10 of the Sexiest Horror Films

I love watching horror movies all October long. The streaming sites always put out their best stuff this month & it’s a great time to rewatch the classics & get into the spooky spirit. I put together 10 of some of the sexiest horror flicks for y’all to watch this month.

1. Hellraiser

Clive Barker, 1987

The original Hellraiser is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. Based on Clive Barker’s 1986 novella, The Hellbound Heart, it’s really awesome that the film was written & directed by the author of the book. Hellraiser was also Barker’s directorial debut. The Cenobites are super sexy because they’re supernatural, sadomasochistic beings that pop into Earth’s dimension to tempt us with pleasure & pain, blurring the line between the two. In the beginning of the film, the puzzle box that summons the Cenobites to Earth is purchased by a hedonist, Frank, who is told it will open the door to a realm of otherworldly pleasures. For me, the relationship between characters Frank & Julia is the hottest part of the story. Julia is consumed by her erotic memories of her & Frank together, & when his fleshy, ghoulish body reappears into her life, she’ll do just about anything to fuck him again.

There’s a great article on their dynamic called ‘What a woman will do for a good f*ck’ – Julia Cotton’s sexual agency in Hellraiser by Kaite Welsh. Give it a read for a good feminist take on Julia’s character. She really is the star of the show.

2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Francis Ford Coppola, 1992

Vampires are always sexy. They are masters of seduction & this story is no exception. It’s inspired by the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, written in 1897. Despite it’s 19th century literary reference, this movie has the most 1990s feel featuring an incredible cast of Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, & Keanu Reeves. Fear, lust, blood, & sex always combine in vampire stories for a delicious & erotic tale. Coppola creates a historical erotic dreamscape with set & costume design. This film always leaves me with the thought, “Why am I so attracted to Gary Oldman right now?”

3. Species

Roger Donaldson, 1995

Species is a sci-fi thriller about a crew of scientists & government agents on the chase to find Sil, a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid who has escaped a lab to mate with the perfect human male. The film follows Sil on the hunt for a man to impregnate her, as she eliminates weaker men along the way. The many sex scenes in this film double as kill scenes as well - what more could you want out of an erotic thriller? H.R. Giger, the artist responsible for designing Alien, also created the Sil character for the film. The special effects are awesome because they combine practical models of Giger’s Sil with some sprinkling of CGI. I love anything that still utilizes practical effects, it’s always better.

H.R. Giger with a Sil sculpture

4. American Psycho

Mary Harron, 2000

American Psycho is a satirical psychological horror film adapted from the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. The sex in this film mimics a lot of what you would expect from watching mainstream pornography. Christian Bale’s character, Patrick Bateman, seems to use sex as a way to emulate or relate to a normal human being’s behavior. In the novel, the sex scenes are long & overly descriptive. I think the film does the same thing by making the sex scenes longer than necessary, creating tension, as well as mirror the hypermasculinity often found in commercial pornography. There’s both disturbing & comedic elements to Bateman’s sexual encounters in the film. I think sex, comedy, & horror together are the key elements of the film’s aura & also reveal an understanding about Patrick Bateman’s character.

5. Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky, 2010

Black Swan is one of my top 5 favorite films of all time. It is a psychological horror film starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, & Winona Ryder. Portman’s character, Nina, is cast to play the White Swan/Black Swan character in the New York City Ballet’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. While Nina seems to be the perfect fit for the innocent & fragile White Swan, the pressure builds as she struggles to meet the marks for the Black Swan character, whose qualities seem more aligned with Nina’s new rival, Lily, played by Kunis. Nina slowly descends into madness & obsession preparing for the role. The relationship between Lily & Nina is erotic, obsessive, & hallucinogenic, as the film also deals with the concept of being haunted by a double, or doppelgänger. Aronofsky cites Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Double as another inspiration for the film. I love this movie & highly recommend it.

6. Jennifer’s Body

Karyn Kusama, 2009

Jennifer’s Body is a horror comedy that came out in 2009 to a world that was truly not ready for it. Once a box office flop & now considered a feminist cult classic, if you saw the movie then, I recommend a rewatch now. I think part of what went wrong with the initial release was that Jennifer’s Body was mostly marketed towards straight men who wanted to see Megan Fox. But this movie was made by women, for women, & it takes a lot of the stereotypical, often sexist, horror tropes we’ve all seen before & turns them on their head. For those who never saw the film, Megan Fox’s character, Jennifer, is a demonically possessed high schooler who kills & eats her male classmates to survive. It also explores the relationship between Jennifer & her best friend, Needy, who despite their different social statuses, navigate the teenage world together. One night they go to a rock show at a bar and the bar catches on fire. In the chaos, the two girls are separated - Needy goes home alone & Jennifer gets into a van with the band, who drives her away from the scene. After that night, Jennifer is forever changed. There’s an implied sexual assault that’s taken place. Ever since that night, Jennifer is possessed by a demon who craves human flesh. She begins to hunt boys, seducing them with the promise of sex & then killing & eating them. It’s a classic revenge tale told from the lens of a teenage girl who has been taken advantage of. The men in the film, Chris Pratt, Adam Brody, & others, really just serve as bodies that are disposed of - another slasher stereotype that’s been flipped around. This movie is definitely sexy & erotic, but it has a multitude of layers beyond that & it demands respect!

