What makes a great sleepover movie? Should it be funny? Meaningful? Fun? Scary? Should it be a standalone film so riveting you end up talking about it for the rest of the night, or should it have sequels so a marathon can ensue? Should it be something nobody’s seen before, to experience it for the first time together, or should the movie be a tried-and-true favorite? From the data, it’s fair to say there is no one correct answer.
As October kicks off and spooky season officially begins, it’s the perfect time to look to horror for your next sleepover movie of choice. In honor of Jane Schoenbrun’s joyful Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the list below prioritizes horror films that capture a certain sense of fun. If you’re looking for a wider variety of moods, MUBI has it covered with the newly programmed Dusk Till Dawn: The Camp Miasma Halloween Sleepover marathon, offering everything from feel-bad staples to the particularly unhinged. Until then, the twenty films to follow are primed for consumption: right after the peak of a candy-fueled sugar high at the sleepover, pushing through the wee hours of the night towards rest-deprived delirium.