Macabre…ish Horror: Road Trip Horror Films

by Kimberly Walker July 04, 2026

I recently tried to look up Road Trip Horror in a search engine and they aren’t as easy to find as they used to be so I’m making a list of movies I’ve seen and own. I’ll post them as a remember or see them and keep it updated and in alphabetical order. This is just a few, I’ll update it soon.

Alone (2020) - Recently widowed, Jessica, is taking a road trip to her new life. And on the way, she keeps noticing the same strange man who keeps escalating the encounters with her from just seeing her on the road, to questioning her at a gas station to blocking the entire road with his car and insisting he needs help. Not only is he hunting her but if she’s not careful she’ll end up in the basement of his isolated cabin.

Butchers - Two couples on a road trip breakdown and realize too late that they are being watched. They end up captive in a barn in the back country, at the home of a deranged and dangerous family.

Butchers Book 2: Raghorn - Travelers who get into a car accident in the worst possible place, end up in the hands of a cannibalistic family. The captives will have a chance to escape but only because this family likes to play with their food, first.

Butchers Book 3: Bonesaw - Three women are being relentlessly stalked by a man in a van. And soon they will find out that van is an abattoir and the site of some of their final resting place.

Carriers - Four friends are not just on any road trip, they’re fleeing a pandemic and hoping to arrive at the idyllic beach house of the brother’s childhood. But they have to somehow get there without getting infected. And with their strict rules of survival, they won’t all make it.

Downrange - A group of college friends are stranded on the side of the road after getting a flat and some unseen person is shooting at them. And it’s not an accident. Not only are they in danger, they can’t wave down help because it puts them in danger too. The longer they stay there, the more danger they’re in but they also cannot leave.

Diary of the Dead - The zombie outbreak has broken out so some film students and an instructor has taken an RV so that everyone can go home and see if anyone is left. Documenting the whole way and posting on social media. The secondary plan is to head to one of their rich member’s family’s summer house, which turns out to be a mansion with a safe room but they have to survive first.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)- A family is taking the scenic route from Cleveland to San Diego. Unfortunately, their tires are punctured and they break down in the desert. Things immediately get weird and dangerous after Bob and Doug take off in separate directions, leaving the women and children behind. Help is not coming for any of them, they will have to save themselves.

The Hills Run Red - A film student that is obsessed with legendary, lost movie, takes off with his friends to the woods where the film was shot. Unfortunately, for them, that movie was a slasher and the killer was real and still active.

The Hitcher (1986) - A man delivering a car to another state makes a grave mistake picking up a hitchhiker, John Ryder. The man immediately convinces Jim that he is dangerous and no matter what he does, John just keeps coming. He seems to be everywhere and bodies are stacking up. There’s only one way to stop John and he’s begging Jim to do it.

Jeepers Creepers - Darry and his sister, Trish are on a roadtrip home from college when they encounter and ancient truck with a weird license plate, driving super aggressively behind them. Then they see the same truck parked at a private property and the driver, seemingly disposing of body, down a pipe. And not only does the guy see them but he smells them. And now they are being hunted by him but he’s no human and there seems to be no way to escape him.

Joy Ride - Two brothers on a roadtrip to pick up a girl from college, decide to prank a trucker with a persona called Candy Cane. Unfortunately, the trucker who answered was a deranged and dangerous driver known as Rusty Nail. There’s no out driving or out playing him but they can try to kill him before him kills them.

Joy Ride 2 - Four friends on a road trip to Vegas break down and find their way to a seemingly abandoned house. They break in and help themselves, even taking a muscle car they find in a barn. This is Rusty Nail’s house and he finds them in his car. Rusty doesn’t just want his car back, he wants to play a game. Well, many dangerous and humiliating games. They have a chance to escape but they’ll have to out live Rusty first.

Joy Ride 3 - Street racers take a short cut on their way to a rally and unfortunately it is in the path of and on the hunting grounds of Rusty Nail. Sure they can out run him but they have to stop some time and Rusty does love a harrowing game of cat and mouse. And the games he has planned to play with them are gonna be gruesome. All they have to do to survive is out think and out play a well practiced and vicious predator.

