As Billy Madison once sang while waiting for the bus, it’s that time of year for many people to go “back to school,” and whether that’s college, high school, or continuing education, there’s no shortage of early alarms, pop quizzes, and social cliques to fear this year, so why not distract yourself from the real-life horrors of higher learning with relentless slashers and the ravenous living dead? Whether you’re about to return to campus as a student, teacher, custodian, coach, cafeteria worker, or counselor, or if you’re just like me and this time of year is when you reminisce about when you desperately wandered the halls in search of your new classes, you can find all manner of school-themed scares to stream on Tubi, where more than 13,000 hours of horror content is loitering in the hallways of horror!
So, without further ado (and before the school bell rings—that’s still a thing, right?), welcome to Terror on Tubi, our new monthly column in which we recommend 10 horror titles with similar scary themes streaming for free on the platform’s massive digital library of films and TV series!
This month’s column is sponsored by Tubi’s September 25th release of their new YA horror comedy Buzzkill. Directed by Jem Garrard (R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead) from a screenplay by Suzanne Keilly (2021’s Slumber Party Massacre), Buzzkill follows sorority sisters trying to survive a revenge-seeking killer, with their fate resting in the hands of the hard-partying Nora (Siena Agudong), who “knows that the drunker she gets, the more her tipsy memories start revealing clues about who’s murdering her friends. But she’d better hurry, or her next vodka soda might be her last call.”
To celebrate the September 25th premiere of Buzzkill, here are our 10 recommendations for terrifying titles now streaming on Tubi that are sure get you into the back-to-school spirit (whether you’re still a student or just dreading the number of days until your next high school reunion):
Synopsis: “After a viral cyberbullying incident sparks a brutal murder, a group of Lakewood teenagers finds themselves targeted by a ruthless new killer.”
More than a decade after its hyped-up premiere on MTV, Scream: The TV Series still lurks in the shadows of its big-screen counterparts, but it’s a deadly delight all its own. While it faced the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of one of the most iconic horror film franchises of all time, Scream: The TV Series confidently carved its own bloody path with gore galore (there’s still one kill in season one that I can’t believe they pulled off on cable TV), intriguing whodunnit storytelling, and (most importantly) likeable characters brought to life by a game cast including Willa Fitzgerald (Strange Darling), Tracy Middendorf (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare), Carlson Young (The Blazing World), and John Karna (The Dead Thing) as a walking horror encyclopedia à la Randy Meeks, whose ride-or-die BFF dynamic with Bex Taylor-Klaus’ (Hell Fest) Audrey is the heart and soul of the show.
While the first two seasons of Scream: The TV Series take viewers all over the small town of Lakewood, there are plenty of hair-raising scares to be found within the halls of its high school, including the memorable Halloween-themed episode “The Dance” (and let’s not forget the local haunt for Lakewood students, the aptly named Grindhouse Café).
Synopsis: “Valentine’s Day turns horrifying for four women targeted by a boy they bullied in middle school, who has become both a ladies' man and a killer.”
A vastly different but equally entertaining adaptation of Tom Savage’s novel Valentine (which I also strongly recommend), this 2001 slasher isn’t exactly school-centric, but it’s a cruel occurrence at a junior high school dance in 1988 that kicks off a chain of killings among former classmates years later, with the first victim coming face-to-face with the Cherub-masked murderer in a UCLA autopsy lab. Directed with an infectious enthusiasm by the late, great Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend), Valentine gleefully rides the post-Scream slasher wave with style points aplenty, moving at a blood-slick speed that pulls you along for the ride.
While the majority of the movie takes place after high school, Valentine is a cautionary tale about how our most mortifying memories and haunting regrets from our formative years can leave lasting and even lethal scars that shape who we become as adults for better or worse… and it’s also a reminder that Cherub masks are creepy as hell.
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Synopsis: “In this cult horror classic, a maniac on the loose takes his weapon of choice, a huge power drill, to a gathering of unsuspecting young women.”
You’ll never look at a power drill quite the same way after watching this film, and you may find yourself a little reluctant to open the door the next time you order a pizza. Looking at slashers through a satirical lens while also delivering a solid horror film (effectively laced with comedic moments) in its own right, The Slumber Party Massacre unleashes the murderous Russ Thorn (Michael Villella) on unsuspecting students at their high school before following them to the home of Trish Deveraux (Michele Michaels), who is hosting a sleepover that’s about to become a living nightmare, although as the “Driller Killer” will discover, these women can slay, too.
The directorial debut of Amy Holden Jones from a screenplay by Rita Mae Brown, The Slumber Party Massacre highlights the unmatchable power of young women uniting to fend off a lurid male gaze… and in this case, the deadly drill that comes with it. Plus, with Buzzkill being written by Suzanne Keilly (who penned the 2021 reimagining of The Slumber Party Massacre), this film should make a good pairing with the new Tubi Original for a horror comedy double feature to die for!
