Scream VI looks like it will be different from its predecessors in many ways. This is the only entry in the franchise that won’t have Neve Campbell returning as the ultimate 90s final girl, Sidney Prescott. David Arquette’s Dewey Riley won’t be around either, but for entirely different reasons that we’re not emotionally ready to talk about yet. It also looks to shake things up with its location. Woodsboro is long in the rearview mirror. Ghostface is now taking Manhattan, as the survivors of the 2022 Scream leave for New York City, only for the killings to start again.

Horror has a long history with New York City, going back almost to the beginning with horror-adjacent classics like King Kong in 1933. Whether it be original creations, slasher clones from the 80s, or a myriad of sequels, the genre has looked to take a big bloody bite out of the Big Apple. Here are just a few of the best to use the New York landscape to the film’s benefit.

RELATED: New 'Scream VI’ Images Preview Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera’s New York City Nightmare

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Mia Farrow covering her mouth with her hand in 'Rosemary's Baby'
Image via Paramount Pictures

Director Roman Polanski’s film, an adaptation of the popular Ira Levin novel, changed the direction of horror, bringing about a plethora of cult and possession-related type films. The devil ruled the genre heading into the 1970s, thanks to star Mia Farrow’s turn as the titular Rosemary, a young woman who just so happens to be pregnant with Satan’s child in Rosemary's Baby. It’s not just her great acting that makes the film work though. While most of the film, outside of external shots, was filmed in Los Angeles, the plot takes place in a Manhattan apartment building. The building has a violent past, leading to it becoming its own character, filled with dark rooms, a claustrophobic aura, and creeping dread around every corner.

The Sentinel (1977)

Cristina Raines staring at a cat in The Sentinel
Image Via Universal Pictures

This film, based on a 1974 novel by Jeffrey Konvitz, cashed in on the Satanic horror movie craze to become one of the better Rosemary’s Baby clones. The film stars a who’s who of Hollywood's elite and soon-to-be, with big names like Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Christopher Walken, and Jeff Goldblum. At its center though is Cristina Raines as a mentally unstable model who moves into a Brooklyn apartment building that just so happens to be Hell’s gateway. Director Michael Winner (Death Wish) uses some great shots of the New York skyline and the apartment’s neighborhood, including a scene of Raines running in fear through the city at night, but most of the terror is found indoors. The brownstone apartment is dark and gloomy, a seemingly perfect place for demons to reside.

Inferno (1980)

Irene Miracle in a hole in the ground in Inferno (1980)
Image Via 20th Century Fox

Giallo legend Dario Argento was one of the most influential horror directors of the 1970s with classics like Deep Red and Suspiria. He kept that string of success going into the next decade with this self-written tale featuring another creepy New York City apartment building. In the second of Argento’s "Three Mothers trilogy," a woman (Irene Miracle) goes missing and her brother (Leigh McCloskey) is out to find her. Argento gives us sweeping New York architecture in his signature palette. There are burning buildings and even a brutal knife attack at night in the New York City streets. The apartment building makes for a perfectly creepy playhouse of madness.

Dressed to Kill (1980)

Two people in a shower in Dressed to Kill
Image Via Filmways Pictures

Following the success of films like Carrie and The Fury, director Brian DePalma started kicked off the 80s with this bizarre but highly effective flick. While New York City apartment buildings are again highlighted, here at least it’s not from being haunted by an evil presence. A frightening villain still exists in human form in this thriller that takes many cues from Psycho. In a brutal elevator scene, who we think is the protagonist (Angie Dickinson), is killed by a woman (or someone dressed up as one), turning the plot on its head. Michael Caine gives a masterful performance as a psychiatrist who knows more than he’s letting on. New York City is highlighted often, from the apartment building where so much of the action takes place, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a dizzying scene on a subway platform.

Maniac (1980)

Man hammering a mannequin head in Maniac (1980)
Image Via Analysis Film Releasing Corporation

In the late 1970s and early 80s, New York City was seen as a filthy and crime-ridden cesspool. This film leaned into the times by making The Big Apple look rotten. Director William Lusting doesn’t keep his action confined indoors. He takes the horror to the streets, showing us the dirt and sleaziness of the city. It parallels the look and personality of this maddening horror show’s villain, a deranged man played by Joe Spinell. As the maniac goes on his killing spree, we’re given a tour of New York, but there’s nothing beautiful about these sights. Manhattan, Times Square, the Verrazano Bridge, and Roosevelt Hospital (now known as Mount Sinai West) are all shown as backdrops to bloody horror. The film pushes the boundaries of what’s entertainment and what goes too far, but it’s best viewed as a mirror to the depravity of the city in real life during this era.

