursue his goal of being a drag queen. One day, Kurt (Xai) is attacked by a predatory vampire who tries to kill him, but he's saved by a rebellious, queer gang of vamps who save him – but in order to do so, he must become a vampire. "So Vam" is bursting with ferocious queer energy. It has no interest in catering to a heterosexual audience, and every moment has a "for us, by us" kind of feel. There are a number of extended drag performance sequences, as well as cameos from drag queens Etcetera Etcetera and BenDeLaCreme. It's a low-budget camp extravaganza that has the look and feel of a polished underground queer movie. To top it all off, the writer-director Alice Maio Mackay is only 18 years old!

"Bodies Bodies Bodies" (2022)

This sensational horror satire is a pitch-perfect understanding of millennial culture. "Bodies Bodies Bodies" finds a group of wealthy twenty-somethings, including lesbian couple Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and Bee (Maria Bakalova) spending a weekend in a remote mansion. They decide to play the game bodies bodies bodies, but things go wrong when someone actually winds up dead. The film is a scathing whodunnit that keeps you guessing until the very end, but Halina Rejin's film is also incredibly funny, and consistently ridiculous. It's positively dripping in excess, from the exquisite home to the buckets of blood.