New York Horror Movies
- Audrey E Lorber
- 13 minutes ago
- 9 min read
I’m sure a lot of people think New York is scary enough without Jason Voorhees. People often say New York is the fifth character in sex and the city. New York is romantic, a place where anything can happen… anything. In a lot of New York horror movies, the city informs the movie. Can’t imagine Vampire in Brooklyn or Escape from New York in any other city. So it’s kind of disappointing to find out a lot of those movies weren’t filmed anywhere near the Empire State.
I have found that most horror movies that are fully filmed in New York are made independently by real New Yorkers- not those Hollywood schmucks. There’s a lot of reasons for this. Shooting independently allows filmmakers to skirt expensive permits that studio productions just can’t. And maybe these New York grown filmmakers would have been inspired by any city they were from, born artists. But maybe not.
Realizing that “real”, fully filmed in New York movies were disproportionately made by born and bred New Yorkers really touched me. Because it’s in these movies that I see my real city. Maybe not my real city, but the real city my mom lived in and my grandparents lived in. Brooklyn today bares little resemblance to the one in Frankenhooker, but beneath the grafiti and dirt, I see the same subway platform I stand on to wait for the train, same sewer grates, and street lights. It makes me feel like I’ve gone back in time to a place that really existed. It’s funny that you can only capture a place authentically if you live there authentically. Reminds me a little of my short films in their raw earnestness.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a fully filmed-in-New-York movie. You wouldn’t find any that’s not an indie film. Most are from the 80s: Frankenhooker, Basketcase, Driller Killer, and Ms 45. These all have micro-budgets. Interesting…most producers from big budget horror films cite the cost of shooting in New York as the big reason to shoot all interior (and also many many exterior) shots back home in sunny Los Angeles, maybe even on a soundstage. As an independent filmmaker, it seems silly to me to create a set based on a real place. But maybe that’s because I’m thinking like an independent filmmaker, unafraid of shooting without permits.
Frankenhooker, Basketcase, Driller Killer, and Ms 45 were all made nefariously to some degree, without shooting permits. But those are the horror movies set in New York that are shaped by the authentic city. And I do think it is the setting of New York that makes these movies memorable, beloved cult classics. These movies feel like they couldn’t have come from anywhere else, at any other time for that matter. These movies capture the true gritty New York of the 1980s. A New York filled with crime, riddled with drugs, and ravaged by financial instability. But also a New York home to free thinkers and artists.
Frankenhooker and Baskcase were made by independent genre filmmaker Frank Henenlotter in 1990 and 1982 respectively. Ms 45 and Driller Killer were made by Abel Ferrara in 1981 and 1979 respectively. It’s funny to think Basketcase and Ms 45 were being made around the same time, but they’re pretty similar stories when you get down to it. These four films, at their core, are about feeling misunderstood in the big city. While Henenlotter’s films are remembered for their humor, goo, and body horror, Ferrara’s films were known for their grit, violence, and moodiness. One side finding humor in the ongoings of these seedy city streets, the other exposing how it can drive a person to kill, both finding a sense of comfort or belonging.
While researching, I found out about the term "basketcase budget". Meaning a shoestring budget with limited resources, it was coined in reference to none other than Baskcase. With a budget of $35,000, Basketcase achieved so much. I think it's fair to say that Henenlotter’s vision was recognized, and perhaps having more money doesn’t make a movie better, just more complicated to make. Basketcase would not be Basketcase without its budget and restraints. Frankenhooker was made with the highest budget ($2.5 million) of those filmed fully in New York. Henenlotter was actually filming Frankenhooker and Basketcase 2 at the same time (Basketcase 2 also had a budget of $2.5 million).
"The Driller Killer" had the lowest budget of $20,000. It was shot over two years, in and around director Ferrara’s apartment. In interviews, he’s said he played the titular role because he didn’t know how long it would take to make and he was the only person he could guarantee would be there. Independent filmmaking at its finest. While the character in the movie spirals, parties, borrows money, and watches tv, the actor and director was likely doing the very same to make this movie a reality. Art imitates life. I wonder if making movies is what prevented Ferrara from losing it and becoming blood-hungry or if making movies was his version of homicide.
One movie that had a higher budget but is still considered a low budget independent film is Sleepaway Camp. I don’t want to talk about it too much because besides Ricky’s strong accent, this movie could take place at a camp anywhere. But it so happens it was entirely filmed in upstate New York at Camp Argyle. The writer and director actually attended the camp growing up, supporting my theory that only people from here actually shoot their movies here. It does however not take place in the “city” so it’s not super relevant for this essay, especially because a legal permit to film at the camp could likely be easily obtained by a studio production there for little money. Adding in that 1-location movies are regarded as extremely cheaper to make than a movie with a lot of settings.
And while we’re talking movies not in the city, I just want to point out the real-life house from the Amityville Horror story is in New York, but the entire movie was filmed at a house in Tom’s River, NJ. Apparently they looked at a lot of houses before deciding to shoot in New Jersey, but it’s just so close that it’s kind of funny to me?
One movie stands out from the low budget flicks that make up filmed-in-New York horror. One movie that captures a New York I experienced in my lifetime. A 2009 New York. Black Swan. Daron Aronofsky is from Brooklyn, New York. He had a budget of $9 million when making Black Swan independently. Obviously $9 million is a lot bigger budget than even Sleepaway Camp’s $350,000, but it shows. Each dollar is on the screen, in the final cut. After all, Black Swan is the only horror movie (according to my research) to be fully filmed in New York that has garnered any kind of sincere critical praise and known to be mainstream cinema. So this movie is a bit of an outlier budget-wise, but is still a great example of a successful New York horror.
