Nightmare at Shadow Woods(1987)
1987 · John Grissmer · 79 min
Twins Todd and Terry seem like sweet boys -- that is, until one of them takes an axe to the face of a fellow patron at the local drive-in.
Horror · Thriller
5.8168 votes
TMDB score
3/5
Intensity
4/5
Gore
2/5
Stays with you
How scary is Nightmare at Shadow Woods?
It kicks off with a shocking, over-the-top kill at a drive-in and then keeps escalating from there, piling on one gruesome attack after another as the night goes on. The pacing is quick and body-count driven, more interested in delivering the next gory kill than building slow dread. There's no real haunted-house creepiness here, just a very human, knife-and-axe kind of danger that keeps coming. It plays more like a gleefully nasty, blood-soaked romp than something that will actually unsettle you afterward.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Nightmare at Shadow Woods rates psychological 2/5, visceral 4/5, gore 4/5, lingering effect 2/5, and overall intensity 3/5.
- Psychological: 2 of 5
- Visceral: 4 of 5
- Gore: 4 of 5
- Lingering: 2 of 5
- Intensity: 3 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 40 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 92 of 100 — leans Real-world
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 18 of 100 — leans Fun-scary
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A sudden shock opens things up, then it settles into a slow simmer with occasional jolts before piling on nonstop mayhem in the last stretch.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Watched it? Sign in to confirm whether this profile fits.
