In NEON‘s The Lodge, the latest by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, icy conditions at a remote location trap its characters in place for the encroaching horror. For Grace (Riley Keogh) and her standoffish soon-to-be stepchildren, Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh), the bizarre and frightening events taking place within their remote cabin can’t be escaped thanks in large part to wintry conditions. It lends bone-chilling claustrophobia to the proceedings, something that horror movies set at remote locations do so well. Location is vital for any movie, but horror movies set at distant, remote areas bring new levels of survival. Moreover, they explore the physical and psychological isolation a secluded setting brings in terrifying detail.

The very concept of remote location-set horror brings titles like The Thing, the Alien franchise, or even Underwater to mind. These larger scaled productions bring a claustrophobic mood to their harrowing monster encounters because they’re limited in escape paths, amplifying the terror. The men at the Antarctic research station in The Thing wouldn’t survive outside of their temp controlled station for very long thanks to a brutal landscape, which leaves them trapped with the shapeshifting creature hiding among them. Carpenter used the claustrophobic setting as a foundation for gripping paranoia. Films like Alien and Underwater use the furthest reaches of space and deep-sea to test the survival skills of its characters, places where oxygen is an extremely precious commodity.

Films like The Descent, As Above, So Below, The Hills Have Eyes, and Sweetheart take a slightly less extreme and more recognizable approach to their remote settings. The Descent and As Above, So Below make the claustrophobic mood tangible for the spelunking characters that find themselves caved in, with no way to go but forward. The danger for horrific falls or bone-breaking catastrophe threatens these potential victims way before the supernatural elements come into play. The Hills Have Eyes, original or remake, sees its family trapped in the middle of the desert without any help in sight. Broken down vehicles, lack of cell reception, and unfriendly terrain leave them all vulnerable to attack at the hands of a deranged and monstrous group of killers. Sweetheart takes a classic remote island setting and transforms it into a supernatural nightmare. It’s not enough to find food and shelter, but Jenn must survive nightly attacks from a creature as well. All on her own.

Perhaps most similar to The Lodge, horror movies like The Shining, Misery, and Session 9 take lonely, isolated locations and turn them into harrowing internal battles against psychological fears. Locked inside the Overlook Hotel to take care of it over the harsh winter months, the Torrance family in The Shining sees the job as an opportunity to rebuild their lives after alcoholism nearly derailed it all; but the isolation that winter brings makes Jack Torrance susceptible to the evils of the hotel. A blizzard-induced car accident leaves Paul Sheldon bed-ridden and unable to fight back against an obsessed and deranged fan in Misery. Session 9 eschews snow and ice in favor of a dark, eerie abandoned psychiatric hospital. The men hired to remove asbestos from it aren’t isolated in the traditional sense, but spending the nights alone with the remnants of its sordid past finds a way of creeping into their psyches with devastating results.

Horror movies like Cube, Pontypool, and Frozen take isolated settings and blur psychological horror with physical as they draw out the mysteries of what lies beyond their characters’ current locations. Fear is as much about the unknown as it is the immediate present. It’s also as much about the lengths that these characters as willing to go to survive their ordeals. Similarly, A Dark Song sees its protagonist on a self-imposed exile to a rural, isolated house with an occultist stranger to complete a months-long ritual. The punishing nature of the ceremony is enhanced by the ghoulish entities that seem to be entering her world.

Remote locations allow for unique experiences with horror, but they layer in the fear in complex ways. The trapped feeling of being unable to flee an isolated setting quickly induces panic. There’s no flight available in these fight or flight situations. Harsh conditions and brutal elements prove just as dangerous as the monsters, ghouls, and ghosts. Survival is as much about mental toughness as it is about being able to combat physical foes. The term “cabin fever” exists to describe the claustrophobic terror an isolated setting can bring. In other words, the horror is everywhere; it permeates every aspect of horror movies set at remote locations.

The horrors within the chilling remote cabin in The Lodge can be unlocked in theaters now as it expands into more locations this weekend and even more on February 21.