Postcards from Hell: 5 Horror Movies That’ll Have You Rethinking That Summer Vacation
In the world of horror, a vacation is never just a vacation—it’s an invitation to chaos. From dusty highways that stretch into nowhere to charming towns with a sinister secret, the genre has turned travel into a one-way ticket to terror and the only souvenir you’re leaving with is trauma. So cancel those travel plans—or at least triple-check the tire pressure—because these horror films prove the scariest thing on the itinerary is survival.
Downrange (dir. Ryuhei Kitamura)
Where You Can Watch: AMC+
When it comes down to road trips, I am staying far away from remote country roads. I watch way too many movies to know that nothing good comes from them. Ryuhei Kitamura’s Downrange is one of my biggest fears on film. The plot is simple: a group of friends are on a road trip traveling through a remote country road when, out of nowhere, one of the tires on the SUV suffers a blowout. Now I know what you’re thinking: just change out the tire! Well, that’s easier said than done. How is a person supposed to change out a tire when a sniper is aiming for their head?
Where Downrange succeeds most is in its brutal honesty. It doesn’t offer easy answers, predictable arcs, or safety nets for the audience. This is horror born of helplessness, randomness, and the cruel reality that sometimes, bad things just happen.
Turistas (dir. John Stockwell)
Where You Can Watch: VOD
This 2006 entry into the post-Hostel wave set against the lush, sun-drenched backdrop of Brazil follows a group of backpackers whose dream vacation quickly spirals into a living nightmare. The story kicks off with a group of tourists stranded after a bus crash in a remote area. What begins as a scenic detour quickly turns sour as the group is drugged, robbed, and ultimately hunted down by a shady surgeon who believes he’s serving justice by harvesting organs from privileged outsiders.
Turistas don’t hold back once it shifts into full survival mode. It’s gruesome, tense, and unafraid to get dark. There’s a gritty realism to some of the gore that gives the film an edge over more over-the-top genre entries, even if it never quite reaches the psychological punch of something like Hostel.
Timber Falls (dir. Tony Giglio)
Where You Can Watch: PLEX
Timber Falls is a movie that I’d watch often because Syfy had it on a weekly rotation. A young couple making their way through West Virginia for a camping trip encounters an unnamed woman who advises them to take the Timber Falls path due to its scenic beauty. Ignoring the obvious red flags, Mike wakes up the next morning with Sheryl nowhere to be found. Timber Falls is a bloody cautionary tale about the dangers of wandering too far off-trail—especially when the trail ends at a shack filled with scripture, syringes, and some very intense family planning. It’s exploitative, over-the-top, and more than a little messed up, but in a guilty-pleasure kind of way.
Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (dir. Louis Morneau)
Where You Can Watch: VOD
You thought we’d heard the last of Rusty Nail? Nope! Our killer trucker is back, and he’s still mad about people touching his stuff. This horror sequel centers around four travelers en route to Las Vegas: Melissa, her fiance Bobby, her rebellious sister Kayla, and Kayla’s online boyfriend Nik. When their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, the group makes the ill-advised decision to “borrow” an abandoned muscle car from a nearby house. That car, of course, belongs to none other than Rusty Nail, and he doesn’t take kindly to trespassers. Dead Ahead offers a darker, bloodier ride than the first film, which is why I actually prefer it more.
Primal (2010) (dir. Josh Reed)
Where You Can Watch: AMC+
There’s something deeply unsettling about watching the human body betray itself, especially when it’s triggered by nothing more than a dip in the wrong watering hole. Primal taps into that primal (pun intended) fear with a bloody, chaotic, and surprisingly stylish spin on creature horror. Taking place in the remote Australian outback, Primal follows a group of six friends on an expedition to study ancient cave art because we all know that in horror, nothing good ever comes from archaeology in the middle of nowhere. When one of them takes a swim in a nearby pool, she soon begins to bleed, scream, and transform into something far more savage than human. And baby, that’s just the beginning.
What starts as a slow burn quickly descends into visceral chaos. The infected become fast, violent, and almost feral. Soon, the group must figure out how to survive not only their monstrous friend, but what seems to be a chain reaction of transformation.
Categorized:Editorials
