Southern Gothic Tales: Most Popular Films in the Genre

When Sally hears that her grandfather's grave may have been vandalized, she and her paraplegic brother, Franklin, set out with their friends to investigate. After a detour to their family's old farmhouse, they discover a group of crazed, murderous outcasts living next door. As the group is attacked one by one by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface, who wears a mask of human skin, the survivors must do everything they can to escape.

Having grown sick and tired of his centuries as Dracula's lackey, Renfield finds a new lease on life — and maybe even redemption — when he falls for feisty, perennially angry traffic cop Rebecca Quincy.

Abandoned by her family, Kya raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. When her former boyfriend is found dead, Kya is instantly branded by the local townspeople and law enforcement as the prime suspect for his murder.

A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.

A vampire relates his epic life story of love, betrayal, loneliness, and dark hunger to an over-curious reporter.

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

A waitress, desperate to fulfill her dreams as a restaurant owner, is set on a journey to turn a frog prince back into a human being, but she has to face the same problem after she kisses him.

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

A cop who moonlights as a hit man agrees to kill the hated mother of a desperate drug dealer in exchange for a tumble with the young man's virginal sister.

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

Two boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and form a pact to help him reunite with his lover and escape.

Karl Childers, a mentally disabled man, has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for killing his mother and her lover. Although thoroughly institutionalized, he is deemed fit to be released into the outside world.

New York private detective Harry Angel is hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre to find a missing person. His routine failure soon leads to a bloody spar with himself, as he goes on a supernatural journey into his own soul.

Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his partner, a former sheriff.

A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding it.

During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.

Annie Wilson, young widow and mother of three, makes her living foretelling others' futures⁠—though her own has become cloudier than even she can see. Threatened by a client's violent husband and plagued by visions of a missing local woman, Annie finds herself pulled into a thicket of lies and deception in which her extraordinary gift may ultimately get her killed.

In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

As investigative reporter Ward Jansen and his partner Yardley Acheman chase a sensational, career-making story with the help of Ward's younger brother Jack and sultry death-row groupie Charlotte Bless, the pair tries to prove violent swamp-dweller Hillary Van Wetter was framed for the murder of a corrupt local sheriff.

In the post–World War II South, two families are pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad.

A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

A visiting city reporter's assignment suddenly revolves around the murder trial of a local millionaire, whom he befriends.

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.

In small-town Texas, affable and popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp.

Offbeat Civil War drama in which a wounded Yankee soldier, after finding refuge in an isolated girls' school in the South towards the end of the war, becomes the object of the young women's sexual fantasies. The soldier manipulates the situation for his own gratification, but when he refuses to completely comply with the girls' wishes, they make it very difficult for him to leave.

Accused barn burner and conman Ben Quick arrives in a small Mississippi town and quickly ingratiates himself with its richest family, the Varners.

After years of performing “exorcisms” and taking believers’ money, Reverend Marcus travels to rural Louisiana with a film crew so he can dispel what he believes is the myth of demonic possession. The dynamic reverend is certain that this will be another routine “exorcism” on a disturbed religious fanatic but instead comes upon the blood-soaked farm of the Sweetzer family and a true evil he would have never thought imaginable.

A young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where, following a series of supernatural "accidents", she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell.

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.

The escape of Bubber Reeves from prison affects the inhabitants of a small Southern town.

Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. Meanwhile, Warren buys a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and to earn money as a prize-fighter.

Ex-wrestler and Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser walks tall and carries a big stick as he tussles with county-wide corruption and moonshining thugs.

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.

Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.

A psychotic redneck who owns a dilapidated hotel in the backwater swamps of Louisiana kills various people who upset him or his business, and he feeds their bodies to a large crocodile that he keeps as a pet in the swamp beside his hotel.

In the early 1970s, a young woman passing through rural Tennessee unintentionally gets caught in a feud between two local neighboring clans, the Feathers and the Gutshalls.

An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.

Walter and his neglected wife lure a young man into their Victorian home to escape a hurricane. When the man is charged with murder by Det. Jones, he must reveal the couple's wicked secrets to save himself.

A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.

An ex con teams up with federal agents to help them with breaking up a moonshine ring.

A young woman recuperating at her father's run-down home after a tragic accident soon encounters a terrifying presence with a connection to her long-deceased mother.

Jackson and Helen are in love and about to have their first child when they move in with Jackson's mother, Martha, in order to take care of the family estate. But all is not well in this household. Martha is jealous of her son's affection for Helen, and, despite her Southern smile, she's starting to act strangely. As Helen tries to create a happy home life, Martha attempts to divide the family so that Jackson will become hers alone.

Desirée lives deep in the swamp and supports herself and her siblings by poaching. After an accident involving Deputy Billy and a friend, the Sheriff, Deputy and a family of locals go after Desirée. Soon the hunters become the hunted as she exacts her revenge for their violence against her family.

Owen Legate, a railroad official, comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down the local railway - the town's main income. But Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr.

A young man is in a race against time as he searches for a cure after becoming infected with a virus that will eventually turn him into a blood-sucking vampire.

After his happy life spins out of control, a preacher from Texas changes his name, goes to Louisiana and starts preaching on the radio.

Katherine Morrissey, a former Christian missionary, lost her faith after the tragic deaths of her family. Now she applies her expertise to debunking religious phenomena. When a series of biblical plagues overrun a small town, Katherine arrives to prove that a supernatural force is not behind the occurrences, but soon finds that science cannot explain what is happening. Instead, she must regain her faith to combat the evil that waits in a Louisiana swamp.