13 Lovers’ Lane Scenes in Scary Movies

Oh, to be young and in love! You’re on a date. It’s a beautiful summer night. The moon is out and bright. You can’t get enough of each other, so you decide to park the car somewhere private for more time together—a turnoff of some old country road, a secluded scenic spot, an abandoned parking lot, a remote lake or state park. Lovers’ lane, Make-Out Point—whatever you want to call it—for decades, a visit to one has been a rite of passage. 

The easier availability of cars in the early 20th century is probably the source of origin for these areas. In the 1940s and 1950s, they became even more popular. They’re ubiquitous in pop culture. Many songs have been written about lovers’ lanes. They’ve been featured in countless books and movies. Urban legends have been spawned from the setting, like “The Hook,” about a hook-wielding maniac menacing a young couple and killing them. 

Tragically, murder at these vulnerable places hasn’t just been the stuff of stories. In real life, there are known killers who have targeted these locations—the Queens 3X Killer, the Zodiac Killer, the Phantom Killer, and the Son of Sam, to name a few. Reality has been reflected in art. If there’s a lesson horror has taught us it’s, in the words of Randy Meeks, “You can never have sex. Big no, no! Sex equals death.” Sex has been a death sentence to countless characters in the genre. Not many filmmakers have taken advantage of the lovers’ lane setting, however, which is an excellent offshoot of the trope. 

Cataloged below are 13 horror movies with a scary lovers’ lane scene:

Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)

Invasion of the Saucer Men is based on Paul W. Fairman’s 1955 short story “The Cosmic Frame.” The sci-fi comedy horror was released as a double feature with I Wish I Was a Teenage Wolf. A light flashes across the sky and a flying saucer lands on a clearing by the road. It happens to be a busy night at lovers’ lane, where teenage couple Joan (Gloria Castillo) and Johnny (Steven Terrell) have been making out. Her father doesn’t approve of him, and after showing her a ring he has for her, the two decide to elope that night. As they’re leaving the woods, they run over an alien creature from the ship. His hand is severed, but it comes alive and stalks the teens. Soon, the town’s teenagers mobilize against aliens with venomous claws.

The Blob (1958)

The Blob was distributed as a double feature with another sci-fi classic, I Married a Monster From Outer Space, by Paramount Pictures. Steve McQueen stars in his first leading role alongside Aneta Corsaut. In our modern age, the film has a quaint, but charming, feel to it. There are many 1950s sci-fi B movies to dive into, but The Blob is one of the few that rises above constraints. The movie has been released as a part of the Criterion Collection. The Blob’s plot is surprisingly scary: a continuously growing gelatinous mass from outer space engulfs living beings, growing larger and more aggressive the more it consumes. Steve (McQueen) and Jane (Corsaut) are parked on a lovers’ lane kissing and enjoying the stars when they become the first to discover the amoeboid alien. When police dismiss their story, it’s up to the teens to save the town. There’s a 1988 underrated remake that has somewhat fallen into obscurity. 

The Girl in Lover’s Lane (1960)

The Girl in Lover’s Lane is a microbudget noir starring Joyce Meadows as Carrie Anders, the titular character and a waitress at a local diner. The story revolves around two strangers from completely different worlds. Bix Dugan (Brett Halsey), a longtime drifter, meets Danny Winslow (Lowell Brown), a runaway from a wealthy family, on a train. He agrees to mentor Danny on his way of life. The two decide to pick a random town to settle in for a while. Bix falls for Carrie, the girl of his dreams, but he feels like he isn’t good enough for her and is forced to reexamine his life. The two spend plenty of time together at Lovers’ Point before an unspeakable tragedy. 

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

“Not everyone who comes to this lovers’ lane has the same thing on their mind.” The Town That Dreaded Sundown is very loosely based on the infamous 1946 Texarkana Moonlight Murders, in which five people were killed and three were injured. The murders and related violent crimes, attributed to a perpetrator known as the Phantom Killer, were never solved. The movie is narrated by Vern Stierman and takes many liberties for dramatic effects. However, like in real life, the first attacks occur on lovers’ lanes. Director-producer Charles B. Pierce was threatened by officials over the tagline “In 1946 this man killed five people… Today he still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark,” but it remained on posters. The movie had its world premiere in Texarkana, where a number of locals had been used as extras. 

Final Exam (1981)

Radish (Joel S. Rice), one of the central characters of this film, partially inspired Scream’s beloved character Randy Meeks. This college campus slasher opens with March College’s quarterback and his date parked and making out at a local lovers’ lane, where they’re brutally attacked and murdered. The next day, students at nearby Lanier College, almost emptied out for the end of the semester, prepare for their final exams. The killer arrives on campus driving a van and begins stalking the remaining group of students. Final Exam is everything that could be expected from a post-Halloween teen slasher: a bunch of young adults fitting into various tropes, an unknown assailant picking them off one by one, some gore, creepy music, a bit of nudity, and a final girl remaining at the end. 

Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Killer Klowns From Outer Space is the only film written and directed by brothers Charles and Stephen Chiodo, who also created practical effects and makeup for this and numerous other movies and shows. The sci-fi horror comedy begins with a bunch of teens hanging out at the local Make-Out Point. This is where the audience is introduced to protagonists Mike (Grant Cramer) and Debbie (Suzanne Snyder), who spot a bright object plummeting down to Earth. They decide to investigate and upon going to the landing site, find a strange spaceship resembling a circus tent. Killer alien clowns who feed on and harvest humans have arrived to terrorize their small town, taking a special interest in Debbie. 

