20 best movies like The Prowler (1981)

A serial killer returns to his hometown to stalk seven children who share the same birthday as the date he was allegedly put to rest.

When the citizens of a small evangelical town systematically begin committing suicide, a young girl struggling to reconcile her Christian upbringing with her desire to experience the outside world finds her faith put to the ultimate test.

Locked in a school closet during Halloween 1962, young Frank witnesses the ghost of a young girl and the man who murdered her years ago. Shortly afterward he finds himself stalked by the killer and is soon drawn to an old house where a mysterious Lady In White lives. As he discovers the secret of the woman he soon finds that the killer may be someone close to him.

Fresh out of rehab, a young woman moves back in with her parents and sister, and soon becomes involved in a mystery that has left people in her town paralyzed.

Cherry Falls is a quiet little town - until the night that a serial killer begins preying on its youth. After a third teen is found slain, the killer's modus operandi emerges: the victims were all virgins. Sheriff Marken is concerned for the safety of the teens in general and in particular his own daughter Jody, who is still a virgin...

A masked maniac terrorizes the same small community where a murderer known as the Phantom Killer struck decades earlier.

After a seemingly innocent prank goes horribly wrong, a group of sorority sisters are stalked and murdered one by one in their sorority house while throwing a party to celebrate their graduation.

After learning of an urban legend in which a demented serial killer named SMILEY can be summoned through the Internet, mentally fragile Ashley must decide whether she is losing her mind or becoming Smiley's next victim.

No one is safe when a killer, wielding the deadly contents of his toolbox, methodically stalks his prey.

Emily Johnson, her boyfriend Bobby and their friends Clare and Jude are recent college grads driving cross-country, taking a last vacation together before they face the "real" world. An accident leaves them hurt and stranded on a lonely Louisiana road. When the ambulance arrives, it whisks them to Mercy Hospital.

Six young adults struggle with their personal demons while staying at a secluded mansion during a dark and stormy night where a seemingly innocent game of 'taboo' brings out their inter-most secrets which soon leads to murder.

Jon Lansdale is a comic book artist who loses his right hand in a car accident. The hand was not found at the scene of the accident, but it soon returns by itself to follow Jon around, and murder those who anger him.

Three girls discover that two men are willing to do anything to impress Mother and what impresses Mother is watching her sons commit acts of rape and murder. Now these women are prisoners and lowered to pawns in the game of checkers between two dim wits and their Maniac Mommy and the question becomes, can any of them escape, alive?

Thirty years ago, in the sleepy community of Waterbury, a killer known as “The Executioner” murdered Sarah Bennett's parents. Now Sarah and her husband Dylan have returned to town, only to find herself the centerpiece in a series of horrifying murders centered around the seven deadly sins.

A group of film students set out to finish filming a movie that was never completed after its director was murdered. After they begin filming, they realize they're in for a bit of trouble, not unlike the late director...

With his business in shambles, a mounting criminal record, and a cheating wife, today is the day that Buddy Hutchins snaps.

Five friends are stalked and murdered by a masked assailant while preparing for Valentine's Day.

The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve.

A mentally disturbed young woman takes a job at a posh country club and falls in with a clique of wealthy college kids where she's taken under the wing of the clique's twisted leader, who harbors some dark secrets too terrifying to tell.

Scientific whiz-kid Paul moves to a new town to study artificial intelligence at the local university. One of Paul's high-tech inventions is a growly-voiced robot named BeeBee, and one of his new friends is the lovely girl next door, Samantha. When tragic events take both BeeBee and Samantha from him, the boy genius desperately sets out to restore the love he lost — and, like a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein, discovers too late that he has created a rampaging monster.

In the Oregon mountains, a pair of hunters encounter a machete-wielding killer in an abandoned church. Meanwhile, five campers arrive to examine some property one of them has inherited but are warned by the forest ranger not to venture forth. Soon after they set up camp, they begin hearing strange noises, encounter a mysterious singing girl and start disappearing one by one.

An artist slowly goes insane while struggling to pay his bills, work on his paintings, and care for his two female roommates, which leads him taking to the streets of New York after dark and randomly killing derelicts with a power drill.

Claire Parker is going to die. At the hands of a sadistic and depraved killer, she will endure a terrifying, unimaginable brutal death--and it will all happen again. After being beaten, dragged, sliced, and stabbed, Claire awakens at work--where it all began--untouched and unharmed. But the hellish ordeal is far from over. The madman is back and he's ready for more blood...

Barbara Hershey stars as Carla Moran, a hard-working single mother until the night she is raped in her bedroom by someone - or something - that she cannot see. Despite skeptical psychiatrists, she is repeatedly attacked in her car, in the bath, and in front of her children. Could this be a case of hysteria, a manifestation of childhood sexual trauma, or something even more horrific?

Donna's senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, though a sadistic killer from her past has different plans for her and her friends.