Synopsis: “A group of sorority sisters tries to deal with the accidental death of a student while a serial killer stalks their house.”
Similar to Buzzkill, 2009’s Sorority Row follows sorority sisters fighting for their lives against a ruthless killer. They shouldn’t exactly be surprised, though, because eight months prior they took a prank one (okay, several) steps too far, leaving a fellow Theta Pi sister dead and the rest of them scarred for life (or for many of them, the brief time that remains of their lives) after covering up the crime.
A remake of 1982’s The House on Sorority Row (which is also streaming on Tubi), Sorority Row balances the mean-spirited streak of many 2000s slashers with a healthy dose of humor, giving the film its own distinct personality despite wearing its influences proudly on its blood-stained sleeves. The film benefits from a bevy of clever kills, including one involving a wine bottle that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “bottoms up” and should be in the conversation for one of the best onscreen kills in 2000s horror. There may be many sorority slashers, but there’s only one featuring Carrie Fisher as a housemother going after the killer with a pump-action shotgun. Theta Pi forever!
Synopsis: “A college co-ed alone on a college campus over the holidays is forced to take on and fight off a psychotic group of intruders out to destroy her.”
When everyone leaves for Thanksgiving break, a secluded college campus becomes the hunting grounds for a violent cult led by Violet (Ashley Greene) in this tense 2014 film. For their latest hunt, the cult members set their masked sights on hard-working college student Justine (Haley Bennett), but they soon find out that they chose the wrong prey (one who’s already faced the horrors of student debt and financial aid applications).
Director Olly Blackburn and cinematographer Crille Forsberg capture the bleak, lonely mood of a usually bustling college campus on a barren holiday break, making it feel like death is lurking around every lonely stretch of library shelves and ready to pounce from the shadowy corners of each quiet corridor. Ashley Greene and Haley Bennett play a fantastically gruesome game of cat-and-mouse in this slice of eerie academia that deserves to be included on your horror curriculum alongside the likes of The Strangers and You’re Next.
Synopsis: “Two death-obsessed high school girls aim to gain fame by making their local-crime-reporting social media presence a household name.”
One of the must-see horror films of the 2010s, Tragedy Girls is still a revelation nearly one decade after its initial release. Directed by Tyler MacIntyre (It’s a Wonderful Knife), the film follows best friends McKayla Hooper (Alexandra Shipp) and Sadie Cunningham (Brianna Hildebrand), who will do anything to get more eyes on their true crime blog, even if it means disemboweling their small town (and literally burning up the dance floor at their high school prom) in the process.
Ahead of its time when it was released in 2017 and still very relevant today in its approach to online stardom, content creation, navigating high school relationships, and society’s endless fascination with serial killers, Tragedy Girls features one of the best horror comedy ensembles of the 21st century, with Josh Hutcherson, Craig Robinson, Kevin Durand, Jack Quaid, and Austin Abrams all killing it in supporting roles. All these years later, Tragedy Girls remains a fascinating exploration of true friendship and the ties that bond (and dismember), proving that sometimes those who stay together, slay together.
Synopsis: “When a series of murders occur, all eyes fall on two students: a freshly discharged psychiatric patient and a notorious troublemaker.”
Getting a “B” for “Bonkers” in the best possible way, Cutting Class is as late ’80s as a slasher can get, and I mean that as a compliment. The fashion, the dialogue, and the high school itself all ooze a vibrant nostalgia that makes the film a cozy watch despite a killer being on the loose in the halls (hopefully they have a hall pass while stalking their victims). Even the school’s shop class looks like it could be the set of a Bananarama music video (also a compliment).
Coming off sensational starring roles in The Stepfather and The Phantom of the Opera, the always great Jill Schoelen plays high school student Paula Carson, who is torn between a new friendship with the bullied Brian (Donovan Leitch) and a potential romance with the daring Dwight (Brad Pitt), with both of them being the key suspects in a string of increasingly grisly murders among the faculty and student body. Oh, and did I mention that the school’s principal is played by the legendary Roddy McDowall? That alone makes Cutting Class one slasher you don’t want to skip.
Synopsis: “A high school prom goes to hell when the undead rise to feast on teen couples whose only chance for survival are the students who couldn't get dates!”
Full disclosure: Dance of the Dead is one of my favorite films of all time (I even helped host a zombie prom–themed 10th anniversary screening in Hollywood back in 2018), and I’ve been obsessed with the film since pulling it off the shelf at Blockbuster nearly two decades ago (just writing that makes me feel like I’m going to turn into dust). The passage of time has not diminished my love for the film, though, as I still adore this movie about a group of misfit high schoolers who band together to save their prom from a zombie invasion—think The Breakfast Club meets Dawn of the Dead.
