The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The slasher film was a genre created with the enormous success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), which was followed by Friday the 13th (1980), which was made as a quick copycat. (There have been some works cited as earlier influences but these two films created the genre). Both spawned a long line of sequels and numerous imitators using similar holiday titles.
The slasher film mostly focuses around a group of teens often isolated at a locale like a summer camp or in the woods as they are stalked by a hulking, frequently deformed maniac who hides their face behind a mask and despatches them in a series of novelty deaths.
The genre underwent a revival in the 1990s where the tropes and cliches of the genre have been deconstructed, homaged and parodied in some often witty ways. The 2000s/10s has also seen a number of remakes of the 1980s originals.
John Carpenter’s all-time classic, the film that created the slasher film and has been much imitated, not to mention multiply sequelised and remade. None of these however come anywhere near recapturing Carpenter’s eerie spookiness
A wittily clever deconstruction of the slasher film where a bunch of contemporary characters are transported inside a 1980s slasher movie where their modern ways proceed to hilariously upset the cliches
Wes Craven and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson make a witty homage to the 1980s slasher film, turning the genre on its head by having the characters perfectly aware they are in a horror film and of the genre’s cliches
A film with insane creativity and spilling over with snide pop culture wit. Like a mash-up of Bad Kids Go to Hell, John Dies at the End and Back to the Future written by a love child of Kevin Williamson and Diablo Cody
One of the most influential horror films of the 1980s, creating a series of dream horror copycats. Before the campy, makeup effects driven sequels kicked in, Wes Craven’s original creates a genuinely unearthly series of nightmare jumps
What starts out as a seeming mockumentary about a serial killer turns into an hilarious deconstruction of the tropes and cliches of the slasher film. Imagine a film like Man Bites Dog crossbred with Scream
An incredibly eerie and haunting killer clown film from Victor Salva. This is one of the few films that capture something of the spooky suspense of John Carpenter’s Halloween
One of Brian De Palma’s most stylish psycho-thrillers, featuring John Travolta as a sound engineer who becomes targeted after he accidentally records evidence of a political assassination
Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson return to the Scream franchise to turn out the fourth and best sequel yet. The opening scene alone is the funniest one has seen in a film in some time
This asks the question of what happens to the final girl after a slasher film. This is less a slasher film than a work about post-traumatic stress before reaching a jaw-dropping ending
Surprisingly good modern slasher film set in a movie theatre during a festival of old horror films. The films come with surprisingly affectionate and well done recreations of old gimmick films, and the slasher sequences a more than reasonable style
Stylish French slasher film about actors being stalked as they put on a performance of Little Red Riding Hood at a country estate. The fairytale is adeptly wound in and out as metaphor.
A giallo thriller from Mario Bava that is often regarded as the prototype of the slasher film. The film borrows from Agatha Christie with people isolated on an island being killed amid Bava’s artily extravagant set-ups
A uniquely original film. Almost an arthouse take on a slasher film where we are placed in the hulking killer’s shoes and the rest of the show takes place in abstract brushstrokes
Possibly the most entertaining no-budget movie ever made. Essentially shot around the director’s own home for a bunch of traded favours, this is a slasher film where the cast have been encouraged to plant tongue-in-cheek and go over the top with frequently sidesplitting results
Tobe Hooper makes a slasher film that is well above the average and one of his better films. Taking place in a carnival haunted house, Hooper shakes the slasher tropes up with undeniably freakish effect at times
Disappointingly, this is not about the famous pioneer expedition that turned to cannibalism but a modern slasher film that takes place near where the incident occurred. Okay on its own terms.