Alice is a withdrawn 12-year-old who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who gets most of the attention from her mother, leaving Alice out of the spotlight. When Karen is found brutally murdered in a church, suspicions start to turn toward Alice. But could a 12-year-old girl really be capable of such savagery?

A frustrated Boston detective searches for the maniac responsible for mutilating a number of university coeds.

Three teens blackmail a serial killer into helping them get rid of a violent bully.

Far away from the site of a gruesome murder, a teenager named Jill Johnson arrives at a luxurious home for a baby-sitting job. With the children fast asleep, she settles in for what she expects to be an ordinary evening. Soon, the ringing of a phone and the frightening words of a sadistic caller turn Jill's routine experience into a night of terror.

A young opperata is stalked by a deranged fan bent on killing the people associated with her to claim her for himself.

A teenager is stuck in a time loop that is not quite the same each time. She must uncover the truth but her actions have consequences for herself and others.

In the dark silence of the sea during World War II, the submarine U.S.S. Tiger Shark prowls on what should be a routine rescue mission. But for the shell-shocked crew, trapped together in the sub's narrow corridors and constricted spaces, this is about to become a journey into the sensory delusions, mental deceptions and runaway fear that lurk just below the surface of the ocean.

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.

The film that brings back horror icon Freddy Krueger as a darker and more sinister character than ever before. While Freddy is on the prowl a group of teenagers being stalked soon learn they all have a common factor making them targets for this twisted killer.

Six young actresses auditioning for a movie role at a remote mansion are targeted by a mysterious masked murderer.

After Washington DC detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem.

A naked teenage boy covered in blood appears at a remote sheriff's station one year after the brutal unsolved murder of a local girl. Now Sheriff Jack Shepherd, guilt ridden over the girl's murder, must confront his own demons as he desperately searches for the boy's true identity and possible victims. Little does Jack realize that he has started down a path that will bring him face to face with an unthinkable horror. Before sunrise the living will pay for the pain the dead have suffered.

A web-comic artist finds that a series of murders are occurring that have a disturbing resemblance to the images in her work.

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

After witnessing a horrific and traumatic event, Julia Lund, a graduate student in psychology, gradually comes to the realization that everything which scared her as a child could be real. And what's worse, it might be coming back to get her..

A family imprisoned by intruders is forced to play a terrifying game of "Kill, Or Be Killed". As the night unfolds, the game's mysterious rules become clear, and the family realizes their nightmare is being streamed live to riveted viewers all over the world, who are compelled to KEEP WATCHING... not knowing if what they're seeing is real, or staged.

Veronica, the new girl in town, is lured into the woods by a group of senior boys looking to make her a victim. But the boys don't know that Veronica's been trained to handle herself in surprisingly lethal ways.

An anorexic young woman escapes from a psychiatric clinic and meets a young man who wants to help. She is caught and returned to her parents, who are soon beheaded by a garrotting stranger making the rounds about town, apparently striking only when it rains. The orphaned young woman and her new lover launch their own investigation and are endangered when a link is discovered with the victims and a particular operation performed years before.

When young Poindexter "Fool" Williams breaks into the creepy, immense old home of his family's greedy and uncaring landlords, he uncovers a disturbing scenario underneath the stairs.

Ten years after he brutally murdered two girls, a killer escapes from a mental institution and returns to his turf, the theme park attraction called Dark Ride. About to crash his path are a group of college kids on a road trip who stumble across the park.

A seasoned police detective and his partner have just uncovered a string of unusual murders that lead them to a serial killer, who believes that he is the descendant of Judas.

Mary Murdock, a college student, thinks she's hit and killed a cat with her car driving home drunk from a party. She is horrified beyond words when she gets home and discovers a man's nearly dead body impaled on the bumper of her Jeep. Terrified and irrational, Mary is faced with a series of decisions that determine her fate.

FBI agent Joel Campbell, burnt-out and shell-shocked after years spent chasing serial killers, flees L.A. to begin a new life for himself in Chicago. But five months later, Joel's best laid plans are abruptly cut short when his new hometown becomes the setting for some particularly gruesome murders--murders that could only have been committed by one man: David Allen Griffin. One of Joel's most elusive and cunning nemeses, Griffin has followed his former pursuer to Chicago in order to play a sadistic game of cat and mouse. Taunting Joel with photographs of his intended victims and leaving his crime scenes meticulously free of clues in order to keep the police at bay, Griffin derives as much pleasure out of watching Joel react to every movement as watching his victims die. But when Griffin moves into Joel's inner circle, Joel must quickly find some way to stop him before someone close to him becomes the next one to die.

Geeky student Arnie Cunningham falls for Christine, a rusty 1958 Plymouth Fury, and becomes obsessed with restoring the classic automobile to her former glory. As the car changes, so does Arnie, whose newfound confidence turns to arrogance behind the wheel of his exotic beauty. Arnie's girlfriend Leigh and best friend Dennis reach out to him, only to be met by a Fury like no other.

Based on the true events of the only case in US History where a spirit caused the death of a man.