No One Lives - A couple is kidnapped and terrorized by a gang and the death of the wife seals their fate and triggers the husband. He’s no docile corporate business man, his business happens to be death and he is very good at him job and paid extremely well for it. This gang will be getting all he’s got and it will only cost them, their lives.

Rest Stop - A couple, Nicole and Jess, on a road trip to L.A. pull over at a rest stop and the weirdo that’s been following them, in the yellow truck, kidnaps Jess. Nicole not only has to find Jess alone but she’s got to survive the killer on her own. Help is not coming.

Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back - A year after Jess and Nicole disappear, Jess’ brother Tom and his girlfriend and friend of Nicole’s, Jared. decide to drive to California in search of Jess and Nicole. Every stop they show a photo of the pair. It’s not long before they see the yellow truck and the rest stop. They do find Jess and Nicole there but it’s nothing like you think.

Road Kill (2011) - A group of friends go on a road trip in Ireland and accidentally runs over and elderly Roma woman. Before she dies she curses them with the Simuroc, a giant, mythical bird of prey that will stalk and kill them and they need to find a way to stop it before they are all dead.

Road Train (also Road Kill, 2010) - In the outback, some friends are on a trip and their car is totaled by a semi truck. When they find the truck later, parked and empty, they take it because they need a ride. But there’s something up with this truck and one of their friends immediately starts to act weird. Also, the truck needs fuel but this truck doesn’t run on diesel.

Sendero (aka Path) - A group of friends on a celebratory roadtrip are abducted by a deranged and psychotic family. They endure torture and humiliation and escaping will be just as painful as staying. They’ll have to pick their pain.

Shrooms - American college students travel to Ireland for a camping trip and to search for and collected psilocybin mushrooms. They’ll have to survive horrors but the horrors are not what they think.

The Stand - Survivors of a world wide plague are getting messages in their dreams, some from a mysterious and terrifying being who looks like a man called Randall Flagg and some dream of Mother Abigail and they travel to their prospective ‘saviors’. The two groups will eventually meet each other for totally different reasons, one wants to destroy what’s left and the other wants to save it.

Talon Falls - Teens take a detour on their road trip to a Halloween haunted attraction in Kentucky. It’s not long before they realize the scream attractions are not actors acting but captives actually being tortured. In part, for a snuff operation. The visitors have to get out of there before they become part of the attraction.

Vacancy - A couple is forced to stay at a remote motel after they make a grave mistake detouring off the interstate and their car breaks down. In their room they notice hidden cameras, after playing a tape that has a naked woman being terrorized by masked men on it, in that same room. This motel is a trap and the guests are victims and unwilling entertainment. Before they can leave, the terror begins and they are on their own.

Vacancy 2 - The Meadow View Inn finds out there’s a stream of income they’ve been neglecting. The snuff movie business. Mr. Smith is hired specifically to kill the guests on camera, for a cut, of course.

What The Waters Left Behind - The Argentinian town of Epecuén was flooded and submerged in sea water for decades and then it receded. A group of curious young filmmakers take a roadtrip to the place and discover, not only is Epecuén not a ghost town but the people there are dangerous and are actively hunting them. (TW: rape, torture)

What The Waters Left Behind Scars - An American rock band ends up stranded, after a gig, in the desolate Epecuén. They soon discover desolate does not mean uninhabited and unfortunately for them the people that live here and deranged, crazed inbred people. (TW: rape, torture)

Wrong Turn - A man on a road trip to a new job, takes a detour out of traffic and wrecks into some campers’s car. They join together in search of any place with a phone. What they find instead: fields of cars gone to weed, inside a rustic cabin, personal items, way too many personal items. And they also find twisted inbred cannibals who are hunting them. And the five of them are on the menu if they don’t get out there and fast.

Zombieland - Four survivors of the zombie apocalypse decide to band together for survival and entertainment. They’re on a road trip and headed toward, hopefully, a zombie free sanctuary, a theme park. And a long the way, the elusive Twinkie.