When it comes toValentine’s Day, it seems there are only two schools of thought regarding the holiday. You either love it and the chance it gives you to be cheesy and shower your partner with candy and chocolate, oryou hate it and think it’s a Hallmark holiday. Horror is a niche genre of movies as it is, and there are some horror movies that put love at the forefront and set the underlying tone that if the characters love one another and stick together, they’ll be victorious through whatever evil is plaguing them. Then there are the movies where evil wins, obsession, and revenge run rampant, and toxicity is high.
This list is for the audiencesthat hate Valentine’s Dayand want to see the most dementedplots of love, obsession, and revenge.
1Lisa Frankenstein (2024)
Zelda WilliamsandDiablo Codyteamed up together this lover’s season to bringLisa Frankensteinto the doorstep of every goth, angsty teen who is perpetually stuck in the ’80s and early ’90s. StarringKathryn NewtonandCole Sprouse, Lisa Swallows is an incredibly misunderstood teenager who recently lost her mother and has to deal with that trauma while also processing being sexually assaulted at a party. Feeling lost and unsure, she heads to her favorite spot to clear her head; the cemetery. While there, she visits the grave of a young Victorian man and wishes that she could be with him. The goth gods hear her cries, green lightning strikes, and the boy returns to life as a lover boy zombie. From here, Lisa and the Creature start to develop a bond over tanning beds, shared loneliness, and the dismemberment of their enemies. Til Death Do Us Part really has nothing on Lisa and the Creature.
Lisa Frankenstein
A coming of RAGE love story about a teenager and her crush, who happens to be a corpse. After a set of horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a journey to find love, happiness - and a few missing body parts.
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2My Bloody Valentine (2009)
As a remake of the 1981 classic,My Bloody Valentinehas to be added to a Valentine’s Day horror movie list.Jensen Acklesstars as Tom. Tom’s father owns a mining company and causes an accident in the mines that kills six men. The only survivor, Harry, wakes from a coma and wreaks havoc on the town, and is eventually killed by the police. 10 years later, on Valentine’s Day, whenTom returns to his hometown after his father’s death, Harry also returns to exact his revenge on Tom and the town that killed him. The original movie is also worth a watch, as both cover love triangles, revenge, and gore.
My Bloody Valentine 3D
Tom returns to his hometown on the tenth anniversary of the Valentine’s night massacre that claimed the lives of 22 people. Instead of a homecoming, Tom finds himself suspected of committing the murders, and it seems like his old flame is the only one that believes he’s innocent.
Watch on Tubi
3Bones And All (2022)
Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) is a girl who, at the ripe age of three, discovered she has cannibalistic tendencies. Being able to skate by in life because her father (Andre Holland) keeps covering up her incidents, she lives a somewhat nomadic life, moving from place to place to escape the consequences of her actions. After she turns 18 and has another incident, her father abandons her, and she’s left to figure life out for herself. On her journey to find her family, Maren meets a creepy man who seeks her out because he can smell that she’s an “eater” too. Trusting her gut, she avoids joining forces with the weirdo and traverses Middle America when she meets Lee (Timothée Chalamet). InBones And All,the two fall in love and attempt to control their hungerwhile navigating life on the fringe.
Bones and All
A young woman embarks on a 1000 mile odyssey through America where she meets a disenfranchised drifter. But all roads lead back to their terrifying pasts and to a final stand that will determine whether love can survive their otherness.
Watch on Amazon Prime
4The Love Witch (2016)
Love will make people do some crazy things, and being desperate for love will push crazy right over the edge to insane.The Love Witchis about Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a beautiful young woman who wants to find the love of her life. It seems simple enough, but she’s also a witch who conjures up potions and spells in her Victorian goth apartment in an idyllic California town. Unfortunately for her, her love spells turn the men she’s after into versions of men that she doesn’t actually want. This leaves her to kill and poison these men and move on to the next in the hopes thatmaybe he will be Mr. Right. She’s spellbound to find him eventually, right?
The Love Witch
A modern-day witch uses spells and magic to get men to fall in love with her, with deadly consequences.
