7 Michigan Horror Movies Waiting to Happen

It seems like so many movies coming out of Hollywood these days are either sequels or prequels to some other movie.

Hollywood obviously needs some original ideas for some new scary movies - so we thought we'd help kickstart their creative juices with these Michigan horror movies waiting to happen.

Bad Axe

According to the Huron County Historical Society, the town of Bad Axe in Michigan's thumb got its name pretty simply:

While surveying the first state road through the Huron County wilderness in 1861, Rudolph Papst and George Willis Pack made camp here and found a much-used and badly damaged axe. At Pack’s suggestion, Papst used the name “Bad Axe Camp” in the minutes of the survey and on a sign he placed along the main trail.  By the time Papst returned from the Civil War, the name was on the map.

Let's be real, though. The name Bad Axe is tailor-made for a Michigan-based horror movie about a killer who chops his victims into pieces. Come on.

Cereal Killer

More than 70 years ago in Battle Creek, Michigan, Tony Tigaro was cursed and turned into "Tony the Tiger", a cartoon pitchman for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. After almost three-quarters of a century, the curse has been broken - and now Tony's out for vengeance, and anyone with Frosted Flakes in their kitchen cabinet could be the next victim of this Cereal Killer.

Petoskey

Every year when Joe and Tina Farmer take their son Jack on vacation to Traverse City, the family has a tradition of collecting Petoskey stones. This year's getaway has been unusually stormy though - so instead of spending time on the beach, the family visits the quaint shops in town. They run into a fortune teller who informs them that they are the cause of the storm - that they must throw back every Petoskey stone they've ever stolen from Lake Michigan's shores, or else the lake will rise up and flood the entire state.

RELATED: 7 of the Scariest Movies Set in Michigan [WATCH]

At first the family doesn't believe her - but the storm rages on, only pausing briefly anytime young Jack tosses a Petoskey stone into the water. The Farmers soon realize they are Michigan's only hope and rush back to Ypsilanti to retrieve all their old Petoskey stones. Can they get back to Traverse City and stop the flood in time, or is the Great Lakes State doomed to become part of the Great Lakes herself?

Night of the Living NASCAR

A horrific accident at Michigan International Speedway sends plumes of toxic smoke into the air - which combine with the pollution from a nearby chemical company to turn the locals into zombies. The zombies converge on the race track and wreak havoc as NASCAR fans pull out all the stops, fighting to escape before they become the next victims.

Holland

It's almost the end of the school year, when a Dutch witch arrives and casts a spell on the schoolchildren of Holland, Michigan - taking them from their families and forcing them to make wooden shoes all day. The only way to release the children is to burn the city of Holland's prized tulip fields, right before Tulip Time - the annual festival that brings people to Holland from far and wide and is a major factor in the local economy. Will the town set its flowers on fire, or will the kids be making wooden shoes forever?

UP

Not to be confused with the 2009 Pixar classic Up, this movie set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is called UP. While backpacking in a wooded area near Marquette, author Evan King is kidnapped by one of his fans and locked for 23 hours a day in a remote cabin with nothing but a typewriter and seven reams of paper. He's allowed one hour a day to stand on the shore of Lake Superior. At first Evan thinks this is actually quite a fortunate turn of events; he appreciates the nature and quiet. But his kidnapper has other plans and begins to pipe in a non-stop recording of Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", louder with each passing day - eventually driving the author mad. Will he ultimately survive, or will he drown himself in the crashing waves to get away from that incessant song?

Flint

You're forced to live in Flint, Michigan. That's it. That's the plot.