Nearly every horror movie is based on an urban legend, but one legend in particular has been adapted 11 different times for television and feature-length movies. The story of the killer in the backseat—also known as "High Beams"—is a haunting tale about a woman who gets into her car and drives down the road, only to realize that she's being followed. As an unknown driver flashes their high beams at her, she suspects he is the one trying to hurt her, but the real danger is much closer. Here's every horror movie and TV show that adapted the urban legend of the killer in the backseat.
While other urban legends may seem to be far more popular than the killer in the backseat, it is indisputably the most prominent in horror popular culture. However, the legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs rivals it in use with several major feature-length movies adapting the tale for the big screen. That story in particular is known for being the premise for the movie When A Stranger Calls as well as Black Christmas. Even some parts of John Carpenter's Halloween could be argued to fall under the umbrella of the babysitter and the man upstairs story. Despite its enduring popularity, the killer in the backseat has been utilized far more often than any other urban legend.
With the upcoming release of the highly anticipated horror anthology, American Horror Stories, urban legends and myths are reaching new heights in popularity. Over the past several years, some of the most haunting tales from across the world have been given a remarkable amount of attention. Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark was adapted into a movie featuring six urban legends in 2019, and the CW's Supernatural utilized the legend of Stull cemetery as a means to craft an even darker story for the main characters. Even so, the killer in the backseat is possibly the most unsettling of all of these urban legends, as it posits that there was a way to avoid being murdered, but the execution of the person warning the driver wasn't exactly the most friendly. The simple, scary narrative provides an excellent framework for numerous types of applications, which is likely why it's the most popular urban legend—and most adapted—of all time.
The legend of the killer in the backseat ends with the woman being warned about her unseen passenger by a well-meaning driver behind her—who she's afraid of—then murdered by the man in her backseat. There are several iterations of how he ended up in the backseat. No matter how he got there, he always ends up killing the innocent woman. The first time this legend appeared was in the sci-fi/horror TV show, The Twilight Zone season 1, episode 9, "Perchance To Dream". In it, Edward Hall alludes to a woman being killed by someone in the backseat of her car. It's one of the most notable installments in the series for its inclusion of various tales of horror, but the killer in the backseat is one of its most recognizable.
Following The Twilight Zone, John Carpenter's Halloween depicted it with the death of Annie Brackett, who is killed by Michael Myers after she gets into her car. Alvin Schwartz even included the story in his book series, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. Terror In Topanga (1983) and Urban Legend (1998) both begin with a woman being killed by a man hiding in the backseat of their car. The Simpsons has their own retelling of the tale in season 3, episode 22, "The Otto Show," where Otto tells Lisa the story. Chris Carter—who notably created The X-Files—included it in his short-lived series, Millennium, in season 2, episode 14, "The Pest House." Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction even tackled the urban legend in order to bring comfort to those who believed it was a real story.
The most recent adaptations of the urban legend include Jonathan Creek's 2003 season 4, episode 1, "The Coonskin Cap," Whistle (2003), and 2013 horror movie, The Curse Of Chucky. While Ryan Murphy may be newly creating an anthology series based on different myths and urban legends, it isn't the first time he's tackled them. In Scream Queens season 1, episode 6, "Ghost Stories", Chanel #5 (Abigail Breslin) narrowly escapes the killer in the backseat, subverting the tale's usual outcome.