Directed by Gregg Bishop (The Other Side) from a screenplay by Joe Ballarini (A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting), the fun to be found in Dance of the Dead is as infectious as a zombie bite. From the manic testosterone of Coach Keel (“all brick, all the time!”) to the stoned-out heroics of the garage band Quarter Punks (featuring Blair Redford on guitar and vocals, Hunter Pierce on drums, and Lucas Till on bass) and the sweet romance between pizza deliverer Jimmy (Jared Kusnitz) and student council vice president Lindsey (Greyson Chadwick), Dance of the Dead remains one of the most innovative and energetic living dead films I’ve ever seen, and its fast and ferocious zombies (with a special love of music) still feel fresh nearly 20 years later. I’m so glad I decided to rent it from Blockbuster all those years ago, and I implore you to check it out on Tubi if you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing the Quarter Punks in concert at a prom to dismember!
Synopsis: “A group of young film students find themselves trapped inside a horror movie of their own making when they have a run-in with real-life zombies.”
Speaking of my favorite films of all time—specifically of the living dead variety—let’s hop in the RV with the college students from Diary of the Dead! While this fifth entry in George A. Romero’s living dead franchise is more of a road trip movie than a school-set film, it does follow a group of University of Pittsburgh film students (and their alcoholic professor, played brilliantly by Scott Wentworth) who are making a horror film when the dead come back to life with a ravenous appetite for human flesh, and there is a key scene when they return to the dorms to rescue one of their own.
Perhaps one of the hottest horror takes I have is that on certain days, Diary of the Dead is my favorite George A. Romero film (on other days, it’s number two behind Night of the Living Dead, but it’s always in the top two on my rankings). Yes, to many that may seem like blasphemy, and it’s not to say that I don’t really enjoy his other flesh-eating films (especially Dawn of the Dead), but there’s something (okay, a lot of somethings) that I’m obsessed with about Diary of the Dead: the film is way ahead of its time in its depiction of how the world digests and communicates information through social media in times of disaster, its RV road trip through the early days of the zombie uprising allows viewers to meet characters from all walks of life (including a deaf Amish man with a knack for dynamite), the characters’ access to the internet allows for a global perspective of the zombie apocalypse (including chilling updates from as far away as Tokyo, with these internet clips collectively feeling like a bunch of short films that could be strung together as Romero’s own eerie anthology within the movie), and its found footage filmmaking approach makes the threats from both the living and the living dead more immediate and intimate.
Consider the RV in Diary of the Dead to be a mobile classroom with the flask-sipping Professor Maxwell as your guide. The lesson: survive as long as you can. Extra credit: capture your experiences on camera… just don’t let the living dead get too close to the lens.
Synopsis: “College life becomes a nightmare for a freshman who gets assigned to a dorm with another young woman who is psychotically obsessed and out for blood.”
“There are over 2000 colleges in the United States and over 16 million students… but there’s only one you live with.” Although I never attended a live-in college campus, this type of question always haunted me. What if your freshman roommate turned out to be a murderous psychopath? And how well do you really know a stranger you’re suddenly living with—and even sleeping in the same room with—every day of your life? In February of 2011, The Roommate answered these questions through a “worst case scenario” lens (and probably resulted in more than a few college freshmen sleeping with one eye open for a while).
Sometimes a movie takes on a momentum all its own, its reputation building up to the point where everyone seems to at least know about the film even if they never go see it. That’s what happened with The Roommate. In the winter of 2011, I felt like everyone was talking about this film. Commercials for it played nonstop on TV, the trailer seemingly played ahead of every film in theaters, and it was parodied as an SNL Digital Short featuring Justin Bieber and Andy Samberg. Hell, I even ended up getting a T-shirt with the film’s logo before I ever saw it! The marketing worked, though: The Roommate made more than three times its budget at the box office and remained a major talking point in pop culture… at least until a new wave of students hit campus the following fall. Honestly, I’m surprised that we haven’t gotten at least seven sequels to The Roommate since its release more than 15 years ago, as it seems like this was the perfect springboard for a new horror franchise.
Oh well. We’ll always have Minka Kelly’s killer performance as Sara Matthews, the possessive roommate of fellow college freshman Rebecca Evans (Leighton Meester), whose life becomes a living hell as her new roomie slowly takes over and chases everyone else away—even going so far as to rip out a belly ring of Rebecca’s friend to make her point. Is the film over the top at times? Of course. But that’s kind of the point. If The Roommate had been released today, its most memorable moments would have been all over TikTok and we probably would already have a sequel in development. In the meantime, you can at least enjoy the first film on Tubi, and now enough time has passed where we can at least cross our fingers for a remake…
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All right, class dismissed! Watch Buzzkill free on Tubi September 25th to see how Nora and her fellow Sigma Omega Koppa sisters fare against that mysterious killer. In the meantime, now that you have some horror-themed homework to catch up on, head to Terror on Tubi to check out these recommendations, and let us know if you have any favorite school-themed slashers or creepy campus thrillers currently haunting the streaming platform. After all, you never stop learning… especially when the curriculum is this killer!
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Managing Editor of Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Managing Editor of Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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