Teenage Wasteland (Slasher Luvs)

One of my favourites! I'd say if you only got to watch one Friday the 13th, you should watch this one. It's got the gore, the cheese, and Jason in all his glory.

Fantastic! A re-imagining that is absolutely worthy of the Halloween name. Zombie has done a fantastic job updating the characters and transforming Michael's story into something gritty and real. As a remake, it meets the original halfway with new material and fresh takes on old content. Remarkable, an absolute recommendation.

My favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie and thought by many to be the greatest horror movie of all time, Psycho is genuinely creepy in every way. Equipt with sympathetic villain Norman Bates and plenty of spine-tingling scenes, Psycho earned its excellent reputation.

Extremely well made, Inside is easily one of the best slasher films of the past 20 years. Trading character development for relentless violence and in-your-face gore, France has taught us a valuable lesson in depravity with this one! Fantastic film - this gives me hope that PG-13 slashers may not be the future of the genre after all.

One of my personal favorites out of the 1980s, My Bloody Valentine is a fun entry to the holiday slasher genre. Set in a mining town, it's got some good atmospheric locations to play around with, and the Valentine's Day theme lends a lot of clever little gore gags. Certainly a must-see for slasher fans.

Though it only toys with the bare concept of its 1953 original, House of Wax is the paramount example of a fun slasher movie. Lively and engaging, it's equipt with a charming and colourful cast of characters that actually develops and grows with the story, a far cry from the static ensemble usually seen in the genre. The plot is simple but intriguing, and the film itself relatively bloodless when compared to peers like the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacres and The Hills Have Eyes, relying instead on what is implied. It is flawed in places, faltering with factual errors and tripping into a few stereotypical slasher plot devices (detours, trespassing, splitting up, woodland romance, and so on), but in the end the flaws just don't really matter. Take it for the exceedingly fun teen horror flick it is and you're bound to have fun with it.

One of my favorite early slashers, The Burning boasts impressive gore effects littered amongst its Friday the 13th-esque story. So the characters fall flat and the plot is non-existent - just accept The Burning for what it is and you'll have a great time with it.

A fantastically original slasher featuring a villain as charming and tragic as he is frightening and brutal. Surprisingly smart and deep for its genre, Candyman has quite a bit to say about racism, social structure, and urban myth, but this never takes away from its being a fun, gory, and dramatic entry for slasher fans. Definitely recommended.

Rather than stripping away the over-the-top camp and trying to erase the genre cliches as most recent slashers have done, Hatchet embraces its roots and ends up having a great time. Equipped with fantastic gore effects, a wicked sense of humor, and a ridiculously overpowered villain, Hatchet is everything you want from a traditional slasher and so much more. I wish more movies were made like this one.

Though it's PAINFULLY slow, Prom Night turns out to be a hysterically fun example of an 80s slasher flick. Jamie Lee Curtis is great in her role as the leading lady, and the rest of the cast fits nicely. A lot of solid fun; definitely take a peek at this one if you're into slashers.

One, two, Freddy's coming for you . . . Using a fabulously original idea and plenty of bloody special effects--and, of course, equipt with one of the slasher genre's most notorious villains-- Nightmare on Elm Street is definitely a classic and one of my favourites!

Brilliance! If you're a fan of slasher movies, this is, in every way, for you. An ingenious parody that not only mocks the standard formula, but analyzes and celebrates it. All this is done from the refreshing point of view of the film's token unstoppable killer. Fantastic!

Even more gritty, intense, and nausiatingly bloody than the first . . . or the second, I guess . . . TCM: The Beginning is a memorable slasher that brings a sloppy realism to the scene of the Hewitt House. It goes into the Hewitt family's story, exploring the character of Leatherface while presenting scenes of intense horror that make the first (. . . or second?) movie pale in comparison. Fans of the original will find the rebirth of the dinner table scene, with considerably less screaming involved.

A fun splatter flick sporting a great theme, The Funhouse is an enjoyable, atmospheric romp through '80s stalk-and-kill slasher territory. It's a bit slow getting started, and the kills could definitely have used a bit of blood, but overall it's a strong genre entry that should be considered one of Hooper's best. Check it out.

Probably the best Friday the 13th, this one sees Jason in all his slasher-villain glory. Plenty of victims and gory blood effects make this movie a fun treat on a dark and stormy night.

The movie that became the "masked-psycho-killing-teens" blueprint for the slasher genre, Halloween is good classic stuff. And it's not good just because it's vintage, either--it's actually good. Moody and eerie, it's predictable when compared to today's standards, but it's still a shining example of what a good slasher movie can be. The end is a little ambiguous, but that really adds to the movie as a whole. Good stuff; any slasher buff, or movie buff in general, should see this.

Don't get me wrong - Simon Says is an absolutely abysmal film. Everything about it, save Crispin Glover's performance, is complete garbage. It's that bad. But, in being that bad, it has lapped the quality scale four times and ended up as a totally awesome movie. Heat-seeking pickaxes hurled from catapaults, dogs that are actually just furry bags of walking blood, corpses that can hide entire people inside of them . . . it's so terribly, horribly, awfully, unbelievably bad, and yet it's oh, so good. Close your browser, find a whole bunch of sick-minded friends and go watch Simon Says right now!

Easily one of the better slasher films of the 80s, although it suffers in the pacing department later on. Much bloodier and generally better-made than many of its peers, The Prowler is certainly a gem worth digging up for genre fans.

A pretty standard 1980s campground slasher, you've seen this all before in Friday the 13th and The Burning. But the ending? Holy sh*t.