Individual mileage may vary, but for me, there is no scarier place on Earth than the woods at night. Pure darkness as the tree canopies block the moonlight, limited sight in every direction, and the most unsettling collection of animal sounds, branch rustling, twig snapping, and unidentifiable noises you’ve ever heard – it is absolute nightmare fuel.
And unbelievably, some of us go willingly into that hellscape for the purpose of hiking, camping, necromancing, and fornicating beneath the stars. Horror filmmakers understand this to be true, and the result is an entire subgenre of forest-set terrors ranging from slashers to creature features and beyond.
Films featuring camping often include characters bedding down for the night in the comfort of a cotton chrysalis: a sleeping bag. But while its warmth may be real, its safety is mere illusion, as it instead becomes a death trap with only one way in or out. A handful of movies recognize that by killing off characters with the misfortune of being “safe” in the bag when hell comes calling.
Below is a ranking of nine sleeping bag kills – there are probably some movies that I’ve missed, but I refuse to apologize – and the order comes down to a few simple factors. I’m weighing the filmmaking itself alongside the impact it has on viewers, but the bottom line comes down to just how memorable the scene has proven itself to be over time.
Enjoy!
9. Ted Bunny (2026)
Ted Bundy’s reign of terror ended in 1975 when he was arrested, convicted, and eventually executed for his serial crimes. What this film presupposes, though, is that the terror is still ongoing. Bundy, of course, was a very real killer whose story has already reached the screen in numerous ways before, but here it’s in the form of an illegitimate son who dresses up as a rabbit while killing people. It’s not a comedy!
The newest sleeping bag kill on this list is also the simplest (and least effective, dramatically). A couple camping in the woods is interrupted by some noises, and soon the man’s throat is slit beneath the moonlight. The woman tucks herself into a sleeping bag, but Ted Jr. drags her to the campfire, drops her atop it, and watches her writhe as she burns. It’s open by her head, but she never tries to crawl out or even roll off the flames – the partly CG flames – but hey, it’s a sleeping bag kill!
8. Rats: Night of Terror (1984)
While the bulk of this list showcases human (or inhuman) killers disrespecting the sanctity of the sleeping bag, these next two entries show that animals can be just as rude. The first of the two occurs in 225 A.B. – “after the bomb” – as descendants of humans who hid underground during a nuclear exchange head to the surface to see what’s what. All kinds of troubles and dangers surround them, but the biggest threat might just be an army of voraciously hungry rats.
The super cool gang settles into an abandoned town for the night and notices that the corpses strewn about seem to have been serving as buffets. No worries. Lilith recovers from canoodling with her man, Lucifer, by dozing off in a sleeping bag, but a bold rat gnaws its way through the cloth – and then keeps right on going. The horrors happen unseen inside the bag, but it’s implied that the rodent, er, finds a way inside Lilith while she struggles to escape. It dines well, and when Lilith’s body is found later, her friends watch as the engorged rat crawls out of her mouth. This is a pretty vicious kill, even as it leaves much to the imagination.
7. The Monkey (2025)
Osgood Perkins’ adaptation of Stephen King’s short story is something of a fun mixed bag, but one thing he gets absolutely right is the choice to expand the tale and make it his own. The short story is incredibly simple, so the film expands on its basic lore – a toy monkey plays its drum (cymbals in the actual story) when wound up, but someone nearby is immediately killed – to include feuding brothers, Death himself, and a much, much higher body count.
Hal’s childhood saw him frequently bullied by his twin brother, Bill, and that relationship was complicated by the presence of the toy monkey. Their youth was filled with unexpected death and carnage, and after losing their mom to the monkey’s whims, the pair are sent to live with their Uncle Chip. He’s no safer, of course, and Hal shares in a flashback montage that Chip was trampled in his sleeping bag by 67 horses. Perkins gives us a quick, goofy, and gory glance at the trample and the aftermath as the man’s remains are poured out looking “like someone had drop-kicked a cherry pie.” It’s gross, absurd, and a fun little entry on the list.
6. Don’t Go in the Woods (1981)
James Bryan’s early ’80s slasher doesn’t have the best reputation, and while Vinegar Syndrome’s beautifully restored Blu-ray makes it easier to watch, the film itself is still a messy romp in the woods. It deserves credit, though, for beating the Friday the 13th films – a franchise built almost entirely on a summer camp premise – to the punch when it comes to a sleeping bag kill. Insane that it took the Friday the 13th films seven more years to deliver one of their own.
Two campers – one of the film’s issues (and hallmarks, if we’re being honest) is that its ensemble is a big ol’ mess of unrelated people and storylines – have settled into their sleeping bags for the night when a big, burly killer comes calling. He ties the guy into his bag, tosses him aside, and then hangs the woman’s sleeping bag over a tree branch. From there, it’s just a series of brutal stabbings and slashings as he alternates between the two. Her cries are audible as blood permeates the bag, and we watch as he’s stabbed to death inside his own fabric coffin. The level of filmmaking and lack of a desire to make it entertaining makes it brutally effective instead.
