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.
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 South African-made copycat of Halloween with a figure in a black mask stalking women. Cameron Mitchell turns up as a weird clairvoyant hired to find one of the missing girls
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.
Essentially a slasher movie version of Witness where a family driving through Death Valley are pursued by a killer after the young son sees his face
Low-budget horror film in which a novice actress signs on to star in a low-budget slasher film only to find the director appears to be killing off people for real
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
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
Imagine a slasher movie version of Duel – a film about an unseen driver and a van outfitted with a series of novelty killing attachments. A film driven by its gore set-pieces that tends to drag when it comes to the comedy relief
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 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
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
Ridiculous film that seems to want to say something about modern technological interconnectivity but has simply grafted it onto a slasher formula. while being bsurdly ill-informed about its subject
Average slasher film that is nothing standout about teens being stalked in the midst of a Halloween prank. Jennifer Tilly turns up in a campy performance.
This pays much homage to the 1980s summer camp slasher film and does a competent re-run of the basics if nothing that turns the genre on its head. On the other hand, it is less interesting when it tries to tap into the reality tv horror fad
The first in a surprisingly prolific series of slasher films, which has produced some fourteen sequels at current count. Made on a micro-budget, this vigorously homages the 1980s basics
The second entry in a surprisingly prolific series of low-budget films – currently running to fifteen films – that homage the 1980s slasher film
Film from low-budget director Rene Perez where a hitman who wears a beaten steel mask is pitted up against a hulking backwoods killer
Psycho film that features Susan Tyrrell giving a totally demented performance and a plot that involves some fascinatingly twisted sexuality
Shabbily made entry in the 1980s slasher genre. Noted in retrospect for several before they were famous names and being the first producing credit of Harvey Weinstein
Probably the most well-known film from hackmeister Ulli Lommel. An odd mix of Halloween ripoff and an occult film but nothing that stands out beyond a couple of weird novelty deaths
The director of the notorious Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, takes on making a slasher film. This seems full of possibilities but the results treads familiar ground
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
A modern slasher film that slavishly rehashes Friday the 13th. Routine on most counts, excepting perhaps the oddity of it being made by a director/producer of Christian films
Jess Franco is a cult director, having mostly specialised in exploitation and horror. Here he turns his hand to the early 80s slasher film. The result was listed as a Video Nasty in the UK
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
Belated Australian entry in the slasher genre about killings at a Catholic girls’ school, this is shabby on all counts
A remake of the work that has been cited as the first slasher film. This is less a horror film than a horror film that has been hijacked by a political agenda, delivered with a relentlessly loud and damning misandrist tone
Another in the mid-2000s fad for 1970s remakes. This revives what has been cited as the first slasher film but throws most of the original out and turns the rest into a gore-drenched slasher film
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
This gets full marks for an attention-grabbing title. Unfortunately, it is the most interesting thing about the film that otherwise only offers up plentiful bikini-clad girls but routine slasher mechanics
Canadian film about a babysitter being stalked by masked home invaders on Halloween night. Capably put together and generates an okay tension but this still seems to be recycling over-familiar genre tropes
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
Despite the title, this is no relation to tv’s Bates Motel or the Psycho franchise but a slasher film set around a famous Pennsylvania Halloween haunted house attraction. The film otherwise displays a general but unremarkable competence
The second film from The Duplass Brothers, Mark and Jay. Though labelled a slasher parody, it is more of an improvisational comedy that uses the set-up of a backwoods slasher film without much interest in horror
A French Canadian (Quebec)-made slasher film set around an aqua park. This builds to a memorably gore-drenched finale
One of the worst among the 00s fad for remakes of 80s horror films. The original is abandoned all bar the name and becomes an I Know What You Did Last Summer-type slasher peopled by unlikeable teens
This is one slasher film that chooses a title date where the date in question requires it taking a more comedic approach. Despite which this is a standard effort in all ways
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
Horror film in which a group of maniacs escape from an asylum set out to track down the new psychiatrist. This starts with tongue amusingly planted in cheek and contains a great cast line-up
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
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
This came out the same time as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The idea of Alice twisted into a horror film holds an irresistible appeal but this is an amateurish mess than squanders its potential
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