Hotels, campgrounds, and hospitals can instill fright upon sight. But what about swimming pools? These refreshing summer escapes can sometimes be just as terrifying as stepping through a creaky haunted house or foggy graveyard. An underground pool in Night Swim (2024) conjures up supernatural danger to an unsuspecting family. Hydrotherapy goes wrong and a toy boat is just out of reach for someone to fall in while grabbing for it. But this is only the most recent entry in pool-based scares that are seen in movies and TV horror anthologies. Drowning is the least of anyone's concerns once characters step into these contained bodies of water, along with slashers, ghosts, and aquatic creatures.
In Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a school’s abandoned pool holds one of the scariest-looking monsters when a very dark secret gets unearthed. The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) doesn't just have a killer '80s soundtrack, it also submerges a life-and-death struggle in a neon-lit pool. Also in 2018, was Annihilation, which turns a dried-out pool into a fungal, body horror spectacle for shocked witnesses. Pools are everywhere, from neighborhood community pools to backyard retreats, but so too are the dangers. Next time you dip your toe in a pool for a summer refresher, make sure to avoid all and any obstacles that might be experienced in the following watery death traps.
'Shivers' (1975)
Directed by David Cronenberg
A parasite, part aphrodisiac and part STD, makes its way through an apartment building called the Starliner. No one is safe — not even elderly neighbors, young couples, and children. It’s a science experiment gone wrong, or right depending on the goals of the mad scientist who triggered it. The movie is bloody, full of sexual and twisted imagery, which isn’t too shocking, considering it's an early film from director David Cronenberg. Before he made a man-fly hybrid melt to pieces and telekinetic abilities exploded heads, he unleashed parasitic chaos.
The climax in the complex's pool becomes one messed-up orgy. Nearly all of the Starliner residents get turned into sex maniacs, by kissing, consensual or not, the parasite infects the next host. One victim gets tossed into the pool, and all the lustfully infected jump in and surround the unlucky victim. They can do nothing but submit.
Shivers
RThe residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
- Release Date
- October 10, 1975
- Director
- David Cronenberg
- Cast
- Paul Hampton , Joe Silver , Lynn Lowry , Allan Kolman , Susan Petrie , Barbara Steele
- Runtime
- 87
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- David Cronenberg
- Tagline
- Going MAD is just the beginning...
'Are You Afraid of the Dark?' “The Tale of the Dead Man’s Float” (Season 5, Episode 1)
Directed by D.J. MacHale
In 1954, a young boy jumped into a school’s pool, thinking it was a great idea. Wrong! Something pulls him down and doesn’t let go. The pool is drained and left to rot behind a hidden door. Fast-forward to 1994, when Zeke (Kaj Eriksen) finds it and decides to try to impress his crush, Clorice (Margot Finley). She loves it, while it needs the grime scrubbed off, it’s the best new spot for her swim team to practice. The pool is cleaned and refilled, but that only awakens the horror that has lingered.
When Clorice finds out that Zeke is afraid of water, she lets him float in a raft to ease his jitters. Then something attacks. Like how the haunting in Poltergeist (1982) happened because of homes getting developed on top of a cemetery, in “Dead Man’s Float,” the school was built on land that was originally made to lay souls to rest. Thanks to Zeke being a brainiac, he uses Methyl Orange to make the spirit be seen by the living. The result is a red oozing zombie that no doubt gave '90s kids nightmares for a long time.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
TV-PGAn anthology series that follows different chapters of the Midnight Society, a group of teenagers who gather at midnight to tell scary stories, such as the Carnival of Doom, Curse of the Shadows, and Ghost Island.
- Release Date
- October 11, 2019
- Creator
- BenDavid Grabinski, Ned Kandel, D.J. MacHale
- Cast
- Bryce Gheisar , Malia Baker , Beatrice Kitsos , Arjun Athalye
- Main Genre
- Adventure
- Seasons
- 4
'The Final Destination' (2009)
Directed by David R. Ellis
The Final Destination franchise is all about the intricate game to collect and recollect the next name on Death’s list. Laser eye surgery. Elevator doors. A dentist’s chair. These and so many other mundane scenarios turn into final resting places. So it was only time before Death took a dive. Nick (Bobby Campo) sees the premonition that saves lives; now he has to try to keep them alive. Water threatens to end Hunt (Nick Zano) and Nick is too late to help.
