Slasher movies are a staple of the horror genre. Influenced by films like Psycho, Peeping Tom and the Italian giallo movement, filmmakers in the 70s began to create the foundations of the slasher subgenre. After the monumental success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, slashers became the most prolific category of horror for the entire decade of the 80s. Since that peak, slashers have gone through multiple resurgences, as new generations of filmmakers continue to take stabs at the subgenre.
Every slasher fan has their favorites, from the true classics, to the ones that made Siskel & Ebert question humanity’s future. Like Jason Voorhees in a hardware store, there’s just too many options to choose from. Each era has brought with it new ways for hormonal teens to get slaughtered. These ten slasher movies are the ones any horror fan must watch.
10
‘Terrifier 2’
Directed by Damien Leone
Many modern mad men and women have tried and failed to carve themselves a place on the Mount Rushmore of slashers alongside killers like Freddy and Jason. Creating a new slasher icon is no small feat, but that’s exactly what Damien Leone did with Art the Clown, the homicidal harlequin at the center of the Terrifier franchise. While Art originated in a couple of short films by Leone, the character wouldn’t become a murderer worth remembering until David Howard Thornton donned the white make-up for the character’s first feature-length film.
The first Terrifier may have introduced the character, and his brutal killing style, to a wide audience, but it’s Terrifier 2 that solidified the clown as a slasher icon. Terrifier 2 is an epic-sized slasher movie that ups the ante on the gore and also gives Art some solid competition in an angelic warrior of a final girl, played by Lauren LaVera. Gorehounds will especially appreciate just how far Leone and his crew go with the kills in Terrifier 2. For Art the Clown, there’s no kill like overkill.
Terrifier 2
- Release Date
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October 6, 2022
- Runtime
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140 minutes
- Director
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Damien Leone
9
‘My Bloody Valentine’ (1981)
Directed by George Mihalka
There have been plenty of holiday-themed slasher movies, enough that fictional teens could mark their own shuffling off the mortal coil on the calendar. While Christmas and Halloween predictably dominate as the most popular time to kill, several other federally recognized days of murder have provided memorable slasher movies as well, like Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving or the bluntly titled April Fool’s Day. The best of these alt-holiday slashers though is the killer Canadian cult classic My Bloody Valentine.
Set in the Great White North, in the small mining town of Valentine Bluffs, this 80s slasher is a cut above thanks to its atmospheric setting, a cast of working-class characters, and the mystery that surrounds the killer’s identity. It follows a group of young miners who party hearty on the holiday that is their town’s namesake, but the festivities are disrupted by a pickaxe wielding maniac in a mining mask, who may be a former miner who was driven to madness after being trapped in a cave-in. It’s a fun, freaky slasher that’s the perfect counter-programming to the saccharine romantic comedies that regularly fill out February.
8
‘Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives’ (1986)
Directed by Tom McLoughlin
Jason Voorhees was the preeminent slasher of the 80s. The Friday the 13th franchise had an installment released in almost every single year of the decade, and its hockey-masked killer was the poster boy for slasher cinema. Despite the pervasive success of the series, many of the earlier installments haven’t aged particularly well. Those early films have a lot of low budget charm to them, but also suffer from slow-pacing. Jason also, notably, doesn’t take over as the killer until the second movie, and his iconic hockey mask doesn’t appear until the third.
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is frequently cited as a fan favorite of the franchise, thanks to its memorable characters, beefed up budget, and self-aware humor. It may not be the scariest Friday the 13th, or the most outrageous, but it is the best executed of the original films and embraces its slasher status. Nearly a decade before Scream, Jason Lives was satirizing its own genre from the inside out, beginning with a Bond-like gun barrel with the silent killer standing in. It set an entertaining template for all other Friday the 13th movies to follow.
