As a Horror Fan, I Think I Could Survive These 10 Movies

3 days ago 3

I've seen thousands of horror movies. The best work because, as the viewer, I can put myself in the plot right next to the characters and feel like I'm with them. That realism only increases the fear and has me wondering what I'd do if I were in the same situation. In Dawn of the Dead, how would I lock down the mall and take out the zombies? What's the way out if I'm lost in the woods of Maryland in The Blair Witch Project? How could I possibly escape the cult in Midsommar? Sometimes, there is no answer, and no matter what, I'm a goner. Still, there are those movies that I love yet know I could make it safely through. Sorry to the monsters in these classics, but I could totally escape from you.

1 'It Follows' (2014)

Maika Monroe as Jay Height and Lili Sepe as Kelly Height in It Follows.

It Follows is my favorite horror movie of the 21st century. David Robert Mitchell's masterpiece has such an intriguing premise: Jay (Maika Monroe) is being stalked by an entity passed down through sex that will not stop slowly walking toward her until it catches and kills its target. The only way to stop it is to pass the curse on to someone else through sex and hope they don't die.

The easiest way to survive It Follows is to simply not knock boots with anyone. Keep it in your pants, and you're good. Still, even if I gave in to temptation, I think I'd be all right. That entity is slow as hell. Get in your car and drive as fast as you can for a few hours every day or two, and you'll always be ahead of it. Even better, if I got on an airplane and flew to the other side of the country, I could buy myself weeks of peace. Best of all, get across the ocean to another country. It follows, but can it swim? Doubt it.

2 'Signs' (2002)

Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix shine a flashlight on a small figure and look tense in Signs.

Signs is a great alien invasion flick with a deeper message about grief and faith. Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Abigail Breslin, and Rory Culkin all kill it. Signs is a creepy movie with one of the best jump scares of all time. It's also where M. Night Shyamalan started to overthink it with the twists. As it turns out, these aliens are deathly allergic to water. So why in the hell did they invade a planet that is three-quarters liquid?!

If I were out in the middle of a cornfield, one-on-one with an alien, I might be in trouble. They're human-sized and don't seem to have super strength (a bat can defeat them), but it's iffy on whether I could take them in a fight. The best way to survive is to get on a boat. You'll live just fine there as long as you have enough supplies. I don't even really need that, though. I can hang out at home with a garden hose or sit by the kitchen sink with a gallon of water. Come and get some!

3 'Child’s Play' (1988)

Chucky (Brad Dourif) comes alive and attacks someone in Child's Play (1988).

Child's Play is the first horror movie I ever saw. Chucky is scary as hell. The phenomenal practical effects made it look like the Good Guy doll had come to life, and Brad Dourif's voice added a sinister element that other actors couldn't achieve so easily. Most of the time, Chucky is trying to kill little Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), but I have to suspend disbelief whenever he battles an adult.

If I ran into Chucky, I'd be scared half to death. A doll coming to life is going to freak me out, no matter what. Still, I could take that pint-sized creep. He's not even two feet tall and made of plastic. There are so many options to make it out of Child's Play alive. I could get in my car and drive away, or if I chose to go one-on-one, just wrap the dude up in a blanket, break out a baseball bat or a chainsaw, and go to town. If all else fails, fight him straight up. He's a doll! How strong can he be?

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of.

AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things.

You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door.

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you.

You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Blade Runner

You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either.
In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything.

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it.

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.

You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

4 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' (1974)

Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is considered among the best and scariest horror movies ever made. Hooper created a tense and dirty film so raw that it feels like a documentary. The viewer is right there with Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) as she screams her lungs out for an hour in a non-stop chase scene. Chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his cannibalistic family are on her heels to the very end.

I'm not cocky enough to say that I could take Leatherface in a simple fight. Chances are, I'm ending up on the hook. But these idiot victims bring their doom on themselves. For starters, never pick up creepy-looking hitchhikers on the side of the road. And most obvious of all, never stop at strange houses and walk right in! If I'm ever in the Texas back country, I'm having a tank full of gas in my car, pedal to the floor, and minding my own damn business.

5 'Barbarian' (2022)

Georgina Campbell as Tess Marshall looking scared in Barbarian

Zach Cregger's Barbarian had the perfect marketing campaign. A woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell), is staying in a house with a stranger named Keith (Bill Skarsgård), and there's something creepy in the basement. Is Keith the villain, or does something more evil lurk in the darkness? As it turns out, there is a creature with super strength downstairs, but I'm not staying around to find out.

Barbarian is one of those movies that has you shouting at the screen. If I show up at an Airbnb at night and someone else is there, I'm gone. And if I'm dumb enough to stay, then find what looks like a torture dungeon in the basement, see ya! I'm not waiting around for this person I just met to check things out first. They're on their own. I'm not dying over their stupidity.

6 'Night of the Living Dead' (1968)

A horde of zombies walks towards the camera in Night of the Living Dead (1968).

George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is the first modern zombie film. It created the rules, with the dead rising from their graves and shambling towards the living because of their need to eat human flesh. Burn them or put a bullet in their head, and the ghouls are toast, but with so many zombies out there, a group of survivors boards themselves up inside an abandoned farmhouse.

The group spends so much of the movie boarding themselves in when the best hope for survival is right there. Ben (Duane Jones) survives the night (the morning is a different story) by locking himself in the cellar where the monsters can't get in. If you don't have a cellar, look for somewhere that has an upstairs. I would have gone to the second floor of the house, taken out the stairs behind me, and waited for rescue. Zombies can't climb.

7 'Halloween' (1978)

Michael Myers, looking down from the stairs balcony, holding a knife in Halloween (1978).

Halloween is my all-time favorite movie. Michael Myers (Nick Castle), a silent shape in a white mask, is the epitome of terror. He has just escaped from a mental hospital and now wants to recreate the night he killed his sister 15 years ago. He picks poor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends as the ones who will help make it happen.

I could survive Halloween by staying out of Haddonfield. That's his home. And if I did live there, I'm taking a trip somewhere else on Halloween. Don't befriend Laurie Strode either. Sorry, girl, you're on your own. I'm not getting pulled into that drama. If, for whatever reason, Michael set his sights on me, I would jog away. The dude takes his sweet time. I'm wouldn't.

8 'Friday the 13th' (1980)

Betsy Palmer holding a knife as Pamela Voorhees in 'Friday the 13th'

Because I can only choose one movie, we'll go with the original Friday the 13th, but this could apply to just about any movie in the Friday the 13th franchise, unless you're stuck with Jason Voorhees in space in Jason X. I'm not getting off of that spaceship in one piece. The first film is about Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) killing a bunch of counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, with every sequel about her son, Jason, getting revenge.

Do not go to Camp Crystal Lake. Ever. There is literally a mass murder there every year. Screw it, I don't want to be a counselor, and I don't want to help kids. If I were a teenager, I would find a different summer job far away from that place. Mrs. Voorhees is an old woman, so I think I could take her. Jason can teleport, though, and nothing takes him down. Rather than risk it, I'm letting Jason have Crystal Lake. It's all yours, buddy.

9 'The Birds' (1963)

Melanie, played by Tippi Hedren, running with a little girl away from a swarm of attacking birds in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds is like a zombie movie with thousands of birds of every variety. For whatever reason, something triggers all of them to become rage-filled little monsters who want nothing more than to peck people to death. The movie is filled with plenty of tension, and Tippi Hedrin and Rod Taylor are icons, but they go through so much when they didn't need to.

I could survive The Birds because, well, they're birds. If I see a flock of them swarm someone, I'm out of there. Just get in my car and drive away. And if there's no car available, I find a shelter with no windows, or an interior room of a house, barricade the door, and wait it out.

10 'Jaws' (1975)

Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw in 'Jaws' as the shark launches out of the water

Jaws is the first-ever summer blockbuster and the movie that put Steven Spielberg on the map as the most successful director of our time. John Williams' score is terrifying and adds so much to this story about a killer great white shark who shows up in Amity and starts chomping down on the residents over the Fourth of July weekend. It's up to three men to stop the attacks, but they shouldn't have to.

Jaws is the easiest horror movie to survive. Stay out of the water. That's it. If you don't listen and have to swim in the ocean so badly, it's on you what happens next. I'll just hang out on the island. I could even sit on the beach if I wanted, or wade out a few feet and be fine. While others are being ripped in half in the ocean, I have no fear.