Only 5 Slasher Movies Are Considered Among the Greatest Films Ever Made

It’s hardly a secret that the slasher genre has been something of a punching bag for film critics for decades, especially at the height of its popularity. This reception isn’t unfounded, really, as an overwhelming majority of films in the subgenre are junk, produced on the cheap with no inspiration beyond profit. Slasher culture at its peak, from the early 1980s and into the early ’90s was dominated by major franchises like Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, franchises that had highs and lows before eventually falling off a cliff in repute and box-office popularity.

Sure, slasher movies aren’t prestige bait, but some films in the subgenre have managed to be genuinely great, from as early as the 1960s and even as recently as Ti West‘s critically acclaimed X and Pearl. The following list is focused on the rarest slasher films, the ones that are so artistically accomplished and lauded that they transcend the genre and achieve timelessness. The following slasher movies are the only ones that are often cited among the greatest movies ever made.

5

‘Scream’ (1996)

Wes Craven made several important and unforgettable horror movies, but only one that is pretty much perfect. Kevin Williamson‘s screenplay, originally titled Scary Movie, had myriad merits and innovations, chief among them being the simple foundation that the characters had seen horror movies and knew all their tricks. This makes Scream work as a knowingly funny satire, and somehow it also makes the scares hit harder, because the illusion is that we’re in the real world, a world apart from the movies all the characters reference. Scream is as entertaining as it can be, an ingenious whodunit that’s endlessly quotable and rewatchable.

So, what happened with Scream 7? How did the writer of one of the epochal 1996 sleeper hit with such strong word of mouth its box office grew week over week, craft such a limp and desperately convoluted legacy sequel? Well, it must be said that the very best Scream movies were the ones written by Williamson and directed by Craven. The writer’s self-awareness and wit were an inspired pairing with the director’s assured, downright celebratory knack for pure terror.

4

‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (1974)

Image via Raven Pictures International

If you ever want to read a genuinely great non-fiction book about the mania paired with artistry behind the greatest independent cinema, read original Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen’s Chainsaw Confidential: How We Made the World’s Most Notorious Horror Movie. It’s an account of 100 degree temperatures, 16-hour day, 7-day work schedules, rotting meat and unthinkable stenches. Director Tobe Hooper was hellbent on making a gritty, realistic horror picture, complete with a famous narration telling us this really happened (even though it didn’t). The result is what many consider to be the single most terrifying motion picture ever made.

Like most of the other films on this list, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s greatness largely comes from the power of suggestion. There’s no on-screen gore, and Hooper hilariously thought the film could get a PG certificate before the film was initially slapped with an X. It’s a shame that Hooper never fully translated this success into Hollywood legs, but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a definitive midnight movie over a half-century later.

3

‘Psycho’ (1960)

Image via William Creamer – © MPTV

Alfred Hitchcock released his greatest crowd-pleaser, North by Northwest, to tremendous box-office success and critical praise in 1959. Perhaps it was a boost in confidence that propelled him into riskier territory the following year. With a finely paced screenplay by Joseph Stefano based on the shocking bestseller by Robert Bloch, Psycho gave Hitchcock an opportunity for all-out war with the American censors he’d long loathed. Though it’s toned down from the book (which would have been unfilmable at the time), Psycho remains one of the most suspenseful, notoriously twisty thrillers ever made.

Hitchcock was at least as much of a celebrity as any of his actors by 1960, and he playfully plastered himself all over the advertising campaign, going to extreme lengths along with theater chains to ensure that audiences wouldn’t be admitted once the reels started rolling, in order to protect the film’s secrets. It was an unprecedented move that paid off; Psycho was Hitchcock’s biggest hit, it remains the most profitable black-and-white movie in history.

2

‘Peeping Tom’ (1960)

Image via Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors

Released the same year as Psycho, Michael Powell‘s Peeping Tom received a wildly different reception. It bombed, so badly that it tanked thriving British auteur Powell’s career permanently. The grisly, often darkly comic thriller starred Karlheinz Böhm as tortured young Mark, a documentary filmmaker who’s secretly a serial killer, obsessed with filming the dying expressions of young women. Mark’s operation goes into a tailspin when he becomes involved with his pretty, compassionate neighbor, Helen (Anna Massey).

Peeping Tom is a visually breathtaking, witty and fittingly uncomfortable exploration of unpleasant themes like voyeurism and cyclical abuse. It’s a technical masterpiece that might have been lost to time if it weren’t for Martin Scorsese, chief among the film’s champions who helped reverse widespread opinion. Peeping Tom is one of the most piercing and unforgettable psychological thrillers you’ll ever see. Roger Ebert had the following to say about Peeping Tom when adding it to his “Great Movies” anthology:

1

‘Halloween’ (1978)

Image via Compass International Pictures/Aquarius Releasing

Before Halloween, the idea of pure evil breaching small-town Middle America was a lot more novel and unnerving than it sadly has become in present day, and it had been best explored in Thornton Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock’s timeless, morbid yet compellingly heartfelt Shadow of a Doubt. John Carpenter wore his Hitchcock references on his sleeve here, and nearly 50 years later, Halloween has proven to be just as enduring and esteemed as the best work of the Master of Suspense. There are so few absolute truths in the human experience, but there’s at least one: Halloween is and will forever remain the best slasher movie ever made. It is an electrically crafted no-budget shocker that has tunnel vision for raising your heart rate, and nothing else. Its simplicity is its strength.

Written and performed entirely by Carpenter using only a piano, a synthesizer, and a drum machine, Halloween‘s score is now considered one of the best and most instantly recognizable ever composed. The unusual time signature of the earworm theme plunges you into the mind of a serial killer who’s insane, not on the same wavelength as the rest of us. There are only so many movies that steadily become more revered and referenced as time goes by. This is one of them.

Halloween

Release Date

October 27, 1978

Runtime

91 minutes

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