9 Most Campy Horror Movies From the Last 5 Years, Ranked

Image via Universal Pictures Published Oct 25, 2026, 9:31 AM EDT Brad LaCour is a Senior List Writer for Collider. Based out of Los Angeles, California, Brad lives close enough to the stars but is too busy to find out where exactly they live. Brad is fairly certain he's seen Paul Stanley twice in a grocery store, but was too afraid to ask. Sign in to your Collider account Horror is a genre that can be many things, and although the legendary films are the ones that cause nightmares, there's a strong audience for the offbeat and campy entries. Campy isn't a mark of shame for horror; it's a term of endearment for anyone who grew up on '80s slashers where the plot took a backseat to fun escapism for an hour and a half. It's exciting to see thought-provoking horror movies like Sinners finding an audience, but as the recent release M3GAN 2.0 proves, there's room for campy horror movies as well. The following films are some of the best campy horror movies of the last five years, ranked by just how well they balance the silly with the scares. 9 'It's a Wonderful Knife' (2023) Image via Shudder Holidays are the perfect time to reconnect with old friends, spend time with family, and stop serial killers in the Frank Capra story on acid, It's a Wonderful Knife. Winnie (Jane Widdop) manages to kill the psychopath known as The Angel before they can claim more victims, but the act of committing murder haunts her and leaves lasting emotional damage. When her life seems to be falling apart a year later, Winnie is given a chance to see what her town of Angel Falls would have looked like if she had never been born. It's a Wonderful Knife takes the well-covered concept of a person seeing their friends and family living in a world where they didn't exist, and throws a few dead bodies in every few minutes to keep things lively. It's a slasher packed with holiday spirit, focusing on a Christmas message of thankfulness for loved ones who haven't been stabbed to death. Add to that a standout creepy performance from Justin Long as the town's ruthless mayor, and horror fans can add a new movie to their festive watch list. 8 'Malignant' (2021) Image via Warner Bros. In Malignant, Madison (Annabelle Wallis) is a hopeful mother-to-be who experiences head trauma after an attack by her husband. The incident causes Madison to experience a series of visions that align with vicious murders happening around town. Facing suspicion from the police about her involvement, and not trusting her own memories, Madison is forced to find the killer before she can hope to have a peaceful life. For a large portion of Malignant, the movie operates as a horror with a strong mystery component, searching for the culprit behind the brutal murders. However, once the killer is revealed, the "camp meter" on Malignant explodes, and the movie becomes a wild supernatural rampage of epic proportions. For some, the time it takes for the movie to shake off the overly serious tone to introduce the pulpy horror might be too long, but it's a hell of an ending for those with a little patience. 7 'Slay' (2024) Image via Blue Ice Pictures Four drag queens — Trinity the Tuck, Heidi N Closet, Cara Melle, and Crystal Methyd — take on a slew of vampires in the campy horror flick Slay. After a misunderstanding about their venue sends four drag performers to a rundown dive bar, they perform for the roughneck clientele until vampires arrive to devour everyone inside. With the performers and locals forced to rely on one another, they’ll have to prepare a defense to survive until dawn. A limited release as a Tubi original has prevented a wider audience from finding the vampire movie, but Slay is the type of campy B movie that has the potential to gain a following in the years to come. Slay uses its low budget to the best of its ability, so as long as there's a tempered expectation of the visuals, the movie is an enjoyable piece of kitsch horror that is more funny than terrifying. 6 'Willy's Wonderland' (2021) Image via Screen Media Films Robotic children's characters come to life to kill anyone in their path in the horror comedy Willy's Wonderland. Blown-out tires lead a silent Nicolas Cage to work off his debt by cleaning up a decrepit children's entertainment restaurant overnight. When the animatronic character comes to life with violent intentions, Cage has no choice but to kill it one by one before finishing his work. Willy's Wonderland was released before its clear inspiration, Five Nights at Freddy's, hit theaters, but amazingly, they don't have all that much in common. Willy's Wonderland is a bizarre piece of grindhouse fiction where a completely silent Cage shows that he can give crazed performances without using words, taking breaks between killing possessed robots (that very much look like humans in unlicensed mascot outfits) to do an intense dance while playing pinball. Those looking for a movie light on plot, but heavy on irony should make Willy's Wonderland the subject of their next watch party. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you. 😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger) 🧸Chucky(Child's Play) 📞Scream(Ghostface) 🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files) FIND YOUR NIGHTMARE → 01 Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you. ASomebody falling asleep when they really should not. BA toy that has moved, and nobody touched it. CA phone ringing in an empty house. DA child talking to somebody who is not there. NEXT QUESTION → 02 You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything. AI am exhausted and my mind is playing tricks on me. BSomething in this room is not where I left it. CSomebody is in here with me. DThis house has never felt entirely right. NEXT QUESTION → 03 Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does. ANever fall asleep. BNever leave it out of your sight. CNever answer the phone. DNever go down to the basement. NEXT QUESTION → 04 Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight. AConvince myself I imagined the whole thing. BTell someone, and brace for them not believing me. CWork out which person I know could be behind it. DGet everybody in the house into one room. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking. AFine during. Wide awake at two in the morning. BShouting at the screen that nobody is listening. CCalling the twist out loud before it lands. DThrough my fingers, holding on to something. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing. AFall asleep in a room I have never been in before. BKeep an old doll on the shelf facing my bed. CAnswer every unknown number that calls after midnight. DSpend one night alone in a house with a history. