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How many of these 13 Las Vegas horror movies have you seen?
Las Vegas should be a hotbed for horror movies.
As the 2011 “Fright Night” remake points out, the valley’s population tends to be transient, so residents may not pay much attention if a neighbor isn’t seen again. And we have an abundance of shift employees who work at night and sleep during the day, the perfect cover for a vampire.
We just don’t have an iconic horror movie the way we have a go-to drama (“Casino”) or comedy (“The Hangover”). Instead, we have a whole lot of sequels, as though the brains behind some of these franchises ran out of ideas and just said, “Let’s send ’em to Vegas!”
But since it’s Friday the 13th and Halloween is just around the corner, here’s a look at 13 horror movies set in Las Vegas:
“The Amazing Colossal Man” (1957)
Lt. Col. Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan) survives being exposed to the first plutonium bomb test, only to start growing 8 to 10 feet each day. Once he reaches 60 feet, he heads to Las Vegas, where he eyeballs the sultan statue atop the Dunes and peeps on a woman bathing on the sixth floor of the Riviera. His path of destruction includes removing the crown from atop the Royal Nevada and the shoe from the Silver Slipper before smashing the Sands sign and crumpling poor Vegas Vic.
“The Night Stalker” (1972)
When bodies start turning up drained of their blood, Las Vegas Daily News reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) begins hunting for a vampire. The ABC movie of the week was a massive success that led to a sequel and a one-season series, neither of which were set in Las Vegas, that served as one of the main inspirations for “The X-Files.”
“The Las Vegas Serial Killer” (1986)
Fresh out of the Nevada State Penitentiary, Johnathon Klick (Pierre Agostino) heads to Las Vegas, where he wanders around the Strip and downtown, occasionally stopping to unconvincingly strangle a woman before simply walking away. Meanwhile, a couple of creeps (Ron Jason, Chris Cave) also wander around the Strip and downtown, pausing every so often to snatch a purse or leer at women. Directed by local grindhouse legend Ray Dennis Steckler under the alias Wolfgang Schmidt, “The Las Vegas Serial Killer” is a loose sequel to “The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher.” But it mostly plays like someone’s vacation videos — there’s extended footage of a Helldorado parade, an air show at Nellis Air Force Base, a rodeo at Sam’s Town and plenty of close-up shots of the signs and marquees of hotels that no longer exist — that accidentally captured a few murders.
“Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies” (1999)
During a museum robbery, the wish-granting djinn (Andrew Divoff) is released from his fire opal. He eventually makes his way to Las Vegas, where he takes over a casino and begins granting wishes to collect customers’ souls before killing them with playing cards and roulette wheels.
“Resident Evil: Extinction” (2007)
Survivors of the T-Virus battle zombies amid the sand-covered ruins of the Strip in the third installment of this based-on-a-video-game franchise.
“Leprechaun 3” (1995)
Lubdan The Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) takes in the sights of downtown — “Golden Nugget! I’d like one of those!” — and mildly terrorizes the Lucky Shamrock casino.
“Hostel: Part III” (2011)
Four friends in town for a bachelor party end up at an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the valley where all manner of atrocities will take place. Seriously, you couldn’t get some of those graphic images out of your brain with a scrub brush.
“Paranormal Activity 4” (2012)
Strange things are afoot in Henderson — and somehow always caught on camera — in this found-footage sequel.
“Vampire in Vegas” (2009)
The 300-year-old vampire Sylvian (Tony Todd) enlists a busty scientist (Delia Sheppard) to develop a serum that would let him walk in the daylight. It’s all part of his master plan to become governor of Nevada.
“Fright Night” (2011)
When a vampire named Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves to a Las Vegas suburb, it’s up to his teenage neighbor (Anton Yelchin) to stop him — with an assist from the Hard Rock Hotel’s headlining magician (David Tennant).
“Weedjies: Halloweed Night” (2019)
Three friends rent out what was then The Artisan hotel for a pot-centric Halloween party. Then a session with the Weed-G-Board unleashes a group of malevolent ghouls known as the Weedjies.
“Army of the Dead” (2021)
A mercenary (Dave Bautista) leads a team looking to steal $200 million from a casino vault during a zombie outbreak that’s cut the Strip off from the rest of the world in this bloody tale from director and co-writer Zack Snyder.
“Eldorado” (2012)
Oliver Rosenblum (writer-director Richard Driscoll) and his brother Stanley (Darren Morgan), a musical act stretching copyright laws to their limits as The Jews Brothers, escape from neo-Nazis in Las Vegas and head into the desert only to encounter cannibals. Despite somehow assembling a cast that includes Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, David Carradine and Steve Guttenberg, the resulting movie is so incoherent — at one point, the dialogue drops out for more than 90 seconds while characters’ mouths continue to move — it opens with the legendary Peter O’Toole, script in hand, explaining that he’d been added as a narrator to try to make sense of things. “For one reason or another,” O’Toole declares, “the motion picture you are about to watch is not very clear in parts.” The movie ultimately landed Driscoll in prison — for tax fraud, not his crimes against cinema.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on X.