It’s summer time, and that means lots and lots of blockbuster pictures. It also means we’ll be on a steady diet of action movies, which is both good and bad. Good because I freakin’ LOVE action movies. Bad because that means there aren’t a lot of horror movies.

But there is a ray of hope in summer: the action horror film.

The action horror film is an audience favorite, for good reason. A good action horror movie smashes together the jump scares and roundhouse kicks, supernatural elements and thrilling fight scenes. When a horror movie makes me squeal in fear, an action movie makes me squeal in delight.

An action horror movie makes me do both, which makes for a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining film-going experience. In the same spirit as a superhero film, an action horror movie lets me watch mega-powerful beings and monsters duke it out for my benefit, serving creepiness and gore the whole time.

I had hoped, sincerely, that Universal’s recent remake of The Mummy would satisfy my unquenchable thirst for badasses fighting monsters, but it sucks. Like, really sucks.

Side note: Universal really needs to get it together if it wants the Dark Universe to work.

Instead of slogging through a review of The Mummy, I decided to post about my favorite action horror movies. So here you go, thirteen awesomely cool, bloody action horror movies. They embody all the coolness of traditional action movies with the supernatural and horror baddies I love to watch. They may not be the smartest movies or the most culturally relevant, but they endure and impact audiences for years, and that’s something important.

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