Slasher film that is more like an Agatha Christie whodunnit, this comes with an appealing level of meta-fictionality. Mostly, it is an actor’s film and has been set-up to allow its name cast to do amazing things
A slasher musical??? The mind does a double takes trying to process the incongruity of the genre mash-ups. That said, this works exceedingly well – neither compromising on the slasher aspects, yet equally delivering some clever and witty musical numbers
Muchly reviled slasher film that has undeniable effect in its determination to go all the way. I would argue that it is actually a far better film than Friday the 13th
Kevin Williamson’s follow-up to Scream. There is not quite the same witty game-playing but this is still an above-average slasher film with a reasonable cast and more-than-adequate suspense generated
Yet another effort about teens running around the backwoods being stalked by a madman. This does better than most with the psycho of the show being an original character, given an intense, domineering performance from Gonzalo Menendez
A darkly funny take on the slasher film with Larry Drake standing out in a memorable performance as the title mad doctor. This delivers more medical novelty deaths and bad puns than one believed possible
Slasher film with a diabolically funny sense of humour as a psychopathic park ranger stalks a group of partying punks
Despite borrowing the title, this has the no connection to the 1953 film with Vincent Price as a mad waxworks curator and is a modern slasher film. Nevertheless, director Jaume Collet-Serra does come up with some very inventive dispatches
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film. While the plot only recycles Friday the 13th, everything else is above average from the characterisations to the novelty deaths, before the film reaches one of the great unforgettable endings of the cycle
Admirably sordid slasher film, an early effort from Chad Ferrin, that quickly gets twisted and comes up with an amusing line-up of lowlifes and an Easter bunny masked killer
Halfway reasonable entry in the 1980s slasher cycle that sits with one foot in the Old Dark House genre. This also comes with a great cast of genre veterans.
Not the first but the most famous of the psycho Santa films. At the time, it was just another slasher film exploiting a holiday title. However, this does the slasher movie formula rather well while digging into Christmas sentiment with a bite that takes you aback
Smart and intelligent slasher film in which a campus game among students turns deadly as it appears that a killer whose identity they made up may be eliminating their numbers for real
This is a film that manages to be both a slasher film and a romantic comedy, two genres that do not at all seem to go together but are made to with undeniably appealing results
A above average entry in the recent trend of horror anthologies featuring episodes from different directors, including Joe Dante and Mick Garris, featuring at least a couple of standout entries
Following the recent reboot of the Halloween franchise, many of the original cast and a new directorial team resurrect Wes Craven’s Scream franchise in some undeniably appealing ways
An early Kiyoshi Kurosawa film, this starts out as a peculiar deadpan comedy about an office filled with strange characters before emerging as a slasher film of sorts as a hulking security guard eliminating people
A reasonable B-budget slasher film in which teens accept a dare to spend a night in an abandoned asylum only for someone to have rigged the facility with traps and start stalking them
Controversial remake of the 1980 psycho film. The remake’s unique take is that everything is shot in first-person from the point-of-view of the killer.
Rather witty low-budget slasher film that takes place on the set of a slasher film and pokes considerable at the process of filmmaking
An anthology of five short Found Footage horror films each from a different director. As with any anthology these are variable in tone but are on the whole mostly effective and contain a number of alternately unearthly and spooky moments
Adam Green has enjoyed some success with the Hatchet films; this is the fourth entry in the series … Most of the other films have consisted of not much more than buckets of gore and a host of genre cameos – here though, Green adds a considerable sense of humour to the mix
A Blumhouse production that ends up being a smart conceptual mash-up between Back to the Future and Halloween
The evil child film has a long history. This is essentially a slasher movie variation where instead of a hockey-masked killer we have a trio of malevolent children devising a series of entertaining dispatches for grown-ups
Many argue that this is the original slasher film – and it does the whole formula a good deal better than many of those that came along a few years later, having some wry characterisations and a sardonic sense of humour
A strong and effective reworking of the psycho Santa slasher film. This conducts a well-oiled rehearsal of all the slasher tropes and delivers exactly what we expect of it
One of the original Psycho Santa films. Usually pegged as another Christmas slasher film, rather what we have is a film that draws us into a disturbed headspace that operates on a unique fairytale morality about punishing the naughty
An overlooked homage to the slasher film. This doesn’t set out to parody, deconstruct or subvert the tropes, rather is just a well-made and affectionate tribute to the genre’s 1980s heyday
Psycho film that features Susan Tyrrell giving a totally demented performance and a plot that involves some fascinatingly twisted sexuality
The ninth of the Friday the 13th films and the most variant and fun of the series. This cheerfully turns expectations on their head and readily punctures the series cliches
An hilarious parody of the slasher film in which an undead lumberjack invades a Bible camp, slaughtering the teens in a series of over-the-top deaths to use their blood as syrup on his pancakes
Eli Roth’s homage to the slasher film that comes with a dark sense of humour and a series of novelty deaths that rival the best of the 80s slasher heyday
One of the better entries among the 1980s slasher film cycle – and even featuring the era’s quintessential heroine Jamie Lee Curtis. Essentially Halloween aboard a train, at which the film does the basics of the genre with perfect competence and undeniably stylish photography
A variation on the killer clown film that does rack up quite a degree of tension and pushes the material for something edgy. A popular hit that has produced two sequels.
