Horror movies love to play on our biggest fears, like claustrophobia and being trapped. And the scariest stories happen in places where there’s nowhere left to run...
Whether it’s a broken elevator, an isolated cabin, or a train hurtling through chaos, single-location horror movies trap both their characters and the audience in a confined nightmare where escape feels impossible.
This collection of 12 terrifying single-location horror movies celebrates the craft of spatial storytelling. From studio films to small budget indies, each production demonstrates how creative teams can transform ordinary environments into places that nightmares are made of.
The Vigil is set over a single night in a house in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community of New York. It’s a twist on the classic haunted house story, rooted in Jewish mythology and folklore. Yakov takes a job to fulfil the practice of a shomer and sit in vigil over a deceased body for a night.
But when Yakov gets to the dilapidated house he realises there is something sinister at play. This film proves you don’t need to visit an isolated cabin in the middle of the woods to encounter evil.
Behind the location: The Vigil was shot on location in New York, using an actual residential house dressed to resemble a home in the Orthodox community. Director Keith Thomas emphasised creating an authentic setting with practical lighting to preserve the eerie realism of a low-budget, single-night shoot.
Based on Stephen King’s classic novel, The Shining is almost entirely set within the confines of a hotel. But not just any hotel. Stephen King was inspired by what is known as the most haunted hotel in the United States, the Stanley Hotel in Colorado.
Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation was not filmed at the Stanley but it does give us the same creepy colonial resort vibes.
Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) is charged with looking after the hotel while it’s shut down in the off-season. He and his wife and two kids settle in for the winter, only for Jack to begin to slowly go insane.
Behind the location: Stanley Kubrick shot the interiors on soundstages at Elstree Studios (England), where an elaborate replica of the Overlook Hotel was built. The hotel’s iconic exterior shots are of the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, Oregon.
This is another story set in the suburbs where three teenagers decide to rob the house of a blind man. Seems too easy right? But once they are trapped inside and are plunged into darkness, it’s the blind man who has the upper hand.
This escape movie has enough suspense and claustrophobic scares to keep you holding your own breath.
Behind the location: Don’t Breathe was filmed largely in Budapest, Hungary, with just a few establishing shots in Detroit itself. The interiors of the blind man’s house were built as a custom set, designed to make the audience feel as lost and trapped as the characters.
A unique take on the zombie genre, this South Korean story takes place on a high speed train running from Seoul to Butan, where the passengers become trapped during a zombie outbreak.
It’s a non-stop thrill ride that takes advantage of its cramped quarters. You’ll be squirming in your seat!
Behind the location: Most sequences were filmed on custom-built train carriage sets on a soundstage near Seoul. Exterior and station scenes were filmed in Daejeon, Cheonan, and Dongtan Stations in South Korea. The production team used gimbal systems to simulate movement and collisions for realism.
This is a story set in the one place you thought you would be safe — inside a home’s high security panic room. Unfortunately for the mother and daughter in hiding (Jodie Foster and Kristin Stewart), the intruders want the fortune that is inside the panic room and will stop at nothing to get inside and claim it.
Behind the location: Although set in a Manhattan brownstone (38 West 94th Street), Panic Room was almost entirely filmed on soundstages at Raleigh Studios, Manhattan Beach, California. David Fincher’s team built an intricate four-story replica of a New York townhouse, complete with working elevators, staircases, and the titular panic room.
What could be worse than being stuck in space? Being stuck in space with a deadly alien, of course. The crew of a commercial spaceship are on their way home when they investigate a distress call from a distant moon. They accidentally disturb a hive colony, and realise too late they are no longer alone on the ship.
This movie nails the claustrophobic dread of being hunted down with no possible means of escape.
Behind the location: Ridley Scott filmed Alien at Shepperton and Bray Studios, England, where production designer H.R. Giger constructed the iconic, biomechanical Nostromo ship interiors, featuring intentionally claustrophobic continuous corridors.
As the title gives away, this film is set at an ATM. Three colleagues stop to get cash late at night, unfortunately they discover only after entering the ATM there is a hooded figure waiting to kill them when they leave. They’re safe while they are inside, but he’ll do what he can to ensure they can’t stay in there forever.
It may be a far-fetched, low-budget location horror, but it has plenty of suspense.
Behind the location: Filmed entirely in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the production built a glass ATM booth set on a parking lot to allow for controlled lighting and weather effects. The desolate, snow-covered environment was real — they filmed in subzero temperatures during a Canadian winter.
If becoming trapped inside a tiny, pitch black space during a deep caving expedition doesn’t already make your palms sweat, the creatures lurking in the dark certainly will. In this story, six women are in a race against time to escape a cave system as they are pursued by a group of predators. Terrifying.
Behind the location: Although set in the Appalachian Mountains, The Descent was filmed almost entirely on studio-built cave sets at Pinewood Studios in the UK. Over twenty interconnected tunnels were built and redressed to simulate different cave sections, using clever lighting to create a sense of disorientation. The forest scenes were shot in Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park.
This Spanish zombie horror uses the shaky-cam, found-footage style terrifyingly well to create a real-time immersive experience. The story is set entirely inside a Barcelona apartment complex amid a mysterious disease outbreak and the film is shot from the perspective of a news reporter filming the entire thing.
Behind the location: Shot in Barcelona, Spain, [Rec] takes place in a real apartment block on Rambla de Catalunya, with additional interiors filmed in a controlled studio environment.
Another Stephen King book adaptation, The Mist follows a group of small town locals taking refuge inside a supermarket while a dangerous freak storm occurs outside. But they soon realise there are dangerous creatures lurking in the mist too.
The film explores the effect this threat has on the people and their relationships as disagreements and distrust builds amongst them.
Behind the location: The majority of The Mist was filmed inside a converted supermarket in Shreveport, Louisiana. Director Frank Darabont insisted on using real lighting and practical fog effects instead of green screens to keep the visuals grounded and immersive.
Set in a single office building, five strangers become stuck in an elevator. The situation quickly turns from a slight inconvenience to all-out panic as supernatural occurrences occur. M. Night Shyamalan fits plenty of suspense and plot twists into a tight space, not to mention a tight 80 minute runtime.
Behind the location: Although set in a Philadelphia skyscraper, Devil was shot in Toronto, Ontario, with elevator interiors constructed on a soundstage. Filming in a controlled set allowed M. Night Shyamalan’s team to choreograph complex lighting and reflections inside the small space to intensify the psychological tension.
Waking up from a car accident, a young woman finds herself locked in an underground bunker with Howard, a strange man who believes he is keeping her safe from an event that has left the outside world uninhabitable.
This story is a clever, ever-evolving mystery with subtle twists and turns that has the protagonist wondering – is it worse in here or out there?
Behind the location: Filming took place in New Orleans and Hahnville, Louisiana, where production built a fully functional underground bunker set. The bunker’s design was inspired by 1950s fallout shelters, complete with working plumbing and air systems. The exterior farmhouse and escape scenes were shot on real rural Louisiana locations.
What makes these single-location horror movies so effective isn’t just the monsters or the mayhem — it’s the space itself.
From alien-infested starships to haunted apartments and hidden bunkers, every wall, corridor, and locked door becomes part of the terror. And as the real filming locations reveal, horror filmmaking is often a trick of perspective — soundstages become subterranean caves, quiet streets turn deadly, and ordinary buildings transform into cinematic nightmares.
For location scouts, single-location sets can provide huge challenges, but the payoff can be immensely satisfying.