7
‘Candyman’ (1992)
Directed by Bernard Rose
Candyman may technically be more of a gothic horror romance than it is a traditional slasher, but the late Tony Todd’s performance as the titular hooked killer absolutely deserves a spot alongside his masked compatriots. Based on Clive Barker’s short story The Forbidden, the film updates the setting from Liverpool to Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, adding a layer of racially charged commentary. Candyman is unique as a slasher of color, and the city setting is incredibly well utilized, making the film a definitive 90s horror entry.
Virginia Madsen plays a grad student researching urban legends, which leads her to the legend of the Candyman, the vengeful spirit of a Black man who was murdered by a lynch mob in the 1800s for loving a White woman. It’s a premise that invites a lot more examination and interrogation than the average slasher. The themes of racial and class inequality were mostly ignored in the inferior sequels, but were front and center in the Jordan Peele-produced legacy sequel, ensuring that this franchise, like its tragic anti-hero, will live on forever.
6
‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’ (1987)
Directed by Chuck Russell
Wes Craven reinvigorated the slasher subgenre with the wildly creative A Nightmare on Elm Street, introducing audiences to Freddy Krueger, the only killer to stalk his prey while they sleep. While Craven would sit out the queer-coded second film, he would return as a writer and producer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Directorial duties would go to genre filmmaker Chuck Russell, who co-wrote the script with Craven and future The Shawshank Redemption filmmaker Frank Darabont. The result is the most creative entry in the Nightmare series, and one that serves as a fulcrum point for scary Freddy and funny Freddy.
Robert Englund reprises his signature role, and is given more screen time and several comedic one-liners, which would eventually become a staple of the character. Also returning is Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in the first film, and here acts as guiding therapist for a group of troubled teens at a mental health facility who have all seen Krueger in their dreams. The film takes full advantage of the dream world setting, giving Freddy free rein to creatively express himself in his kills. By far the best sequel of the horror franchise, and one that combines all the most iconic elements of Freddy’s past and future.
5
‘Scream’ (1996)
Directed by Wes Craven
Not content with creating just one iconic slasher, Wes Craven would return to redefine the subgenre once again with the meta horror film Scream. Picking up on themes that he had previously explored in the underrated New Nightmare, Craven crafted a whodunit horror film where the characters on screen have as much genre knowledge as the fans watching it would. Kevin Williamson’s clever script features a ghostfaced killer who enjoys toying with his victims by testing their scary movie knowledge before gutting them like a fish.
That premise, along with Craven’s steady handed direction and a cast of 90s heartthrobs, helped make Scream a phenomenon, spawning five sequels (with a sixth currently in production), a TV series, and inspiring an entire franchise of horror movie spoofs. The original slasher remains the definitive entry of the series, with the opening sequence alone deserving a spot among horror’s greatest. Watching Drew Barrymore slowly lose her mind (and ruin her popcorn) while being taunted by the unseen killer over the phone scared an entire generation of audiences out of ever wanting to answer an unknown call again.
Scream
- Release Date
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December 20, 1996
- Runtime
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111 minutes
4
‘The Terminator’ (1984)
Directed by James Cameron
The sequels may have veered more into sci-fi action territory, but James Cameron’s original The Terminator is a high-tech skin over a chrome slasher skeleton. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unstoppable killing machine is just as one-minded as any other knife-wielding psychopath, and even more lethally efficient since he prefers firearms to blades. The terminator is essentially a time-traveling Michael Myers, and he won’t rest until his final girl (or anyone with her name) is six feet under. Cameron mixes action, science fiction and horror in equal measure for a killer cyborg classic that still holds up forty years later.
Linda Hamilton makes for a fantastic final girl for Arnold’s Austrian accented killer, as the supposed mother of the leader of the future resistance, and Michael Biehn lends teeth-gritting support as the final boy. The multiple chase sequences make great use of the Los Angeles locations, many of which were being fogged with bug spray to eliminate invasive fruit flies, lending a heavy atmosphere to many of the night scenes. The iconic police station shootout also sees the cybernetic assassin rack up a body count that would make any slasher jealous. Forget Jason X’s Uber Jason, this is the original sci-fi slasher.