5Valentine (2001)
David Boreanaz,Marley Shelton,Denise Richards, andKatherine Heiglstar in this teen slasher,Valentine, about exacting revenge on a love interest. In middle school, a young man is accused of forcing himself on Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw) at a Valentine’s Day dance. When everyone finds out, he is bullied extensively, expelled, and sent away to a mental institution. Flash forward to high school, and Dorothy and her friends become the target of a killer donning a Cupid mask, no doubt as a result of them being bullies in middle school.Revenge is sweet, and Valentine’s Day is the sweetest holiday.
Five women are stalked by an unknown assailant while preparing for Valentine’s Day.
Rent on Amazon
6Fresh (2022)
Online dating is difficult, ask anyone on the internet, andFreshshows the worst turn modern dating can possibly take. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is just like many people and has a slew of failed online dates. She eventually becomes so disheartened that she swears off dating apps and aims to find someone in an organic way. Maybe even specifically in the organic aisle of the supermarket, which is where she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan). Usually, when things are too good to be true, we trust that, but Noa thinks it’s a sign and agrees to go out with Steve. After a few dates, the two decide to go on a trip together against Noa’s friend’s advice. She thinks Steve is a great guy and trusts him… until she wakes up shackled to the floor in his basement. Steve isn’t who he says he is, obviously, and theonly thing he wants from Noa is her flesh.
After quitting dating apps, a woman meets the supposedly perfect man and accepts his invitation to a romantic weekend getaway, only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites.
Watch on Hulu
7Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster’sMidsommaris a wild ride, and I don’t think anyone was ready for it.Florence Pughstars as Dani, a student who is reeling from the death of her parents and sister. Because of this tragedy, her distant and absent boyfriend reluctantly invites her to come to Sweden with him to partake in a festival that only occurs once every 90 years. What could possibly go wrong in a foreign country in a horror movie? Turns out,a pagan cultruns the festival,and their ultimate goal is to crown a queen and offer sacrifices to their gods. Any guesses about who might become queen and who might be sacrificed?
A couple travels to Northern Europe to visit a rural hometown’s fabled Swedish mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
Watch on Max
8Bride Of Chucky (1998)
Bride Of Chuckyis the fourth installment of theChild’s Playfranchise, and it has so much Valentine in it.Tiffany Valentine, that is.Jennifer Tillystars as Tiffany, a deranged and obsessed previous girlfriend of Charles Lee Ray before he is murdered and placed into the Chucky doll. Tiffany is obsessed with him, so she bribes a police officer to give her the parts of the Chucky doll so she can stitch him back together and perform the ritual to bring him back to life for her benefit. Once alive, their toxic love and obsession take over, and eventually, Tiffany is killed, and her spirit goes into a bride doll. Nowthe two are a perfect match made in hellthat can take out their anger on whoever crosses their paths.
Bride of Chucky
When an ex-girlfriend of the notorious killer doll Chucky resurrects him, their reunion leads to a macabre road trip filled with carnage. The duo, now joined by Tiffany, Chucky’s equally murderous love interest, embarks on a twisted journey of mayhem, blending horror with dark humor in a satirical take on the slasher genre.
Rent on Apple TV
9The Loved Ones (2009)
Oh, the prom. The perfect time for teenage romance, canoodling, and happiness. That’s all that Lola (Robin McLeavy) wants from Brent (Xavier Samuel) when she asks him to prom inThe Loved Ones.Unfortunately for Brent, when he turns Lola down because he has a girlfriend, she takes that personally. Instead of licking her wounds and moving on, Lola drugs and kidnaps him to make him attend her own twisted prom.Nothing says love and romance quite like pink glitter and power drills.
The Loved Ones
When Brent turns down his classmate Lola’s invitation to the prom, she concocts a wildly violent plan for revenge.
Watch on Paramount+
10Knock Knock (2015)
America’s SweetheartKeanu Reevesstars inKnock Knockas Evan, a married architect who opens his home to two stranded women who seem totally normal and not at all seductive in nature. The two women, played byLorenza IzzoandAna de Armas, do everything they can to seduce Evan. Once they get their way with him, they flip the script and seek revenge on him for his infidelity. That makes sense, right? This turns into an interesting cat-and-mouse game between the women and Evan. It takes a really unhinged individual to want revenge for a situation that they caused, and in this case,it’s double unhinged.
Knock Knock
A devoted husband and father helps two stranded young women who knock on his door, but his kind gesture turns into a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
