Your favorite slashers

Tools    





Friday the 13th 1, 2 and 4. Two is the best but I like them all. Actually like all the Ft13th's but these three stand out
My Bloody Valentine (original) even better with the cut stuff put back in. The remake has its moments (motor lodge stands out) but isn't nearly as good.
Pieces
The Burning
Silent Night, Deadly Night
The Slumber Party Massacre
Scream - Gets a lot of crap, especially now, but it's fun.
Hatchet - Nice throwback.
Terrifier - The most recent. Nasty little flick.
Gutterballs - Completely f****n' awful but the f****n' kills f****n' save it (if you've seen it you'll know what I'm f****n' talking about).

These next two I consider slashers but if you don't, I get it:
10 to Midnight - Nude dude kills girls while Charles Bronson chases him down
Silent Rage - Re-animated, nut job, superhuman kills people while Chuck Norris chases him down.



The way I view the term 'slasher' is almost exclusively derisively. To me it means formula. There are a number of elements that are generally present, from final girls, to a seemingly unstoppable human killing machine, to picking off one character after another, to having the dramatic focus mainly on the different ways a character can be killed. But it is ultimately formula. Which is why a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre never feels like a good fit for the genre, because that is a movie that has all the integrity of a serious art house film. More a tone poem in hell than a narrative about a murderous family.


But I also get why people would include it. So what I am saying is absolutely nothing.



The major plot must revolve around a psycho man who kills a few people in scary and maybebloody way. Extent. Which is why I wouldn't consider Rampage a slasher because it's got too many quick bullet scenes and an action plot.



The major plot must revolve around a psycho man who kills a few people in scary and maybebloody way. Extent. Which is why I wouldn't consider Rampage a slasher because it's got too many quick bullet scenes and an action plot.

That could be Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and that is almost definitely not a slasher.



Damn, I just watched that recently and it was fantastic



The way I view the term 'slasher' is almost exclusively derisively. To me it means formula. There are a number of elements that are generally present, from final girls, to a seemingly unstoppable human killing machine, to picking off one character after another, to having the dramatic focus mainly on the different ways a character can be killed. But it is ultimately formula. Which is why a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre never feels like a good fit for the genre, because that is a movie that has all the integrity of a serious art house film. More a tone poem in hell than a narrative about a murderous family.


But I also get why people would include it. So what I am saying is absolutely nothing.
Can't it double as being both formulaic and a tone poem? When I watch it, I can recognize the formulaic bits of its plot while simultaneously appreciating it as an art house film, so I'm fine with calling it a slasher film. Just one whose violence doubles as an artistic tableau.
__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd



Can't it double as being both formulaic and a tone poem? When I watch it, I can recognize the formulaic bits of its plot while simultaneously appreciating it as an art house film, so I'm fine with calling it a slasher film. Just one whose violence doubles as an artistic tableau.

I suppose so. But I don't think its worth is predicated on it succesfully duplicating that formula, which I feel is what a lot of fans of slashers show up for. IN fact it works better when we contrast it with what usually passes. It meanders before anything happens, it is aggressively unpleasant to watch in how saturated by light it is during the day and how hard it is to see at night, it allows scenes to go on and on and on building horror through repetition. Ultimately, it does eventually hit all of the supposedly necessary beats, but when something deviates in tone so substantially from the rest of the films usually considered as part of the genre, I feel like I'm shoehorning it into the discussion even though it only superficially fits.


But, yes, I guess it could be both things at once, and I'm forgiving it for the formula because I'm pleased with everything else about it.



I suppose so. But I don't think its worth is predicated on it succesfully duplicating that formula, which I feel is what a lot of fans of slashers show up for. IN fact it works better when we contrast it with what usually passes. It meanders before anything happens, it is aggressively unpleasant to watch in how saturated by light it is during the day and how hard it is to see at night, it allows scenes to go on and on and on building horror through repetition. Ultimately, it does eventually hit all of the supposedly necessary beats, but when something deviates in tone so substantially from the rest of the films usually considered as part of the genre, I feel like I'm shoehorning it into the discussion even though it only superficially fits.


But, yes, I guess it could be both things at once, and I'm forgiving it for the formula because I'm pleased with everything else about it.
Okay, that's fair. I think a bunch of people here have their own unique criterion for categorizing slasher films. It's an enduring debate.



I admit I like Friday the 13th Part IV more than I. The killings are occasionally less predictable and there's a little more story.



These are my 3 personal favorites
Halloween
Friday the 13th
Scream



Films I think of as slashers that I also think are pretty great:

Sleepaway Camp
My Bloody Valentine
Hellbent
Black Christmas
Peeping Tom
Curtains
House on Sorority Row
You Might Be the Killer


I feel like Visiting Hours doesn't quite qualify, but I'm just putting it out there.

And shoutout to Hellbent for recontextualizing slasher tropes and prompting a wail of
WARNING: spoilers below
"No! Not the sexy bisexual!"
during a viewing.



I admit I like Friday the 13th Part IV more than I. The killings are occasionally less predictable and there's a little more story.
People don't usually 'confess' to thiings which are blindingly obvious and quite right... Unless this is me just assuming that the world sees everything the way I do again and, actually, some people manage to get this wrong.

Most of my favourites have been mentioned, but I'd like to point give a nod to Just Before Dawn. It's something I somehow missed in the early 80's (when it feels like I watched every horror film ever made) and only saw it about 5 years ago. Classic era US slasher but something which I think works really well but will feel very familiar to fans, even if you've never seen it before.

In the argument about what is and isn't a slasher, I agree with 10 To Midnight having that 'feel' as does Cobra and Maniac Cop, which is a big part of what I like about those films. Alien fulfils most of the requirements of a slasher and, tbh, since I started to think of it that way I like the film more.
__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.



People don't usually 'confess' to thiings which are blindingly obvious and quite right... Unless this is me just assuming that the world sees everything the way I do again and, actually, some people manage to get this wrong.

Okaaay, just saying that I go against the popular opinion. But glad you see Part IV my way too.



I suppose so. But I don't think its worth is predicated on it succesfully duplicating that formula, which I feel is what a lot of fans of slashers show up for. IN fact it works better when we contrast it with what usually passes. It meanders before anything happens, it is aggressively unpleasant to watch in how saturated by light it is during the day and how hard it is to see at night, it allows scenes to go on and on and on building horror through repetition. Ultimately, it does eventually hit all of the supposedly necessary beats, but when something deviates in tone so substantially from the rest of the films usually considered as part of the genre, I feel like I'm shoehorning it into the discussion even though it only superficially fits.

But, yes, I guess it could be both things at once, and I'm forgiving it for the formula because I'm pleased with everything else about it.
It's true that TCM is nowhere near as formulaic as the more generic Slashers out there, but that's always true when you compare the highlights of a genre against the dreck, and coming out as early as it did, it's not like there was as much of a "Slasher forumula" for the film to replicate in the first place, so if anything, its influence on the genre's fundamental tenets ends up making it feel like more of a Slasher film to me, at least when viewed from that angle. I also I think how much it distinguishes itself from the rest of the genre has as much to do with the level of craft that Hooper put into it as it does with its specific style (after all, Halloween is definitely closer to resembling a typical Slasher film in its basics, but how many Slashers has a shot as ingenious and memorable as the moment when they used a light dimmer to make it appear as though Michael just apparates out of thin air behind Laurie, in what would've been a generic shot otherwise?). Then again, I acknowledge a film's genre is as subjective as its overall quality, so I'm not dogmatic at all on the subject anymore, so I'm just playing devil's advocate here to keep the discussion going.