Hunt accidentally triggers the drainage system to the country club pool and when he lunges in, it seals his fate. The strength of the suction pulls him down, pinning him there. Unable to get free, drowning is enough of a worry. But this being a Final Destination movie, Hunt gets positioned in just the right way that suddenly his insides end up on the outside.
The Final Destination
RA horrifying premonition saves a young man and his friends from death during a racetrack accident but terrible fates await them nonetheless.
- Release Date
- August 26, 2009
- Director
- David R. Ellis
- Cast
- Bobby Campo , Shantel VanSanten , Nick Zano , Haley Webb , Mykelti Williamson , Krista Allen
- Runtime
- 82
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- Eric Bress , Jeffrey Reddick
- Tagline
- Rest in pieces.
'R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour' “Pool Shark” (Season 1, Ep. 18)
Directed by Jason Furukawa
Kai (Booboo Stewart), the son of a community pool owner, doesn’t walk by the water without having flashbacks that keep his aquaphobia alive and well. Dreams plague him of Nanaue, a creature from Hawaiian mythology that is a man on land and a shark in water. His father, Lonny (Patrick Gallagher), doesn’t like that his son fixates on these scary stories. But the more the dreams haunt him, Kai can’t let it go.
And then, one night, he sees something in the public pool, a fin slips above the surface and then below before anyone else sees. He becomes the boy who cried "Shark!" Although it seems impossible for a shark to be in a pool, Kai knows a predator is using the deep end as its own hunting grounds. Kai takes it upon himself to end the pool-loving shark, hopefully without getting snacked on like Quint (Robert Shaw) from Jaws.
'Sinister' (2012)
Directed by Scott Derrickson
In Sinister, true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) finds film reels in his new home, a place where a family recently died. Ellison watches the old movies and in doing so, forces the audience to watch the disturbing footage too. “Pool Party ‘66,” like the other films, shows a family enjoying everyday moments before it cuts to a murder. The reel’s title has no subtext. In this particular pool "party," the family members are chained to lawn chairs and pulled into their pool, where they suffer terrible fates.
And in the corner of the scene, Ellison spots a white face. Maybe a mask. It’s under the water, making the face distorted in the first look at boogeyman Bughuul. Music makes every reel even more unsettling. “Pool Party ‘66” is no exception. The song “Body of Water” by JudgeHydrogen is full of eerie moaning within atmospheric music, it’s downright chilling. This means it’s perfect to build the dread for this reel and the next.
Sinister
RA controversial true crime writer finds a box of super 8 home movies in his new home, revealing that the murder case he is currently researching could be the work of an unknown serial killer whose legacy dates back to the 1960s.
- Release Date
- March 29, 2012
- Director
- Scott Derrickson
- Cast
- Ethan Hawke , Juliet Rylance , Fred Dalton Thompson , James Ransone , Michael Hall D'Addario , Clare Foley ll
- Runtime
- 110
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- C. Robert Cargill , Scott Derrickson
- Tagline
- Once you see him, nothing can save you.
'12 Feet Deep' (2017)
Directed by Matt Eskandari
Community pools can be full of danger. Bree (Nora-Jane Noone) swims at one while waiting for her sister Jonna (Alexandra Park). When Bree’s engagement ring suddenly gets lost at the bottom, the two try to get it free from a grate. Pool manager McGradey (Tobin Bell) doesn’t see them and begins the pool cover process. The material traps the sisters in, and it won’t break, no matter how hard they pound on it. An extended holiday break ensures McGradey isn’t hurrying back. The sisters, who have never seen eye to eye, now have to work together to figure out how to get out of the pool alive.
A janitor (Diane Farr) arrives and because letting the sisters free would be too easy, she has certain conditions. Seeing how many what-can-go-wrong, will-go-wrong scenarios in the same movie with Tobin Bell almost makes this into a Saw spinoff. But he only has a cameo. This is a three-woman show, each with a past that has made their lives tough. The heater to the pool is turned off. The cleaning system, with all its harsh chemicals, gets put on. It’s all a test of endurance to see if they can survive.
