Cold-blooded: 23 winter horror movies that will give you chills

In the 1957 horror film “The Abominable Snowman,” a group of scientists trek through the Himalayas in search of Yeti but find much more than they bargained for after encountering the dangerous and deadly beasts. Peter Cushing, Forrest Tucker, and Maureen Connell star in this entertaining Hammer Films-produced creature feature, which is inventive, original, and just a bit absurd.

Written and directed by David Cronenberg, “The Brood” is the unsettling and disturbing tale of a separated couple’s custody battle (Croenenberg created the film just after his own bitter divorce) complete with a peculiar psychotherapist, mysterious bruises and injuries, and creepy little dwarf children. One of the legendary director’s early works, “The Brood” is now considered a cult classic. 

A job as the winter caretaker of a mountaintop hotel seems like the perfect fit for a writer who needs peace and quiet, but all work and no play makes Jack (Jack Nicholson) a dull boy, and the cabin fever eventually takes hold, much to the detriment of Jack’s snowed-in wife and young son. In “The Shining,” director Stanley Kubrik’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, winter weather plays a big role…right up until the frigid final scene.

If you think Kubrik’s “The Shining” can’t be topped, here’s another legendary film from another brilliant director. John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is an adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1938 novella “Who Goes There?,” in which a group of people stranded at a scientific outpost in Antarctica are terrorized by an alien infiltrator who can absorb and imitate any living being. “The Thing” has all the seclusion of “The Shining,” but with an added helping of paranoia, as you — and all the characters — have no idea who the killer is, even when you’re looking right at them.

The snow takes a while to show up in the 1983 slasher “Curtains,” but eventually there’s ice skating, a snowmobile, and even a snow-covered car that — gasp! — won’t start. Oh, and there’s also a masked murderer who stalks a group of attractive actresses as they audition at the remote mansion of their sleazy director. This Canadian whodunit is very slow burn, but the bodies eventually start piling up, so stick with it until the final curtain.

Honestly, all you need to know about “Dead of Winter” is that it’s a horror film in which Mary Steenburgen plays not one, not two, but three different roles! The story of an actress (Steenburgen) who is lured to a remote mansion to screen-test for a part but ends up being held against her will is based on the 1941 mystery novel “The Woman in Red,” which was previously adapted for the big screen as “My Name is Julia Ross” (1945).

The ‘80s were saturated with summer camp slasher movies, but “The Chill Factor” went in another direction with a snow-filled horror film. Okay, not exactly, as the young group of vacationers in rural Wisconsin still visit the site of a former summer camp…but there are snowmobiles…and a Satanic backstory…and killer demons! Note: “The Chill Factor” was also released under the title “Demon Possessed.”

People vividly remember Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) taking in — and eventually hobbling — Paul Sheldon (James Caan), after he becomes injured in a car crash, but if you haven’t seen “Misery” in a while, you might have forgotten that the crash was caused by a blizzard. Directed by Rob Reiner, “Misery” was adapted from a Stephen King novel, holds a 91% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and earned Bates both a Golden Globe and an Oscar. 

We love to watch “Jack Frost” (1997) and its sequel during the holiday season, but there’s really nothing Christmassy about this snowy slasher other than it taking place in December and being a loose parody of “Frosty the Snowman.” Don’t get it confused with the “Jack Frost” that came out a year later; that one is a heartwarming family fantasy film starring Michael Keaton, and this one has a snowman decapitating a teen with a sled. And it’s much funnier. (If you like the first one, you’ll love the even cheesier “Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.”

Years before Trey Parker and Matt Stone found fame with “South Park,” they made a movie about the ill-fated journey of prospector Alfred Packer, whose party became stranded while crossing Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and resorted to cannibalism. Despite the grim story, the movie is a wacky comedy and, as the title indicates, also a musical. Filmed on a meager budget of $125,000, “Cannibal! The Musical” was initially released in 1993, but received a larger distribution when it was picked up by Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment in 1996.

You don’t see a lot of cannibal western films inspired by multiple true stories, but that’s the case with 1999’s “Ravenous.” Starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, and David Arquette, the Antonia Bird-directed film centers on a U.S. Army lieutenant who is banished to an outpost in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountain range during the Mexican-American War and encounters both cannibals and zombies. Although it flopped in theaters, “Ravenous” has since found a cult following as something of a black comedy.

What a cast! “Dreamcatcher” stars Thomas Jane, Timothy Olyphant, Jason Lee, and Damian Lewis as a group of friends who encounter a deranged colonel (Morgan Freeman) and his second-in-command (Tom Sizemore) during a hunting trip in the Maine wilderness. Because it’s based on a Stephen King story, the friends also encounter aliens and giant worm-like creatures and they all have telekinetic abilities. It’s as bonkers as it sounds, and best left to fans of gore and ridiculous storylines.

