Horror is one of the most enduring popular film genres. The consistently do well at the box office, and the most iconic characters, like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger, often live on in our cultural zeitgeist. One horror scholar, Mathias Clasen, suggests the reason why people love horror movies so much is because they are "a risk-free way to vicariously experience threats and rehearse one's responses to those threats."
Perhaps that's why horror movies set close to home are even more...well, horrifying. It makes us feel even closer to the action, and thus, when we make it out of a horror movie unscathed, we feel an even bigger sense of accomplishment.
So, what's the best horror movie based in Georgia? Deliverance. Here's what the New Georgia Encyclopedia had to say about the film:
"Fueled by Burt Reynolds’s box-office drawing power and the novel’s recent popularity, the film was an immediate hit, both commercially and critically, with Rabun County residents among the few who were offended by its depictions of demented mountaineers, which were even more graphic than those conveyed in Dickey’s prose. The movie’s theme song, 'Dueling Banjos,' became a hit, although the albino boy playing half of the duet further accentuated the degeneracy of Georgia mountaineers. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as the year’s best picture, and Boorman was nominated as best director, though in a year dominated by The Godfather and Cabaret, none of the actors were recognized, nor was Dickey as screenwriter."
You can watch Deliverance on Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube.