13 horror movies made in New Jersey

It’s getting darker earlier. Inside your home, you might hear the wind tap branches against a window or send fallen leaves skittering along your sidewalk.

It’s the perfect time of year for a good scare. And with Halloween this week, maybe you’re looking to dust off an old horror movie.

Did you know plenty of them were made in New Jersey?

Did you know one city in particular has the most horror movies filmed, per capita, in the country? Find out which New Jersey city is here.

So, with this much horror movie making happening here I thought I’d offer up a scary number of 13 examples for the spooky season (For details on each, you can visit IMDB.com).

13 Horror Movies Made In New Jersey

Creepshow

Remember the Stephen King comic book-style scary movie where one of the stories had Leslie Neilson playing a rich guy who finds out his wife is cheating on him with another man, played by Ted Danson?

He buries his wife and her lover up to their necks in the sand as the tide is coming in, with drowning being inevitable. That was shot at Island Beach State Park.

The Village

The M. Night Shyamalan movie about a dark evil living in the woods near a tight-knit community was partially filmed in Pedricktown.

Where is that? It’s a tiny, unincorporated town of less than 500 people in Salem County. How did he even find it? The scene where a driver stops at a gas station to ask about the mysterious village was filmed here, as was the scene where someone is nearly hit by a truck.

I Am Legend

The Will Smith movie that has him cast as the lone survivor of a mutant apocalypse had a scene that’s supposed to be a sanctuary in Vermont filmed in Mount Airy, New Jersey.

Jersey Shore Massacre

Okay, this one wasn’t winning any awards, and the goofball slasher film was produced by “Jersey Shore”’s Jenni “JWoww” Farley.

But it had so many New Jersey locations it’s a fun watch if you live here. It was not only shot in Seaside Heights but also in Woodbridge, Sparta, and Newton.

Insidious 5

It took until the fifth installment of the “Insidious” franchise to find New Jersey, but they did.

A yellow Victorian mansion near an entrance to Drew University was used as a frat house in the movie. They also filmed in Morristown and shot a funeral scene at Fair Mount Cemetery in Chatham.

Knock at the Cabin

This movie about four armed strangers showing up at a cabin in the woods where a family is vacationing and demanding they make a horrific choice to stop a coming apocalypse was shot in the Garden State.

The cabin was custom-built in Tabernacle. The Evergreen Dairy Bar in Southampton was used.

Torture Chamber

A movie about a 13-year-old boy who is demonically possessed. He escapes from an asylum and finds an abandoned castle with a secret torture chamber. (I hate when that happens!)

They used Lambert’s Castle in Paterson and Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg.

Friday the 13th

Perhaps the most obvious on the list. Filmed in Camp No-Be-Bos-Co, Hope, Freehold, and Blairstown, it’s Jersey to the core and the one everyone knows.

Cat’s Eye

Another Stephen King compilation of short stories movie with yet another one about a rich husband finding his wife cheating on him, this time with a tennis pro.

He forces the extramarital lover to walk the narrow ledge of a high-rise building high above the streets of Atlantic City. Stephen? Are you okay, buddy?

War of the Worlds

People often remember the aliens that emerged from the ground at Ferry Street in Newark in this Tom Cruise classic.

And that his character’s home is on Kennedy Boulevard in Bayonne. But did you know a lot of the movie’s sets were constructed in a warehouse near Bayonne Harbor?

Satan’s Playground

The one about a family stranded in the Pine Barrens and tormented by the Jersey Devil itself. This was shot entirely in Burlington County, New Jersey.

Smile

A lot of movies are filmed in New Jersey while the story is set elsewhere. Because Jersey is diverse enough, we can look at a lot of things. This one, though, was set here as well as filmed here. Rutgers Medical School, Union County Jail, and W Hoboken Hotel were all shooting locations, along with many others.

13th Child: The Legend of the Jersey Devil

Fitting to end a list of 13 with the number 13. This film about grisly homicides being investigated in the Pine Barrens was shot mostly in Wharton State Forest at Batsto Village.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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