'Annihilation' (2018)
Directed by Alex Garland
In Alex Garland's Annihilation, something isn’t right in the world Lena (Natalie Portman) enters to locate her missing husband Kane (Oscar Isaac). She experiences the strangeness within the Shimmer, along with the other women in an expedition group. Once they step in, there’s a sense of the uncanny. Time jumps happen without warning. Plant and animal life mutates in ways not biologically possible. As night falls, they take shelter at an empty military base, finding a camcorder.
The handheld footage reveals Lena’s husband, and the Green Berets he joined, slicing into a chunk of a soldier’s stomach, far enough in to see the intestines, which slither like snakes. Obviously, this isn't normal. Lena and her group find the dried-out pool where the footage was filmed. The soldier's corpse remains, horribly transformed. The fungus-covered skeleton looks like it has exploded and frozen in place, like a morbid work of art. Something much worse than algae has grown in this drained pool.
Annihilation
R Sci-FiDocumentaryMysteryThrillerLena, a biologist and former soldier, joins a mission to uncover what happened to her husband inside Area X -- a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline. Once inside, the expedition discovers a world of mutated landscapes and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.
- Release Date
- February 22, 2018
- Director
- Alex Garland
- Cast
- Natalie Portman , Jennifer Jason Leigh , Tessa Thompson , Oscar Isaac , Gina Rodriguez , Sonoya Mizuno
- Runtime
- 115 minutes
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Writers
- Alex Garland , Jeff VanderMeer
- Tagline
- Fear what's inside.
'The Strangers: Prey at Night' (2018)
Directed by Johannes Roberts
Two siblings get stuck in a trailer park with three killers stalking them. Luke (Lewis Pullman) tries to hide as two of the killers hone in on him. He stumbles out to what ends up being the public pool. Palm tree signs and a speaker light up the area, these killers do love their stylized aesthetics, after all. Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” plays when Luke takes down one killer. The next isn’t so easy.
The Masked Man (Damian Maffei) swings an ax, narrowly missing Luke each time. The only problem is, the boy gets too close to the pool edge. When the two end up in the water, they thrash around. The ax sinks, and then the Masked Man pulls out a knife. Bonnie Tyler’s vocals are clear and then muffled as the camera emerges and submerges with Luke, once again, if the knife doesn’t hit its mark, drowning is the next possibility. The tropical neon lights and the '80s pop rock needle drop create a fever dream with a slasher spin.
The Strangers: Prey at Night
RA family of four staying at a secluded mobile home park for the night are stalked and then hunted by three masked psychopaths.
- Release Date
- March 7, 2018
- Director
- Johannes Roberts
- Cast
- Christina Hendricks , Bailee Madison , Martin Henderson , Lewis Pullman , Emma Bellomy , Damian Maffei
- Runtime
- 85
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- Bryan Bertino , Ben Ketai
- Tagline
- Never underestimate the kindness of strangers.
'Night Swim' (2024)
Directed by Ryan McGuire
Ray (Wyatt Russell) and Eve Waller (Kerry Condon) move their kids into a new home with hopes for the family to adjust to Ray's degenerative illness. The empty, unused pool in the backyard is exactly what everyone needs. There are warnings of the danger that is to come. Eve remembers her childhood fears of the water and their youngest son is warned to remain in the shallow end when no one is with him, but these are all natural concerns. What isn't so natural, is when night falls and the pool seems to come alive.
What lies beneath? During the day, coins are tossed in to lure in a swimmer to retrieve them, pushing them further into the deep end. At night, flickering underwater lights can plunge everything into darkness. It's this darkness that is the creepiest visual in the movie, a vast abyss opening up at the bottom of the pool. The further someone dives in, the more disoriented they get, forgetting whether they are close to the surface or if they are getting lost in the endless void.
Night Swim
PG-13Feature length version of the 2014 short film about a woman swimming in her pool at night terrorized by an evil spirit.
- Release Date
- January 5, 2024
- Director
- Bryce McGuire
- Cast
- Kerry Condon , Wyatt Russell , Nancy Lenehan , Ben Sinclair , Jodi Long
- Runtime
- 118 minutes
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- Rod Blackhurst , Bryce McGuire