3
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (1974)
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper’s sweaty, summer-themed horror classic, may be more adjacent to rural horror than it is to traditional slashers, but it established many of common tropes of the subgenre and Leatherface is a formative slasher icon. Inspired by real life murdered Ed Gein, the chainsaw-wielding butcher and his cannibalistic extended family make for some of the scariest horror villains of all time. Few slashers can compete when it comes to the oppressive southern gothic atmosphere of Hooper’s original masterpiece. Its living proof of how the limitations of a low budget can actually enhance a film, even if it made filming a living hell. Much of the animal remains and blood present in the farmhouse setting were genuine, having been collected from local slaughterhouses, and in the peak of the Texas heat, caused many of the cast and crew to become sick from the smell. Additionally, many of the kills were performed without the benefit of stunt performers or prop weaponry, including when a running chainsaw was held mere inches from an actor’s face.
The fear and exhaustion from the making of the film bleeds on to the screen, most memorably in the nerve-jangling dinner scene, where sole survivor Sally is subjected to the worst on-screen meal imaginable. Despite its reputation, the film is actually far less bloody than many of its contemporaries, and succeeds far more on creative suggestion than with heavy gore. Hooper would return to the franchise once more for the bizarro black comedy sequel that spoofs the original, and several other filmmakers would try to recapture the southern-fried thrills in further sequels, remakes, and reboots, but the original recipe is still the best.
2
‘Black Christmas’ (1974)
Directed by Bob Clark
While Halloween may garner most of the glory for creating the template that all future slashers would follow, much of the mold had already been set several years earlier in Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. Set in a sorority over the holiday break, the film employed many of the same techniques John Carpenter would use in his slasher classic, including shots from the killer’s POV and the holiday setting. Clark himself would claim that Carpenter got the idea for Halloween from Clark as a potential sequel, though this is disputable given that Carpenter did not originate the premise for his slasher film. Regardless, the fingerprints of Black Christmas’ faceless killer are all over the knife that would be picked up by Michael Myers.
Unique to Clark’s film are its overt feminist themes. Many slasher fans will transpose pro-feminist traits on to many slasher films by simple virtue of the fact they usually conclude with a female protagonist overcoming a male killer, but Black Christmas doesn’t settle for weak subtext. The issue of abortion and bodily autonomy features heavily as a subplot in the film, and is dealt with in a very direct manner, which was a ballsy move considering the film was released only a year after Roe v. Wade. That subplot, along with the flippant way the police treat the women’s concerns over the threatening calls they’ve received, are what made Black Christmas a horror trailblazer that has remained relevant for over fifty years.
Black Christmas
- Release Date
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December 20, 1974
- Runtime
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98 Minutes
- Director
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Bob Clark
1
‘Halloween’ (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
It would be disingenuous to list any other movie. John Carpenter’s seminal slasher classic upended the horror industry when it became the highest grossing independent film at the time of its release, and, for better or worse, the slasher genre would not be where it is today without Halloween. In hindsight, after decades of sequels and rip-offs, the original film can seem simplistic, but that is part of what makes it work so well. Michael Myers, referred to as the Shape, doesn’t have a complex backstory or convoluted motive for why he kills, he simply is and does. A blank slate with a knife, a boogeyman for the suburbs. The fact that Jamie Lee Curtis’ final girl Laurie Strode was selected for stalking thanks to mere chance, only heightens the horror that it could happen to anyone.
Beyond its impact on horror history, the film rightly made a scream queen out of Curtis and launched the directorial career of Carpenter to another level, and the Shape’s blank stare would become etched into the brains of horror fans forever. Not bad considering he started off as a William Shatner mask. Carpenter’s pioneering use of Panavision widescreen (lensed by legendary cinematographer Dean Cundey) and his accompanying iconic score create masterful suspense where future slashers would substitute cheap scares and buckets of blood. Everyone’s entitled to one good scare, and Halloween may be the best scare ever.
Halloween
- Release Date
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October 27, 1978
- Runtime
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91 Minutes
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