A group of environmentalists investigating man’s effect on climate change in Alaska soon realize the true power of nature after a series of mysterious events starts killing them off one by one. Ron Perlman helms the cast of this tense thriller that was written and directed by Larry Fessenden and given favorable reviews from critics and audiences alike.

Modern-day slasher franchises are few and far between, which is part of the reason we appreciate the Norwegian “Cold Prey” trilogy. It introduces the Mountain Man, a killer who victimizes unsuspecting tourists in the Scandinavian Mountains of Southern Norway. The initial installment was praised on the film festival circuit, and the sequel was a decent follow-up, but the third, a prequel, is best forgotten. In 2017, WWE Studios obtained the rights to the “Cold Prey” franchise, which they reportedly plan to reboot.

“30 Days of Night” takes place in a northern Alaskan town, which means there’s a lot of darkness and a lot of snow. There also happens to be a lot of vampires that descend on the town, which is what makes this David Slade-directed effort a horror film. “30 Days of Night” is based on a comic book miniseries of the same name, released in 2002.

“Let the Right One In” is a romantic vampire film, but that doesn’t mean it’s full of sparkly skin, six-pack abs, and melodrama. Instead, the Swedish horror movie is a well-told tale of two very different adolescents — a victim of relentless bullying and a vampire — who form a strong, unique friendship. It’s sweet and it’s scary. It’s beautiful and it’s bloody. And, unlike the “Twilight” series, “Let the Right One In” received near-universal acclaim.

A winter vacation goes awry for two families when the kids become infected with a mysterious virus and violently turn on the parents, who inevitably turn on each other. “The Children” offers a fresh take on the “demon child” genre as it pushes the envelope with scene after scene of unsettling, often disturbing youth-centric violence. Both this film and 2007’s “The Killing Gene” were greeted with such high praise that it makes you wonder why writer/director Tom Shankland switched to directing TV shows after making only two movies.

“Dead Snow” is packed with action, gore, and very violent deaths, but it’s also about Nazi zombies (like old-school WWII Nazis), so it’s hard to take the Norwegian horror film too seriously. And although it can be dark and dreary — especially in a snowy setting — writer and director Tommy Wirkola laced the script with occasional humor. A sequel, “Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead,” was released in 2014. The follow-up adds Martin Starr to the cast, leans more into comedy, is in English, and the Nazi zombies face off against Soviet zombies.

You know those movies where a couple of people get stranded in a dangerous situation (like the ocean in 2003’s “Open Water,” under a boulder in 2010’s “127 Hours,” high in a tower in 2022’s “Fall, etc.)? That’s “Frozen” (2010), except the setting is a chairlift on a ski mountain. In addition to dealing with the consequences of a malfunctioning transportation system, the three unfortunate souls must cope with frigid temperatures, incidental injuries, and hungry wolves. Unlike the campier “Hatchet” slasher franchise, this Adam Green offering is grisly, gut-wrenching, and terrifyingly possible. 

Five hikers venture into a Russian mountain range to find out what happened to a nine-person party that mysteriously disappeared decades earlier, only to — shockingly — encounter deadly dangers of their own. “The Dyatlov Pass incident,” which claimed the lives of nine experienced trekkers, was a real event, but nothing else about the found-footage horror film “Devil’s Pass” is true…which you’ll realize when the story starts veering into supernatural territory.

Creepy old house movies are a dime a dozen, but “We Are Still Here” manages to put a fresh spin on the genre. Written and directed by Ted Geoghegan, the 2015 horror film centers on a couple who move into a new home in New England after the untimely death of their young son, but his memory isn’t the only thing that ends up haunting them. “We Are Still Here” received rave reviews and currently holds a 95-percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Following their father’s affair and mother’s suicide, two teenagers are reluctant to accept their future stepmother (Riley Keough), whom they blame for the traumatic events. However, the extent in which the kids go to make her feel unwelcome during a winter vacation — including drugging, robbing, and gaslighting her into questioning reality — make “The Lodge” a truly chilling psychological horror movie. Critics championed the film, specifically praising Keough’s performance.

The seventh installment of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise takes place on a farm in Buffalo, New York, so you know there’s going to be snow. Released in 2021, “Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin” centers on a young woman named Margo (Emily Bader) who travels to an Amish commune with her documentary crew to find out who her mother is and why she abandoned her as a baby. Margo expected to face some demons on the trip, but not the kind she eventually encounters.