Slasher movies have a glorious history of reinvention and rejuvenation. A horror subgenre known for high kill counts and creative deaths, slasher as a genre is often rightly associated with the films – made mostly in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s – that involve a masked killer terrorizing a group of people by killing them in truly brutal fashion.
Over the years, this simple formula has remained confidently consistent as it keeps winning over new generations of fans. As some fun slasher movies you may not have seen demonstrate, there is an entertaining distance maintained from the material that makes these movies enjoyable to watch with a group of friends at a party – a common setting for slashers.
Slashers movies have become true horror classics because of their entertainment factor. However, innovations are always welcome, and from making meta commentary about the genre to using supernatural elements more common to other genres, the slasher genre of movies keeps you on your toes with its creativity as we get new innovations in slasher filmmaking every year.
12
Happy Death Day (2017)
Director Christopher Landon made a slasher that turned out amazing despite low expectations when he trapped the protagonist of Happy Death Day in a Groundhog Day-like time loop. The sense of humor of the protagonist elevates the movie’s entertainment factor as she consistently reacts hilariously to dying all the time, before attempting to solve the central puzzle.
With a beautiful heartwarming message about having faith in people and prioritizing kindness, Happy Death Day is surprisingly gory for a slasher that’s as much a sitcom as it is a horror movie. The unique balance of the seemingly conflicting genre elements is what makes the movie one of the most creative slasher films ever made.
11
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven has made some of the most influential horror movies of all time, but none of them are perhaps conceptually as fascinating as A Nightmare on Elm Street. The villain, Freddy Krueger, attacks his victims through their dreams, which makes it nearly impossible to escape him. Characters even try to avoid sleeping, but it’s only a matter of time.
With a couple of the most gruesome 1980s horror movie deaths, especially Tina getting dragged across the ceiling of her room, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a bona fide classic that still terrorizes viewers to this day. Even though every later instalment wasn’t as good, A Nightmare on Elm Street is widely considered to be a successful horror franchise.
10
X (2022)
By the time Ti West made his horror trilogy, the gender and sexual politics of slashers had been interrogated and revised plenty of times, but he chose to do it in an ingenious manner. By using aesthetics reminiscent of Tobe Hooper’s work from the ’70s, he took the genre back to its roots and then explored the role of sex.
A common trait among most pre-2000s slasher victims was their sexual behavior, and instead of vilifying youngsters for being sexually active and filming pornography, X portrays the villain as envious, questioning the sex-negative undertones of traditional slasher narratives. With one of the best A24 movie performances from Mia Goth, X is among the best slashers made in recent times.
9
Angst (1983)
Last year’s In A Violent Nature, a brutal slasher movie, attempted to innovate by using the killer’s perspective, but it was underwhelming. Gerald Kargl gave us a much more compelling instance of this approach four decades ago in Angst, starring Erwin Leder as a psychopathic killer who gets released from prison, and breaks into a house with a vendetta.
Using uncanny voiceover narration that inevitably places the viewers in the shoes of the psycho killer, Angst uses this technique effectively to make viewers uncomfortable.
The voiceover also manages to undercut the glorification of violence, because of a nearly self-aware, pathetic tone in the protagonist’s inner monologue. The visceral experience of watching Angst for the first time is unforgettable.
8
Freaky (2020)
I’ve watched a ton of horror movies, but Freaky is unlike anything I’ve seen, because it uniquely uses a concept that I’d never associate with horror, despite the obvious merits. Freaky Friday is a sweet teenage drama with so much nostalgia attached to it, that using its body swapping premise for a slasher seems outrageous.
Yet, that’s exactly what happens in Freaky, and it works wonders. Vince Vaughn plays a psychopathic killer and Kathryn Newton plays a high-school girl who accidentally swaps bodies. The hilarity of a teenage girl’s mind trapped in Vince Vaughn’s body complements the horror of an actual teenager going on a terrifying murder spree.
7
Peeping Tom (1960)
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom is often said to be the first slasher movie ever made, so it doesn’t get more creative than that. An uncomfortable watch, the movie explores the role of voyeurism in the making and consuming of cinema. Its themes were so taboo in the 1960s that audiences couldn’t handle Peeping Tom at the time.
Despite a reputation for being problematic, the movie has undergone reassessment in recent years and is celebrated as a brilliant horror movie. It doesn’t glorify its killer, it exposes the prevalence of scopophilia in cinematic cultures, and it has aged well. Its most ingenious aspect is the confrontation of viewers, who are forced to reflect on their viewing habits.
6
The Final Girls (2015)
Meta commentary in movies can often feel on-the-nose, but when it’s delivered as well as in The Final Girls, it works like a charm. The often criticized trope of the final girls in classic slashers – who are the only chaste girls in a group who don’t express themselves physically – is the subject of reinvention in The Final Girls.
A woman grieving the death of her mother, who was a scream queen in the ’80s, is unexpectedly teleported into one of her mother’s movies, and must survive it with the help of her mother. Using the premise of interrogating the final girl trope, The Final Girls tells a heartfelt story about a mother finally connecting with her daughter.
5
Deep Red (1975)
The horror genre wouldn’t be what it is today without auteur Dario Argento’s work. Argento, who is known for perfecting giallo horror, introduced in Deep Red one of the earliest instances of a trope that would later become a staple of the slasher genre. It links the murderer’s psychosis to severe childhood trauma, depicted in the film’s opening scene.
With a visual style that blurs the lines between observer and observed, Argento takes the audience deep into the deranged psyche of the killer, who is characterized by an affinity for children’s rhymes and playthings. Deep Red is also one of the earliest movies to effectively play with gender roles in a genre that was deeply conventional at the time.
4
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies has the best horror movie villain twist of all time. While the twist makes immediate sense when revealed in the climax, it’s so outrageous and unexpected until then, that it will inevitably take anyone by surprise. It also improves the movie’s satirical look at the way paranoia affects Gen Z today.
With almost no evidence of an actual killer, a group of friends start suspecting each other after discovering one of them stabbed by a sword. The movie’s sharp writing, haunting cinematography, and memorable performances elevate the slasher to ingenious levels because it constantly challenges the formula by keeping viewers guessing who the killer is.
3
Scream (1996)
Wes Craven’s contributions to horror cinema are manifold, but none of his works have the cultural footprint that 1996’s Scream does. Not only did it start a franchise that’s been largely successful, and is still continuing with a new movie currently in production, but it also permanently changed how slasher movies were written with its self-referential screenplay.
Moreover, Ghostface is a movie character who helped reshape genre expectations by being a slasher villain with multiple identities which keep changing with every movie. Scream engages with the discourse about slashers, uses meta jokes to cut through the tension, has intensely gory kills, and features one of the most iconic slasher movie villains ever.
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