5. Friday the 13th (2009)
The Friday the 13th reboot is easily among the franchise’s three or four best entries. Derek Mears is the best Jason, too. Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s explore this brutally mean kill. The franchise saw two earlier sleeping bag kills – both land in spots below – that fit the tone of their respective movies. One is fun in its simplicity, and the other is an homage that goes a few steps beyond, but it’s not the laughs they’re aiming for here.
Mears and director Marcus Nispel are after a meaner, more horrifying experience, and it starts with a faster, more feral Jason. This is prior to his acquiring a hockey mask, too, leaving his head wrapped up in a more frightening, less iconic fashion. Amanda’s tent is sliced open, and she’s grabbed in her sleeping bag by a monstrous man. Her boyfriend returns to camp just in time to see the bag suspended over the campfire, catching on fire, and burning Amanda alive. It’s doubly brutal as her death is clearly painful and prolonged, and he’s forced to watch (for a few seconds, at least).
4. Jason X (2001)
The tone of various entries in the original franchise can sometimes seem debatable, as some play it seriously despite the absurdity of what they’re presenting. Other entries, though, fully understand and embrace the idea of a goofy good time. Jason going to space is an obvious opportunity for the latter, and it fully delivers on the promise of slasher hijinks amid cheap sci-fi sets and a wholly nonsensical premise. Jason’s corpse is being studied for its regenerative properties; he’s accidentally cryogenically frozen, Earth goes to shit hundreds of years later so humans begin anew on Earth II, some hot twentysomethings visit old Earth on a field trip and find Jason’s frozen body… okay, let’s just get to the damn sleeping bag kill.
Jason’s rampaging through the spaceship, so the survivors distract him with a simulation straight out of Star Trek’s holodeck. He enters “Crystal Lake” and finds two young women with an allergy to clothes who try to woo him from the comfort of their sleeping bags. We cut away for some character/story piece, and when we return, we see Jason using one of the women in her bag to bludgeon the other woman in her own bag – and when he’s done, he slams the first one against a nearby tree. It’s a fun, exaggerated homage to the franchise’s very first sleeping bag kill.
3. Night of the Demon (1980)
You’d think that Bigfoot and sleeping bag kills would go together like giallos and J&B whisky, but the evidence just doesn’t support that. Campers are sleeping out in the woods; Bigfoot’s out killing people in the woods – should be a no-brainer! My guess is that filmmakers creating Bigfoot films over the past 40-plus years probably saw this 1980 “classic,” realized they’d never be able to top its sleeping bag murder, and just decided to never even try.
Jim West’s sasquatch gem is a funny, chatty, grimy, terribly scored affair that delivers several unforgettable sequences. My own personal favorite involves two Girl Scouts who Bigfoot uses as murderous marionettes to stab each other to death. It’s glorious nonsense. The sleeping bag kill is its own kind of fun, though, as a camper awakes to see the big guy standing over him. Bigfoot picks up the sleeping bag, twirls him around like a sack of onions, and tosses him screaming through the air until he’s impaled on a big branch. This is just gold.
2. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
This seventh entry in the long-running franchise seems to be one that fans either love or hate with no real middle ground. I’m in the former camp, as I think it’s a top three sequel – seriously, giving Jason a supernaturally endowed combatant is a fun idea! – despite its offensively limited bloodletting as a concession to the MPAA. It’s got fun characters you’re excited to see bite it, some physical stunt action, the aforementioned Jason versus Carrie face-off, and the reason we’re talking about it today – Friday the 13th’s very first sleeping bag kill.
Dan and Judy are out camping, and Jason is on the prowl. He punches a hole through Dan’s chest and snaps his neck for good measure before slicing his way into the tent and grabbing a sleeping bag-enshrouded Judy. Jason drags her away in the bag and brutally slams her against a tree, killing her instantly. That’s the theatrical cut, and that single slam into the tree is undeniably effective, but my heart belongs to the uncut version the MPAA wouldn’t allow. Jason slams the bag against the tree six times, with each hit making it look like a sack of increasingly smooshed and leaky tomatoes, and it is just wonderfully, excessively mean.
1. Prophecy (1979)
Regular readers know that this entire list came about because of a recent Commentary Commentary feature I did on 1979’s Prophecy. It’s a fun, deadly serious slice of eco-horror delivering some sincere themes on the need to be better stewards of the Earth. There are also several kills as a monstrously mutated bear savages its way through human prey, and while most of them are played for scares, terror, and the horror of it all, one kill stands out as being hugely entertaining and unintentionally fun.
A family settles in for the night in their sleeping bags around the warm glow of their campfire, but their peaceful dreams are interrupted by the arrival of a large, angry, mutated bear. Screams echo between the trees as panic sets in, and the young boy attempts to escape by hopping away while still fully enclosed in his sleeping bag. Mama bear ain’t having it, though, and slaps the kid with one mighty swing that sends him flying through the air. The child slams against a boulder and bursts into a cloud of feathers and stuffing that slowly settles to the ground atop his unmoving body. As a big connoisseur of “kid kills” in horror, this is a rarity that shocks, thrills, and entertains in equal measure.