Basket Case (1982)

Scary head in basket in Basket Case
Image Via Analysis Film Releasing Corporation

One of the most bonkers horror films you’ll ever see is this story about a man (Kevin Van Hentenryck) who has just moved to New York City with his formerly conjoined brother, Belial, an extremely misshapen ball of fury who lives hidden in a wicker basket. The two brothers take residence in a hotel room, before seeking revenge on the doctors who separated them. New York is the ideal backdrop for the carnage, with grimy hotel hallways, murders in dark alleyways, slayings with lit-up buildings at night in the background, and a rare pleasant scene at the Statue of Liberty. The film’s unexpected cult success would inspire two sequels, but neither could match the chaos that took place in the original’s setting.

C.H.U.D. (1984)

Monster coming up from sewer in C.H.U.D.
Image Via New World Pictures

This film is one of the more fun, schlocky 80s horror films. The title stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, a group of dark-skinned, bright-eyed creatures who live in the sewers and subways of New York City. Starring the likes of future Home Alone actors John Heard and Daniel Stern, the New York setting is instrumental in making such a movie work. We get many fantastic shots of subways and sewers before the creatures come up at night and rampage through the city. There’s your standard view of trash-riddled alleyways, darkened streets, and skyscrapers in the background. There are many New York scenes during the day too as Heard and others investigate through the paths of Central Park and piers in Manhattan.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Jason Voorhees in New York City

Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise was the king of the slasher villains in the 1980s, but by the end of the decade, the same old killer at a summer camp routine had worn thin. The eighth entry sought to spice things up by moving the hockey-masked killer to New York. Famously, however, budget constraints meant that most of the first two-thirds of the movie took place on a ship on its way to New York, and when it did finally get there, many of the exterior shots were actually filmed in Vancouver. We don’t get the desired scenes of Jason at the Empire State Building or in Madison Square Garden. We instead have scenes on city rooftops and through dark alleys that are meant to be New York without being so. Still, it was all worth it for the final chase through Manhattan, including an iconic shot of Jason Voorhees tromping through Times Square.

Jacob’s Ladder (1990)

Tim Robbins submerged in a bath in Jacob's Ladder
Image Via Tri-Star Pictures

Tim Robbins stars as the titular character, a Vietnam vet haunted by insane visions in Jacob's Ladder. A few years after the war, Jacob lives in a grimy Brooklyn apartment. He works as a postal clerk, so we get many shots of him on the New York streets and at his place of work. One of the most bizarre and memorable scenes takes place on a subway, with Jacob suffering a rather frightening hallucination. It’s a shot from a horror film you’ve seen before, with someone on a dirty subway all alone at night, but director Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Fatal Attraction) turns up the horror with a scene that goes completely off the rails as Jacob sees a slimy tentacle coming out of a homeless man. As he flees down empty tracks, a train almost hits him, with a creepy man in a white mask waving as it goes by. Later, the same creatures chase him down in a car through the city streets.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Gremlins 2: The Bad Batch
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Gremlins was one of the most successful films of 1984. Desperate for a sequel, Warner Bros. let director Joe Dante have full creative control to do whatever he wanted. He took advantage of that freedom to create a zany horror comedy with Gremlins 2: The New Batch that no one expected. Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) and Kate (Phoebe Cates) are now married and living in New York City where they work in a Manhattan skyscraper owned by a Donald Trump-like character played by John Glover. When Gizmo gets wet again inside the building, the Gremlins take over. While we only get one scene of a gremlin outside in New York instead of them going on a rampage through the streets at night, the film’s setting is constantly referenced, including the massive finale, with hundreds of excited Gremlins singing “New York, New York” before they’re all electrocuted just moments before they are about to go on a murderous sightseeing tour of the Big Apple.

American Psycho (2000)

Christian Bale as the killer in 'American Psycho', holding an axe

Mary Harron directed this sleek horror film at the turn of the millennium, based on the 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. American Psycho follows Patrick Bateman, a New York investment banker who is also a serial killer, made Christian Bale a superstar in the years before he became Batman. Taking place in the 1980s, we are brought into Manhattan during a time when wealthy yuppies were taking the city by storm. Because it’s a horror film, you have to have darkened alley scenes, such as when Bateman antagonizes a homeless man before stabbing him to death. But with the circles Bateman hangs out in, it’s the city’s skyline that becomes his co-star, as we’re led in and around skyscrapers that speak to the growing economy and greed of the times.

Cloverfield (2008)

Headless Statue of Liberty in Cloverfield
Image Via Paramount Pictures

One of the most successful, and clever found footage movies is this J.J. Abrams-produced and Matt Reeves-helmed film that sought to be America’s version of Godzilla. Cloverfield works thanks to the inventive filmmaking behind it. From the monster’s first arrival, where the Statue of Liberty’s head goes barreling down a city street, to scenes of it smashing tall buildings, it makes for an exciting yet uncomfortable experience, with so many scenes feeling so familiar to the real-life horrors seen on 9/11. Still, from watching it destroy a city, to smaller scenes of the parasites that cling to it chasing victims over subway tracks, this film showed that the biggest of monsters had to be set in the biggest of cities.