7. Society

Bryan Yuzna, 1989

One of my favorite body horror films, Society is such a fucked up movie. It’s about a wealthy Beverly Hills teenager who suspects his parents are part of a sex cult for the social elite. This is a class-conscious satire playing with the idea that the wealthy are another species literally feeding on the poor. It’s basically about a murderous orgy. There’s incest, sexual predation, & murder paired with some of the best body horror special effects I’ve ever seen. The campiness of the movie makes it’s content even more disturbing - and that’s really what the horror genre is best at in my opinion. A Cannes critic called Society “sodomy gore,” while Variety dismissed it as “rough trade porno.” Honestly some great marketing for the fucked up horror fan. While American audiences may not have accepted the feature in the 1980s, it has become a cult classic over time. In an article titled, Society, the Cult Horror Film Where the Monster Is Class Conflict by Branko Marcetic, the author writes,

“Yuzna thinks that, at the height of the Reagan era, when many Americans still broadly thought of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, ‘it was the wrong kind of joke to tell at the time.’ What saved the movie was a world market that didn’t have the same taboo. The film was a roaring success in France, Italy, and particularly the UK, where class is an inescapable fact of existence.”

I wouldn’t call this movie particularly sexy…. but it is about sex! I had to throw at least one truly disturbing horror movie on here for y’all.

8. Mulholland Drive

David Lynch, 2001

I’ll always find a way to sneak in a David Lynch film somewhere. While Mulholland Drive is considered to be a surrealist neo-noir mystery, this movie has some genuinely scary moments (the diner scene is particularly haunting). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, & Justin Theroux, the film is set in Los Angeles & follows an aspiring actress who helps an amnesiac rediscover her identity after a car accident. The eroticism between Betty & Rita is why this film has made this list. In addition to that aspect, Mulholland Drive is another one of Lynch’s films that explores his fetishes, desires, & obsessions. The dark & mysterious brunette woman seems to be a reoccurring symbol for him - a parallel to Dorothy in Blue Velvet as well. This film has a lot going on & each time I give it a rewatch, there’s something more that I’m left with each time.

Side note tidbit: I’ve heard a theory that this movie was inspired by the death of one of Lynch’s close friends, Jennifer Syme, who died in a car accident on Mulholland Drive the night she attended a party at Marilyn Manson’s. After being driven home by another party guest, she got back in her car to return to the party & crashed her car, dying instantly. She was 28 when she was killed. Her ex-boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, Dave Navarro, Scott Coffey, & David Lynch were the pallbearers at her funeral. An investigation into the crash showed that Syme was intoxicated & wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. A muscle relaxant & an anticonvulsant were found in the car. David Lynch has publicly stated that Marilyn Manson coerced & pressured Syme to return to the party despite knowing she was intoxicated & blames him for her death. I believe the family found texts on Syme’s phone proving the coercion by Manson. In 2002, Syme’s mother sued Marilyn Manson for wrongful death - for giving Syme drugs at the party and also instructing her to operate a motor vehicle despite being intoxicated. Manson denied responsibility & the case was dismissed in 2003.

9. X

Ti West, 2022

I really loved this film’s play on the slasher genre. I’ve always had kind of mixed feelings about a lot of the classic slashers because of their sexist tendencies. You know, the slut is always the first to die. Historically, slashers have kind of served as a warning of the dangers of premarital sex, drug use, etc. I stay for the gory kill scenes but ultimately get turned off by the subliminal messaging. What I love about X is that it’s about an adult film crew & the prudes on set are the ones that get killed off first. Even more so, the villain in the film is envious of the main porn star character, flipping the script on what you’d expect. I wanted more gory kills in this film, but was interested enough in it’s concept that I really enjoyed it in the end.

10. From Dusk Till Dawn

Robert Rodriguez, 1996

What can I say about From Dusk Till Dawn? It’s a fun action horror written by Quentin Tarantino & stars George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Salma Hayek, Tom Savini, Cheech Marin, & Danny Trejo. The eroticism (& the horror element) really comes in when the characters arrive at the Titty Twister, a strip club in the desert. This is the film with the iconic Salma Hayek dance scene, which is really the main reason to give this movie a watch. Quentin Tarantino’s character even takes a shot of tequila off Salma Hayek’s foot & sucks her toes. The scene really lives up to it’s hype.

Honorable mentions go to a few more erotic horror films I’ve written about in 10 Erotic Films, including Blue Velvet, Videodrome, Eyes Wide Shut, Under the Skin, The Love Witch, & The Hunger. You can read more about those films in the article linked below:

10 Erotic Films

More erotic horror on my personal watchlist for this month are:

Daughters of Darkness, Harry Kümel, 1971

Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Lucio Fulci, 1971

In the Realm of the Senses, Nagisa Ōshima, 1976

Nekromantik, Jörg Buttgereit, 1987

The Witches of Eastwick, George Miller, 1987

Antichrist, Lars von Trier, 2009

Thirst, Park Chan-wook, 2009

Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch, 2014

The Neon Demon, Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016

What are your favorite erotic horror films?