10 Best Coming Of Age Horror Movies

The puberty monster is out again and there's nowhere to hide in Teeth, It Follows & more!

Pennywise facegrab It 2017
Warner Bros. Pictures

The teenage years are rough, there's no doubt about that.

There is school, relationships, your body and mind, your family and about a million other things all going wrong and requiring your attention all at once. It's a shock that not all coming of age movies are classed as horror, because for the most part the whole time is pretty horrific.

It's no surprise then that there's a whole subgenre of horror dedicated to this difficult period, where the so-called 'puberty monster' is out in force ruining everything in sight.

Following tweens and teens really being put through it, some of the best horrors of the last few decades fit into this subsection. These films combine teenage drama with classic horror staples, including everything from cannibal families to werewolf transformations.

Most good coming-of-age horrors use horror as a vehicle, a smart and subversive way to explore some of the scariest and most ignored bits of growing up. Who doesn't love a monster metaphor? Really though, if we thought we had it hard as kids, at least we can take some solace in the fact we didn't have it as hard as these guys!

10. Teeth

Pennywise facegrab It 2017
Roadside Attractions

I’m willing to admit that the concept is funny, ok? If you completely disengage your brain when watching the movie then the whole thing is funny, but let’s be real it’s also not the most comfortable thing to watch.

It is satisfying to watch sexual predators get their dingdongs chopped off, but it’s also super uncomfortable when you realise how prevalent and real a threat sexual violence is to women coming of a certain age.

If someone is to argue that this movie is nothing more than a dumb horror about a mythical medical condition then they are ignoring the razor-sharp commentary and awareness of it all. The horror element comes both from the reality the film points to and, of course, the body-horror bits where you see the end of a guy’s penis being eaten by his own dog.

Give the movie a chance, it’s infamous for a reason and if nothing else you can come out of the end of it being able to tell people you watched a crab crawl over a severed penis.

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