For some reason, learning American Psycho was filmed mostly in Toronto made sense. It almost adds to the film feeling like a warped carnival mirror, a subversive glimpse at New York through the lens of madman. With a modest $7 million budget, the film was shot in Toronto, Ontario, but some establishing shots were filmed in New York. Though distributed by Lionsgate Films, American Psycho is considered to be an independent film. According to Variety, the movie was planned to be a low-budget indie satire, and I think still captures that feeling with the bigger budget. Writer of the book the movie was based on, Bret Easton Ellis, is shockingly from LA. Ellis was inspired by those he met while in New York. He described their desire for status, materialist attitudes, and superficiality in an interview with Larry King. To me, New York is not so much another character in the story, merely a playground for these wise guys. The pompous people Ellis talks about meeting in Manhattan really do exist, even today. It’s just not the New York I surround myself with and not one I yearn for. The Brooklyn in The Driller Killer certainly isn’t inviting, but it has an alluring, dreamy quality that also feels honest.
While there are few horror movies shot entirely in New York, there are a lot that take place in the city. Excluding Escape from New York and Jason Takes Manhattan, all of these movies have significantly higher budgets than those filmed in New York. Filmed mostly in Missouri, Escape from New York is one of the only independent low-budget horror movies not made in New York on our list. According to MovieLocations.com, “Despite the setting, and the title, there’s very little of New York here… Most of the ‘Manhattan’ skylines are matte paintings, as in the opening scene of the raft of potential escapers being destroyed, which was filmed not in the East or the Hudson Rivers but just off the coast of Long Beach, California. Apart from one misty morning shot of the Manhattan skyline seen towards the end of the film, the only glimpse of New York is the brief scene on Liberty Island, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.”
Jason Takes Manhattan is a tricky one to dissect. "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan" was produced by Paramount Pictures and is therefore not an independent movie. While it had a relatively modest budget of $5 million, it was still a studio-backed production. The movie filmed only a couple of days in New York City with the majority shot in Vancouver, Canada. At the time of its production, Jason Takes Manhattan was the most expensive film in the series, with a budget of over $5 million. The scenes filmed in New York City were mostly in Times Square, which is difficult to replicate. The scene of Jason in Times Square is so iconic, it makes me wish the rest of the movie had any watch value.
Rosemary's Baby also takes place in New York and was filmed in both New York and elsewhere. In this case, Los Angeles. The exterior shots of the fictional "Bramford" apartment building were filmed in New York, but the majority of principal photography took place at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. Though it was made on a relatively small budget of $3.2 million in 1968, it was produced by Paramount Pictures, a major studio. Now, director of Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanksi was not from New York, but author of the book the movie is based on, Ira Levin, certainly was. I don’t think New York is necessarily a character in Rosemary’s Baby as it is in some other movies discussed. I would say the interior apartment (filmed on a set at Paramount Pictures on Los Angeles) is more another suffocating character in the movie than New York is.
The aforementioned Vampire in Brooklyn, shot 3 out of 55 days in New York City… and the rest in Los Angeles. This one is striking to me because Eddy Murphy, writer and star of the movie, is surely from Brooklyn, but made this movie at a time in his career when he already had success and financial backing. With that kind of success comes studio interference, however. And with a budget of $14 million, shooting in New York with all those locations in the movie, would have been out of reach. Vampire in Brooklyn, while no masterpiece, is still a movie I love, and I appreciate the highlighting of Brooklyn specifically.
So now there’s a little trend. Both Rosemary’s Baby and Vampire in Brooklyn share a New York native writer and a director from some place else. Meanwhile, all the independent movies’ directors also wrote or co-wrote their screenplays. I marvel at the power of independent filmmaking. There’s something so magical about really being able to see someone’s vision come through on screen. And I’m sure it’s cheaper that way too.
Ghostbusters and Cloverfield are horror movies in which you could certainly say New York is a main character. With budgets of $30 million and $25 million respectively, these were the most expensive movies in this essay. Made 25 years apart, these movies are more similar than you might think. Both were filmed at several landmarks on location in New York City and on studio sets in Los Angeles. Both used iconic New York imagery heavily in the marketing of the films. The poster and iconic scene shown prominently in the trailer for Cloverfield was inspired by none other than the poster for Escape from New York. Cloverfield director Matt Reeves said the poster for Escape from New York “had an image on it of the head of the Statue of Liberty and that image was nowhere in the movie! And it's an incredibly provocative image”. A movie shot almost entirely in Missouri would have a hard time curating Lady Lib’s big head. But with a budget of almost $20 million more, and with the technology of 2010 animation and special effects, Cloverfield was able to make it happen. Filming a lot of scenes in New York definitely makes the city feel real and therefore is more scary.
Ghostbusters filmed at several New York City landmarks and I do think that adds so much to the movie. I think seeing those real buildings and street signs makes me feel similar to the way I do watching the independent super low-budget filmed entirely in New York movies. Most of the scenes filmed in Los Angeles were interior ones, but the director Ivan Reitman utilized Downtown Los Angeles for exterior shots as well. Without those authentic New York City shots, I personally don’t think the film would be as iconic. Writer for LA Weekly Jared Cowan called the attitude of Ghostbusters “inherently New York”. When he asked Reitman if it was easier to shoot in LA than New York, he replied “Yes, because you don’t have the density. Although it was more unique in New York”.
New York City: difficult, dense, but unique. This is a quality that could only shine when you’ve got the real deal. I love a movie set in New York regardless. Perhaps bigger budget horror movies made by studios by people from California don’t show “real” New York, but they can still capture the essence of the city through a manufactured lens. I simply love my city. It inspires me everyday. I can see its imperfections and its glowy touristy exterior; and both make me proud to live here.
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