John Cusack leads a star cast line-up in what appears to be a slasher where a group of people gathered at a motel are being killed by someone among their number. Big conceptual twists then ensue
Witty and rather funny slasher film in which the killer targets virgins in a community. The genre’s usual tropes about the chaste girl surviving are turned on their head in rather hilarious ways
Darkly funny comedy where two girls in high school conduct a series of murders to create publicity for their true crime blog
This was made guerrilla-style during the Cannes festival with many scenes shot at press conferences and premieres as obsessed fan Joe Spinell stalks Caroline Munro’s actress
Wes Craven’s Scream was a clever and witty homage to/deconstruction of the slasher film of the 1980s; for the sequel, he and Kevin Williamson naturally turn to deconstructing the slasher sequel
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring no less than David Cronenberg as a victim
Strange Spanish-made film about a mother-dominated psycho, which is also a film being watched in a theatre by an audience that is being stalked by another psycho
This was Adam Green’s homage to the Friday the 13th series that comes with the virtue of a high level of gore and a sense of humour. This was subsequently spun out to several sequels
The fifth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films offers up the same old thing but director Stephen Hopkins enters at an inspired level that transforms the set-pieces with a genuine weirdness
Taut and effective effort from the heyday of the slasher film, one of several films on the theme of a woman newscaster being stalked by a psycho. A young Michael Ironside goes to town on the role of the psycho and plays to the gallery with nastily effective results
The original babysitter stalker film based on a short film that was then expanded out to feature-length following the success of Halloween
Passable remake of the 1979 slasher film that streamlines the original and sets it all in amazing designer dream home
A well made tribute to the 1980s slasher film with characterisations and performances that make much rounded characters than usual
The first sequel to Halloween, with Michael Myers pursuing Jamie Lee Curtis through a hospital. John Carpenter’s suspense is replaced by slasher hackery but in retrospect this is a lot better than the subsequent sequels
Following the success of Scream, this was an attempt to make an upmarket slasher film based around the motif of urban legends in the same way that Scream used 1980s slasher films. It is a stretch to make urban legends fit in some cases but director Jamie Blanks delivers reasonable tension
Rob Zombie’s follow-up to his Halloween remake is a better film and closer to what the previous film should have been but his approach is still based on callous brutality than John Carpenter’s eerie suspense
The Soska Sisters make a sequel to the 2006 slasher film. You cannot help but think that a sequel to such an average film is the sisters batting well below their capabilities. The surprise is that in their hands the result follows such traditional genre patterns
Follow-up to the R.L. Stine-based Fear Street films of a couple of years back, this conducts a not bad homage to the 1980s slasher film and gets the period setting right
The second of the R.L. Stine adapted Fear Street films, this one takes the action back to 1978 where it then becomes a vigorous homage to the slasher film
Classic from the heyday of the slasher film, an effort that was clearly designed to exploit another holiday title in the wake of the successes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. This snappily adapts the slasher formula and does better than most of its ilk in serving it back up
In an era where horror has become safe and mainstream, where content is specifically marketed to PG-audiences, this film about a killer that strikes on Halloween comes with a ferocious gore-drenched enthusiasm
The original feminist slasher film gets the remake treatment with interesting results
A horror anthology with a mordant sense of humour with Clancy Brown doing a great turn as an octogenarian mortuary attendant who tells several stories of the bodies he has tended
After a decade-long slump, Tobe Hooper started to show he still had what it took with this remake of the 1980 slasher film
The film that made the world take notice of Alexandre Aja. Aja serves up a brutal and gore-drenched variant on the Backwoods Brutality film, although things fall apart in an absurd twist ending
This gets the award for the ballsiest title of any horror film of recent While the slasher film of the 00s has become much more chaste, this doesn’t let down on the plentiful nudity. At the same time, it is also a smartly self-aware horror film
A True Crime film where the story of a woman who killed two men and fed their remains to her pigs is essentially turned into a slasher movie
Slasher film where a girl is hired as a housekeeper in a remote location only to find she is being stalked by a masked killer and forced to survive with her bare hands. Two sequels followed.
