The Top 10 Scary Movies That’ll Turn You into an Adult (Proceed With Caution!)

Another film I adore, Thelma, follows another young woman on her own at university for the first time. But instead of struggling with a taste for human flesh, the titular Thelma (Eili Harboe) begins to discover and embrace her homosexuality and telekinetic abilities simultaneously.

Raw is one of my favorite films ever made. The story of a young woman who goes to veterinary school and develops a taste for all kinds of flesh, including human, after eating meat for the first time as part of a hazing ritual isn’t just one of the best horror and coming-of-age movies of the last decade; it’s one of the best movies, period.

Ginger Snaps tells the story of two teenage sisters and best friends after one of them is bitten by a giant wolf, and her body starts to change. Lycanthropy is an incredibly on-the-nose metaphor for adolescence. But the movie uses it to genuinely explore how changes to your body lead to changes in your outlook, relationships, and how you carry yourself.

Based on the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In centers on a tween boy Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), who meets a strange new neighbor girl who may not be entirely human. Over the course of the movie, the two develop a friendship that changes both of their lives forever.

Jennifer’s Body took about a decade to be correctly appreciated, but now the film is considered a cult classic. The movie, which centers on two friends after one becomes a succubus in a failed sacrifice ritual, is a delightful horror comedy about how teenage girls build each other up and tear each other down.

Carrie was the first movie to bring Stephen King’s work to the screen, and if it weren’t the masterpiece it is, who knows if we’d live in a world with hundreds of movies and TV shows based on King’s work. The movie follows the titular Carrie (Sissy Spacek), a shy girl who is bullied after she has her first period while simultaneously discovering she has telekinetic

powers.

The Witch tells the story of a Puritan family exiled from their colonial community for being too extreme. They then set up their own home, far removed from other people, by the edge of woods that may be home to a witch.

As things go wrong around their house, suspicions are directed at teenage daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who struggles to prove her innocence in the face of superstition. It’s a remarkable movie that’s one of the best feminist coming-of-age films of the 21st century, if not all time.

Another movie about teens and sexuality, It Follows, has been called a movie about a “sexually transmitted demon.” While that’s a joke, it’s pretty spot-on.

The movie centers on a young woman who begins to be followed by a mystical entity after sleeping with a date. The only way to get rid of it is to pass it on to someone else by sleeping with them. It’s a high-concept, but It Follows plays the premise straight and delivers a thought- provoking, emotionally resonant, and scary film.

Almost the inverse of Let the Right One In, Fright Night follows a teenage boy who believes his next-door neighbor is a dangerous and evil vampire. As the movie goes on, he brings friends and a television host who’s supposedly knowledgeable about the supernatural into his quest to take down his (possibly) villainous neighbor.

This thread inspired this post.

Teeth is perhaps more famous for its premise than what it actually is. Yes, the movie is about a teenage girl whose private area has teeth, but the movie isn’t a gratuitous exploitation film full of sex and violence. Instead, Teeth offers a low-key and wonderfully charming coming-of-age horror comedy about a girl coming to terms with her body.