The Best Scary Stoner Movies to Watch on April 20th

Hey Creepy Catalogers,

This week I’m preparing for all who plan to celebrate 4/20 next week with a list of my favorite stoner scream queens and horror movies about weed:

Idle Hands (1999). A horror comedy about a stoner named Anton (Devon Sawa) whose hand becomes possessed and starts murdering his friends and family despite his protests.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011). A group of college students head to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of partying. (Warning, spoilers ahead) The stoner character, Marty, accidentally survives an attack by a zombie and joins final girl Dana in discovering they were part of a bizarre human sacrifice. The films ends with Marty and Dana sharing a joint and waiting for the world to end.

Halloween (1978). Not only is Laurie Strode one of the most well-known final girls, she’s one of the few that is explicitly shown smoking weed. This is completely forgotten in horror lore. Decades later in Scream (1996), we hear that one of the rules of surviving a horror movie is that you can never “do drugs”. This retcon ignores the lineage of Laurie Strode, who lit up and went on to become arguably the most famous horror movie survivor of all time.

She’s the good girl, even though she did smoke pot, which is such an anomaly for a good girl…But the way she smokes it, you can see she’s not experienced. She coughs and she sort of blows it.

Jamie Lee Curtis, discussing Laurie Strode’s iconic weed use in Halloween

Scream (2022). On the other hand, Mindy Meeks-Martin is kind of the anti-Laurie Strode. While both are brave and capable, Mindy is no shy girl scout. She is a confident, modern scream queen who has no problem being blunt about sex, drugs or identifying the killer.

This is the End (2013). This is probably my favorite stoner comedy and since it’s about the literal end of the world, there’s also a horror element to it. Sometimes when I’m having a bad day, I just watch the scene where Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel get to heaven.

Some other great moments in weed-horror history:

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) deserves inclusion here because of the fun fact that John Larroquette was paid one (1) joint for his work voicing the iconic opening narration of the film.
• Steven and Diane Freeling light up in Poltergeist (1982), but who wouldn’t if they were living on an Indian burial ground! This scene is remembered for its positive portrayal of pot as a casual relaxant used by “normal” middle class parents.
• Friday the 13th, Part III (1982) a slasher movie featuring our boy Jason Voorhees that references to weed throughout.
• Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) is worth watching just for the line “Let this be a lesson to you, say no to drugs!”

• Leprechaun 2 (1994) has a death by bong scene.
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) has Jack Black playing a cringey stoner character who has appropriated Rastafarian aesthetics to boot.
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman imbibe in Stanley Kubrick’s psychological drama.

• The Scary Movie (2000) franchise has tons of weed jokes and references throughout the movies.
• Freddy vs. Jason (2003) features Freeberg, a stoner character who gets high enough that Freddy takes possession of his body.
• Hood of Horror (2006) is a horror comedy anthology hosted by Snoop Dogg, the “Hound of Hell”.
• In The Green Inferno (2013) a bag of weed hidden in a dead body causes problems when the body is burned and suddenly our protagonists are surrounded by cannibals with the munchies.
• The horror comedy Hansel and Gretel Get Baked (2013) is pretty obviously about weed, along with Evil Bong (2006) starring Tommy Chong and Weedjies (2019).
• The zombie series Z Nation (2014-2018) is a TV show following a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse. In season 2 they smoke “Z weed” which is cannabis that has allegedly been grow in Minneapolis using the compost of dead zombies.
• In Antibirth (2016), Natasha Lyonne stars as a stoner who wakes up after blacking out at a party to discover she has a bizarre and extremely gnarly pregnancy.
• Hereditary (2018) is a bad watch on 4/20 unless you want to put bummer vibes on the whole day. A character’s decision to smoke weed has just about the worst consequences any decision can have and sets in motion the real horror in this movie. Don’t imbibe and drive people!!!

Happy streaming and stay spooky!!!