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do. ANot wanting to turn the bedroom light off. BNot trusting one particular object in my house. CLooking twice at people I have known for years. DFeeling like something came home with me. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare. AThat I am still asleep, and it knows it. BThat the thing nobody believed me about is here. CThat somebody with a key is downstairs. DThat something is in the doorway, watching us sleep. REVEAL MY NIGHTMARE → The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind. Elm StreetYour nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument. Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever. You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage. These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired. You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep. ChuckyYour nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it. Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you. You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too. The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults. By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own. ScreamYour nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them. Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party. You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films. The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention. Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home. The ConjuringYour nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving. The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary. Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds. This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be. Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 5 'Clown in a Cornfield' (2025) Image via RLJE Films Some titles of movies don't properly establish the premise of the story, but Clown in a Cornfield doesn't have that problem. The slasher film follows the arrival of Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) to the economically devastated town of Kettle Springs, where her father has relocated to open a medical practice. Quinn has barely gotten to make friends before they become the victims of the murderous Frendo the Clown, the former mascot of the closed Corn Syrup factory, which the town relied on. Clown in a Cornfield has its fair share of camp qualities, boasting a killer that somehow evades detection but wears floppy shoes that squeak with every step. However, the most surprising thing about Clown in a Cornfield is that it doesn't lean as much into the absurdity of the premise as the name or marketing of the film would suggest. Amidst the comedic moments and clown carnage is a story about generational disconnect and the resentment that comes with it. 4 'Abigail' (2024) Image via Universal Pictures In Abigail, a crew of strangers is hired to kidnap a small girl in hopes of a big ransom, but they fail to find out if their defenseless victim is actually a vampire. When the kidnappers find themselves trapped in their rendezvous spot with a hungry, pint-sized creature of the night, they’ll soon learn their criminal expertise won’t stop them from becoming a midnight snack. The premise hints at a sillier movie than what it delivered, but Abigail doesn't take itself too seriously. The movie occasionally attempts to ground the characters, mainly Melissa Barrera's antihero Anna, with sympathetic motivations, but the film works best when it's untrustworthy criminals against a vampiric little girl. Prioritizing fun over scares, Abigail is a haunted hayride of a movie where viewers will see the plot twists coming, but the talented cast makes the most of them. 3 'Heart Eyes' (2025) Image via Sony Pictures Releasing Sparks fly between Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding), but their meet-cute turns into a nightmare in the slasher/romantic comedy hybrid Heart Eyes. In the film, a killer who targets couples on Valentine's Day, known as the Heart Eyes Killer, starts the next phase of their rampage in Seattle. The timing couldn't be worse for Ally, who is in the midst of a personal and professional crisis when the serial killer mistakes Ally's work meeting for a steamy date. Heart Eyes is a rare movie that actually tries to blend the "will they or won't they" of a romantic comedy with the slasher genre that requires frequent bodies slain in the name of entertainment. Motivations for most of what the characters do fall into the category of "because the script said so," but the campy presentation within the comedy smooths out some of those rough edges. Hardcore horror fans might find Heart Eyes an uninspired watch, but if it were between this and Must Love Dogs, they'd probably pick the slasher. 2 'Cocaine Bear' (2023) A large American black bear lives like a kingpin in the '80s in Cocaine Bear. When a shipment of cocaine is dropped into a national forest, a large bear eats the white gold and becomes an aggressive apex predator. Caught in the eyelines of the cocaine bear are the drug dealers looking for their shipment and a concerned mother looking for her daughter who skipped school. There are horror movies that explore social issues using frightening symbolism, and then there are movies about bears who like to party and kill people. Cocaine Bear is the second kind of movie. Direct and to the point, Cocaine Bear is a B movie blessed with strong actors like Ray Liotta and Margo Martindale having fun with a silly script and running from a CGI bear. The pacing is a little uneven at times, but not enough to completely pull viewers out entirely. 1 'M3GAN' (2022) Image via Universal Pictures In M3GAN, a fatal car accident sends Cady (Violet McGraw) to live with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams), who works as a robotics engineer. Gemma struggles to connect with Cady, but after seeing the grieving child play with one of her robots, the aunt finishes an experimental build of a companion robot named M3GAN. After pairing Cady with M3GAN, the robot becomes overly protective of the girl, violently removing anything she interprets as a threat. For whatever M3GAN lacks in scares, it makes up for with a strong satirical voice that resonates with audiences. M3GAN introduces some concepts about grief and embracing responsibility that it isn't that interested in following through on, but when it focuses on the killer doll being creepy, the film hits its mark. There were killer toys before M3GAN, and many more to come after, but her sense of humor, along with those viral dance moves, guarantees she will continue showing up in many movies to come. M3GAN Release Date January 6, 2023 Runtime 102 minutes