Summary

• Woodlands and forests are effective backdrops for horror stories, offering unique close-to-nature scares and allowing filmmakers to be more provocative.
• The best horror movies in the woods span various sub-genres of horror and feature gore, ghosts, monsters, psychological horror, and post-apocalyptic survival horror.
• Movies like "Annihilation," "The Ritual," and "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" demonstrate how a single forest location can be used in limitless ways within the horror genre.

Woodlands and forests are one of the most effective backdrops for horror stories, and the best horror movies in the woods use the unique close-to-nature scares only a forest or jungle can bring. They also tend to be more provocative, shocking, and experimental with their ideas. Some of the most well-known horror movies set in forests span various distinct sub-genres of horror and can boast some of the most notorious horror movies ever, thanks to movies like The Blair Witch Project, Deliverance, and many more.

From cult slasher favorites to critically acclaimed modern classics, the best horror movies set in the woods demonstrate how a single location can be used in a limitless number of ways, all within the same genre. Whether searching for gore, ghosts, monsters, psychological horror, or even post-apocalyptic survival horror, there's a horror movie set in a forest featuring almost every kind of threat imaginable. In day or night, the forests and woodlands prove to be perfect settings for some of the best horror movies to date.

25 Trollhunter (2010)

A Norwegian Found Footage Movie About Legendary Trolls

Stream now on Prime Video

Trollhunter is a Norwegian found-footage movie about a man hired to hunt trolls in the countryside by the government. In this world, the government knows trolls exist, and the main job is to keep them out of the public eye and in a part of the country where they can't hurt anyone. However, this is foiled when a group of student filmmakers set out to make a documentary about Hans, a suspected bear poacher. What they don't know is that Han is a troll hunter.

Trollhunter was directed by André Øvredal, who used it as a calling card to get jobs on movies like The Autopsy of Jane Doe and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

This is a found-footage movie, but since the kids are making a documentary, the movie shows some nice footage of the troll hunter in action, although the movie still utilizes a lot of the trappings of the genre, including shaky cam and quickly moving the camera away from the actual trolls.

24 The Ruins (2008)

A Movie About Killer Vines At A Mayan Temple

The Ruins, based on the novel by Scott B. Smith, is a movie that takes place at a Mayan Temple in Mexico. While technically in a jungle - and not the woods - the genre remains familiar. A group of travelers go into a strange, exotic land and not everyone makes it out alive. Nothing starts right for these travelers, as villagers show up with guns, knives, and other weapons and kill one of them when they try to leave. Forced back up the temple, the survivors realize the vines are the real threat.

The gross-out moments and the horror in the temple are enough to make most viewers squirm

The Ruins is a single-location horror movie, one that is both gruesome and bleak. It also resides in the body horror genre, as the vines attack and get into the skin of the travelers, forcing them to cut themselves open to get them out and, in some cases, undergo amputations to try to save their lives. This is a horror movie that fans won't watch for the characters, as none deserve much sympathy, but the gross-out moments and the horror in the temple are enough to make most viewers squirm.

23 Hatchet (2006)

Adam Green's Slasher Horror Calling Card