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.
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
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
Ridiculous backwoods slasher film featuring a no-name cast that frequently collapses into the laughable
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
Disappointingly, not an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story but more of a Poe-themed slasher film about a masked killer dressed as the Red Death
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.
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
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
Scout Taylor-Compton stars in a slasher about a killer stalking the cast of a high school play. She plays with a professionalism but the rest feels like an amateur production
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
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
Rather witty low-budget slasher film that takes place on the set of a slasher film and pokes considerable at the process of filmmaking
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
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
Slasher film in which a group of unlikeable teens on Springbreak are slaughtered by backwoods hicks in the Everglades. Sold as a sequel to Lake Fear despite neither film being connected in any way
This is a misleadingly titled film that features no Krampus and is actually a low-budget Christmas slasher that has been renamed by the distributor. Poorly made on all accounts.
Canadian entry from the classic era of slasher films that hits some occasionally effective notes that sit between horror and prank. The last 10 minutes take an abrupt dogleg turn to become an Evil Dead copy
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
A Spanish slasher film reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer, albeit rewritten for the Cancel Culture era, where a clown-masked killer eliminates their way through members of a book club
You could maybe coin the term Folk Slasher for this low-budget film where girls are pursued by chainsaw wielding figures in goat-headed masks. Painfully bad on all counts.
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
The sixth and one of the better Friday the 13th films. This time the usual formula of the series is conducted with an undeniable sense of humour
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
The last few years have seen the slasher film conduct some odd conceptual crosshatches – this offers a mash-up between a slasher film and It’s a Wonderful Life
A slasher film set in a supermarket! This proliferates in a series of cut/uncut versions and has an amazing cast line-up, including acting appearances from Sam Raimi and most of his regular troupe
An entry in the slasher film fad that features a young, fresh-faced and stunning Daphne Zuniga being stalked around a mall during a sorority hazing prank
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
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
The sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer. This misses the playful humour and twists of Kevin Williamson’s script and becomes no more than a routine slasher movie
In recent years, we have seen successful revivals of the Scream and Halloween franchises. Now it is the turn of another classic 1990s slasher film, a reworking that emerges with hugely underwhelming results
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
Canadian-made slasher film from the director of the original Prom Night. This mixes slasher standard with a variant on the Mad/Deformed Relative in the Attic plot but mostly seems terminally dull
A slasher film from the classic 1980s heyday set during a party at a sorority house. This has been praised as being one effort that is well above the rest of the genre.
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
A compilation of short horror films from Denmark
A slasher film that certainly grabs your attention with a sensationalistic title. While not without occasional amusements, this is mostly amateurish
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
A 1980s slasher film that takes place in a furniture store after hours. The film has the novelty of featuring a gay killer – and the results are really quite bizarre
This has a witty idea – a parody of a soap opera combined with a slasher film. This is amusing, but the rest of the film consists of frenzied caricatures and a dearth of laugh out loud moments
An entry in the 1980s slasher movie fad and featuring Linda Blair. Here a group of students are forced to spend a night in an old dark house. Slightly better than the average
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 derivative and fairly lacklustre entry in the 1980s slasher film that is clearly imitative of Halloween featuring a killer who stalks brides-to-be
Third in the series of slasher homage films where Adam Green steps back from the director’s chair. This ups the gore content and number of genre cameos, otherwise is fairly much the same as before
Hatchet was a homage to the 1980s slasher film that had a mild amusement. In the sequels, Adam Green upped the number of genre cameos and in-jokes, while pushing the gore effects to an extreme
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
A Christopher Landon film released by Blumhouse. This has been conceived as a mash-up between Groundhog Day and a slasher film with a girl who wakes up every day to be pursued by a masked killer
Slasher film from the 1980s heyday directed by the once great J. Lee Thompson. This drags drearily where the only going for it are some novelty splatter effects and a twist ending that makes no sense whatsoever
The sixth of the Halloween films, the fifth with Michael Myers. By now John Carpenter’s original eerie suspense has been reduced to crude slasher movie payoffs. This tries to add some nonsense about druidic cults
The eighth Halloween film. This tries to throw in some novelty by combining Michael Myers with a reality tv show being filmed in his family home but is still the same uninspired thrills of the other sequels
Sequel to the 2018 reboot/sequel to Halloween from David Gordon Greene, this is more scrupulous about paying homage to the original and recapturing something of John Carpenter’s original stylism
The seventh Halloween film, made for the original’s twentieth anniversary. This erases continuity to the other sequels and has Jamie Lee Curtis alive and pursued by Michael Myers again. Better than most of the other sequels.
