Although the origin of the slasher movie With no exact beginnings, the horror subgenre undoubtedly had a kick-off in the 1970s. When talented directors bought their craftsmanship to create a face for the slasher and bring a new kind of villain into the world, it helped create a launch pad for the slasher. Movies like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had inimitable killers that still resonate with audiences today, generating new but unfavorable remakes.
After horror peaked in the 80s and gave countless directors the chance to put their spin on the genre, it hit a wall in the 90s. That said, thanks to Wes Craven, the slasher genre was given a revitalization. Movies like Scream, Candymanand I know what you did last summer were huge successes and became independent franchises. But the strengths of these kinds of movies are the incredible number of deaths, teenagers being wasted and terrifying killers that appear human. These are the best slasher movies of all time.
9/9 sleeping camp
Each with the cheap aesthetic of the 80s, but with a much more perverted, depraved and fetishistic take on Long Island teenage life, sleeping camp is a disgusting but highly entertaining journey through the slasher genre. Following in the footsteps of Angela (Felissa Rose), a disturbed and painfully shy teenage girl, the people in the camp who buy her begin to die mysteriously. Robert Hilztik never shows the murder on screen, but instead shows the body in the aftermath, creating a series of terrifying, startling images that are just as terrifying. The final image and twist at the end are one of the more disturbing shots in the genre.
8/9 candy man
Backed by a romantic Gothic score by maestro Philip Glass, director Bernard Rose creates a nightmarish vision of Chicago with candy man. Rose uses the world of academia and research to create a distance between Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen), a graduate student, and the environment she uses to have an alien experience to understand trauma. The trauma of slavery and gentrification manifests itself in a folkloric tale of “The Candyman,” an iconic twist from mammoth Tony Todd. Handling a hook and bumblebees creates bloody murders that have haunted a neighborhood for generations.
7/9 Dressed to kill
Brian De Palma is known as an heir to the tension throne after the master, Alfred Hitchcock, and Dressed to kill is his blatant tribute. Partly inspired by psychosisDe Palma’s film features a protagonist who is killed prematurely, a shower scene, a murderer who blurs the gender, and a heavy-handed psychoanalysis in the climax to chase the killer away. With a stunning museum chase in which the killer stalks his prey, De Palma once again demonstrates the visual ability to keep his audience entranced.
6/9 black christmas
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A horror film that lives under the artificial neon glow of Christmas lights and decor, black christmas is a slasher film that terrorizes the classic teenage victims of horror movies, giving the genre a new feel due to its calendar holiday specificity. While director Bob Clark — whose other famous Christmas movie A Christmas Story – is not a genre, he knew exactly the kind of aesthetic and technical approach to create the eerie sensation that was in the compositions of the film. The director is constantly cutting through, using split diopter shooting and dramatic use of POV – in short, creating a slasher classic. One that also got an unfortunate remake.
5/9 Opera
King of the Giallo, Dario Argento’s slasher movie Opera focuses on an intimate part of the human body, so obvious that the design is ingenious. Argento keeps the eyes of the audience, as well as those of the victim, so close to mischief and danger that the film has an uneasy, prudish character throughout its run. In the world of opera singers, a stalker chases Betty (Christina Marsillach) before she performs The Phantom of the Opera. What emerges is Argento’s mastery of the craft, taking the karma and placing it where necessary: peepholes, trash cans, etc. It’s a complex slasher and one that never telegraphs its next move.
4/9 scream
In the 1990s, the slasher genre almost felt ready. However, one of the main initiators came back with a new idea. One who loved the clichés, turned them out and gave them to an audience that knew what they wanted, but not how to do it. scream is ironic in nature, as a group of teenagers discuss all the rules for horror movies while a killer wearing a ghost face mask runs amok. The movements, though telegraphed, created an emotional trauma that is visceral. Thanks to a great cast of David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Courtney Cox and Skeet Ulrich, the film has had legs for decades. Craven created another staple and one that has sense.
3/9 Texas Chainsaw Massacre
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A dirty and sizzling movie from start to finish, Tobe Hooper’s foray into the horror genre came high on this low-budget celluloid burner Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Creating a dynamic of teenagers who would be mere flesh dolls for the families of the deranged and murderous people in whose house they lived. Hooper directs each gruesome murder with maximum bleeding intent and takes the film into the hot Texas sun. While also giving the horror canon its iconography with the legendary ‘Leatherface’, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the dirtiest American movies ever made.
2/9 Halloween
John Carpenter’s Halloween created a legacy in film that still thrives today. Featuring the inimitable Michael Myers, in the blue trench coat and the terrifying remix of a James T. Kirk (Star Trek) death mask, Carpenter has made an icon. As Michael Myers stalks the seemingly perfect town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Carpenter fills the air and atmosphere with terror. Composing a score that is inextricably linked to the tone of the film, Halloween is spooky from start to finish. While also making way for Jamie Lee Curtis to become the ultimate badass scream queen.
1/9 psychosis
Another set piece by the master of suspense that will remain in the memory of movie buffs forever is the infamous shower scene. That scene was groundbreaking not only for its portrayal of murder — the number of scenes cut in a short period of time — but also for killing who we thought the main character would be in the first 20 minutes. Hitchcock was at his most innovative with psychosis, and he gave us the ultimate evil mommy boy in Norman Bates. Played with a subtle naivety turned into psychopathy by Norman Bates, psychosis is one of the great slashers of all time.