One of several horror films based around Mickey Mouse now that the character has entered into public domain. Here Mickey Mouse is a half-human hybrid slaughtering victims at a deserted fairground
Another of the Mickey Mouse horror films that emerged when the character entered public domain. This features a Mickey Mouse masked killer pursuing teens through an amusement arcade
From the director of Attack of the Lederehosen Zombies, a slasher film set at a rave event
Modern-day run through of the slasher film with the heroine pursued through a school by an axe-wielding maniac. This leaps into the basics with a real brutality and wades in buckets of gore
The only studio-produced entry from the heyday of the slasher film, which gives it a much slicker polish than most of its competitors. Featuring a stunning Rachel Ward in her screen debut.
While the title makes this sound like a family-friendly film about Santa’s wife, this is actually a Christmas slasher film
The point where Robert Englund’s Freddy went from a boogeyman into the equivalent of Wile E. Coyote, popping up like a malevolent jack-in-a-box to quip a one-liner and dispatch victims
Yet another in the fad for 19870s/0s horror remakes, a merely efficient revival that reduces the wild, outré scares of Wes Craven’s original to conveyor belt shocks
Slasher film made by Cannon Films that uses its title holiday date with some ingenuity – the killer kills someone on the hour of midnight across each of the US time zones – but is otherwise routine
An entry in the slasher film made by several alumni from the original Night of the Living Dead. Someone is killing the girls of the high school’s cheerleading squad
Ingenue slasher film from Sage Bannick about a teacher finding his pupils are being killed, this eventually settles down as an old hat evil twin plot
The second in a trilogy of slasher films about people being staked by a maniac at a backwoods cabin while everything is secretly being filmed by tv cameras
Sequel to the remake of the 1980s horror classic, shot back-to-back with its predecessor, this is a better film than the remake was
Supposedly a feminist parody of the slasher film but one has doubts. For one, the film is lacking in discernible irony and otherwise no different from the other slasher films of the era bar the fact it was directed by a woman
Second film to follow-on from The Slumber Party Massacre. While the original was a straight-up slasher film, the second became completely ludicrous as it veered off in trying to copy the A Nightmare on Elm Street films but this returns to the slasher basics for a vigorous workout of the formula
A Roger Corman produced slasher film, which spawned two sequels. The plot draws heavily on Halloween and comes with all the usual scenes of co-eds being stalked by a maniac escaped from an asylum
Loose remake of the 1980s slasher film The House on Sorority Row, competently made but in the end this never sufficiently surmounts the routine
80s slasher film about a teenage temptress who leaves a trail of dead men around her. An impressive cast but the film sits on a very dubious line
An anthology of Halloween-themed horror tales, all from different genre directors, including some interesting high-profile names. The results are uneven with the film providing a couple of amusing segments but nothing truly standout
Slasher film that comes with a great hook – one where various real-life actresses from the Friday the 13th films are stalked by a masked maniac
The first Sleepaway Camp was a classic of the slasher film for its unforgettable ending. This was the second of two back-to-back shot sequels starring Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister Pamela as the murderous Angela