Campfire Tales (1997)

Campfire Tales is an anthology horror film of popular urban legends. The movie consists of three segments told in an overarching narrative by a group of teens who get stranded in the woods after a car crash and are trying to pass the time. It opens with a completely unrelated black-and-white story set in the 1950s called “The Hook,” featuring characters  Eddie and Jenny, played by James Marsden and Amy Smart. The couple is parked at Make-Out Point doing as lovers do, when a radio broadcast warns of a dangerous man on the loose in the area. The intro was probably used to set the urban legend vibe. The rest of the picture tells tales of monsters, psychopaths, and ghosts. 

Urban Legend (1998)

Urban Legend is one of the most underrated slashers from the 1990s, and among the most campy and fun. It deserves a lot more love than it gets. The plot is centered around a series of gruesome murders inspired by famous urban legends plaguing Pendleton University’s campus. It focuses on Natalie Simon (Alicia Witt) and her inner circle of friends, Sasha (Tara Reid), Brenda (Rebecca Gayheart), Paul (Jared Leto), Parker (Michael Rosenbaum), and Damon (Joshua Jackson). Natalie has a connection to the introductory kill—they were friends and cheer co-captains in high school. Early on in the movie, Damon takes her to a lovers’ lane under the guise of consoling her, with the pure intention of seducing her. Rightfully so, she gets angry and demands to be taken home, but first Damon steps out of the car to go to the bathroom. He’s attacked with a rope and Natalie watches him die. Upon getting back to campus, Natalie’s worries are dismissed as a prank, but more bodies start piling up. 

See also: 29 Fun Facts About the 90s Teen Slasher Movie ‘Urban Legend’ (1998)

Lovers Lane (1999)

This Valentine’s Day slasher is inspired by the urban legend of The Hook. The movie opens with a couple at lovers’ lane being attacked by a maniac wielding a steel hook. They escape and find the couple in the car next to theirs, who had been having an affair, slaughtered. The killer is apprehended and incarcerated at a nearby state institution for the criminally insane. Thirteen years later, he escapes and begins to hunt down his victims’ children. The group of teens comes face to face with him at the same Lovers’ Lane where the previous murders took place. Lovers Lane is part of a slew of “imitator” slashers that came after the success of Scream. It does, however, make for a fun and compelling watch, despite its predictable ending. 

See also: Horror Movies Based on Urban Legends

Invasion (2005)

Invasion, also known as Infection, was directed by Albert Pyun, a director who emerged in the 1980s with a series of low budget films. This one is reminiscent of Body Snatchers and may be the strangest by far in his collection. The bulk of it is a one-take found footage film shot from a police car dash cam. It takes place the night of the high school prom. Officer Brick Bardo (Scott Paulin) gets a call to help out a local rancher doing some night fishing at the state park. When he gets there, he discovers a meteorite and is attacked by the man he’s supposed to help, who has been infected by an alien organism that takes control of its host. The pair start terrorizing the town and spreading the bug. Bardo accosts a teen couple at lovers’ lane. The guy gets infected, but the girl manages to escape and must survive long enough in the dark forest until help arrives. 

Zodiac (2007)

This neo-noir true crime thriller is based on the books by Robert Graysmith, Zodiac and Unmasked. Directed by David Fincher, the movie is centered around the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer, who committed a string of murders in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s. He later taunted the police through over 20 ciphered letters he mailed to regional newspapers. The case remains unsolved to this day. The movie took some creative liberties and also omitted some key details. Like in real life, the killer had a penchant for going after couples looking for privacy at lovers’ lanes, but the real life 1968 murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, the first known victims, are omitted from the film. 

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

This movie acts as a metafictional sequel to the 1976 film of the same name. It opens on Halloween in 2013 in Texarkana at a local drive-in hosting the annual showing of The Town That Dreaded Sundown (the above mentioned 1976 movie based on the Phantom Killer, who murdered several people in and around the small Texas-Arkansas border town in 1946). Teens Jami Lerner (Addison Timlin) and Corey Holland (Spencer Treat Clark) decide to leave. They park in a secluded area for some private time together. As they’re talking and kissing, Jami notices a hooded figure in the woods watching them. Before they can leave, he breaks the window and forces them out of the car. Corey is slashed to death, and Jami flees back to the drive-in for help. The rest of the movie follows as the copycat killer terrorizes Jami and the community.

Lovers Lane (2020)

Lovers Lane is an Australian short about a couple hanging out at a lovers’ lane. It was nominated for Best Horror Short in the Changing Face International Film Festival. The film opens with Wade (Zachariah Hammond) telling Angela (Maddy Chambers) about Merkov Asylum and the dangerous types of patients who are institutionalized there. He then starts relaying the story about Merkov’s worst patient, The Hook, and how he committed the “Babysitter Murders.”  Little do they know that he has just managed to escape the place. You can watch Lovers Lane on YouTube here.

Further reading:

• 30+ Movies Based on Urban Legends
• High School Horror Movies
• 12+ Horror Movies With The Best Love Story Plotlines