David Gordon Green and Jamie Lee Curtis return to round out their highly underwhelming Halloween reboot trilogy. By now, this feels like a Halloween film in name only
The fourth of the Halloween sequels where the series is by now is no more than a crudely directed slasher film, a far cry from John Carpenter’s eerily suspenseful original
Following John Carpenter’s departure from the Halloween series, the sequels begin their progression into a series of interchangeable slasher films in which Michael Myers is inevitably released to kill anew
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 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
40 years later, Jamie Lee Curtis returns to pay homage to Halloween in what is a direct sequel to the original, erasing the continuity of every other sequel. This fails to conjure what made the original a classic
Another inferior entry in the mid-00s fad remake of 70s/80s horror films. Whereas John Carpenter gave us Michael Myers as evil incarnate, Rob Zombie gives us Michael Myers as a misunderstood and unloved kid
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
Not a film about computer hackers living together as you initially think but a slasher film set in a halfway house for violent offenders. An original setting but the film does nothing terribly interesting
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
Another entry from the slasher heyday, appropriating a holiday as title. This is fairly tatty as the lowered standards of the slasher genre go, although the cast contains some interesting names in retrospect
Slasher film that comes with the interestingly original setting of a college dorm webcam porn site. Unfortunately, the film takes an awfully safe and tasteful route in delivering it
The last film that Wes Craven is credited with (as producer) – a slasher film more that is interesting than most. Not to mention features an outrageously obnoxious performance from Kal Penn
A reality bending Bollywood film in which a wheelchair-ridden woman videogame designer is haunted by mysterious events, although quite what is all about is a very good question
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
A slasher movie that takes place on the set of a slasher movie. Director Israel Luna has an idea that you feel could have been far cleverer than the way it ends up being presented on screen
The fourth Friday the 13th film, called the final chapter in an effort to kill the series off, only to be such a success this was rescinded in the next film. Joseph Zito directs with more style than usual
The eighth of the Friday the 13th films that offers the novelty of taking a revived Jason to New York City. Actually, one of the better entries in the series, which plays his encounters with New York locals for some amusement
The seventh of the Friday the 13th films, this tries to add some novelty with a heroine who has psychic powers but is mostly the same thing as before
The fifth and arguably the worst of the Friday the 13th films. Jason is resurrected and engaged in much butchering, before an end reveals it was someone else altogether
Third of the Friday the 13th films, shot in the brief fad for 3D films in the early 80s. This is also the one where Jason adopts his trademark hockey mask
The second of the Friday the 13th films. This was the point where the formula of the series slipped into place and Jason emerges to become an invincible killing machine
Another 1980s horror remake that had much potential. However, this proves to be just another Friday the 13th film by the numbers, albeit with a bigger budget, and widely misses the mark
A copy of John Carpenter’s Halloween that proved a big success and spawned a long-running series of sequels. Both films created the slasher film, which came to overrun horror in the 1980s, although this is a cruder film than Halloween
The sixth of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sold with the gimmick of a 3D release. New director Rachel Talaly refuses to take the material seriously and turns the show into an absurd cartoon
The long promised crossover between the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, this seems caught in a juggling act that fails to satisfy the requirements of either franchise
A slasher film with a novelty (gimmicky?) premise where the Final Girl and the hulking killer of the show end up swapping bodies. Essentially a conceptual mash-between a slasher film and Freaky Friday
Supposedly a slasher film that purports to tell the truth about university fraternity rites, the delves into depicting hazing rituals with gory relish
From the heyday of the slasher film, this seems to be trying to conduct a slasher version of Deliverance. Largely forgotten today and unremarkable but for an amazing cast of before-they-were-famous faces
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
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 first of the Fear Street films, somewhat more adult than the usual R.L. Stine adaptations. This can be considered the first Woke era slasher film
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
Entry in the 1980s slasher fad with a manic killing women at a sorority house that comes with a Jekyll and Hyde rationale. Shabbily made on all counts and often repellent in its nastiness
Entry from the heyday of the slasher film. Better plotted than most of its ilk, largely because it steals the plot from Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Featuring a teenage Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first film role
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
An anthology film produced by Charles Band where assorted directors turn in seven episodes all centred around a videogame warrior put through a series of tests by The Devil
Entry from the 1980s heyday of slasher film made by students at the UCLA film program with a killer stalking the dorm. Featuring an unknown Daphne Zuniga as one victim
The 1980s slasher fad brought a number of ventures into the Christmas slasher film, which has grown into its own genre niche since then. This is one British entry in the genre about a killer targeting people dressed as Santa
One of the ‘don’t __’- titled entries of the 1970s/80s. This was an entry in the decade’s popular slasher cycle with a hulking manic stalking trampers in the backwoods
A film from the slasher era – the scenes of the psycho of the show incinerating victims with a flamethrower were the cause of censorship controversy. Less a slasher film and more a psycho film, this pushes into some disturbing headspace
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
Don’t Fuck in the Woods was a reasonably smart slasher film that came with an attention-grabbing title. This is a sequel that introduces body-snatching parasites to the mix
Fairly average 1980s slasher film – the first on the theme of a killer calling into a radio talkback host. This delves with enthusiasm into voyeurism, while Nicholas Worth has clear fun as the psycho of the show
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.
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
Passable low-budget slasher film that looks as though it is was shot in the director’s home. Somehow the title, which refers to a day when a group of teens decide to ditch school, fails to stand among the great holiday-titled slashers
Hands down, this is the worst slasher film ever made. Seemingly shot by amateurs who have never held a video camera before and acted by those who have no prior experience, this is a painful viewing experience
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