10 must-see slasher movies
October 30th, 2008 by BarakDon’t hand Halloween over to the candy corn eaters and bunny outfit wearers. This holiday is about darkness, mystery, and terror. Here are our top ten slasher movies - best watched in the dark behind locked doors. Feel free to add your thoughts and picks in the comments section.
10. Time After Time (1979)
When serial killer Jack the Ripper escapes 19th-century London in a time machine stolen from H.G. Wells, the author pursues him to 20th-century San Francisco. The fish-out-of-water scenario adds humor to this slasher flick.
9. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Four tipsy teens smash a pedestrian with their car and, in a panic, dispose of the almost-dead body in the ocean. Big mistake guys… The following summer, the reunited group is stalked by a mysterious figure with a fish hook. An echo of screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s mega-hit “Scream,” substituting that movie’s inside-jokiness for genuine feelings of guilt and angst.
8. Black Christmas (1974)
A terrifying chain of murders occur in a sorority house. This tense film is a precursor to the slasher films that would come a half decade later, but it never relies on gore.
7. Scream (1996)
Someone in a Halloween costume is on a killing spree… This critically-acclaimed slasher flick has a witty, self-aware humor, but it’s just as suspenseful as the others on this list. It was responsible for something of a revival in slasher movies.
6. The Evil Dead (1981)
Why do college students always end up in isolated and abandoned places? Five students’ vacation in an isolated cabin in the woods turns into a nightmare when they find an audiotape that’s the key to unlocking evil spirits. A whole lot of graphic violence and gore ensues.
5. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A hellish, razor-fingered monster enters the dreams of the teenage residents of a bucolic town and systematically slaughters them in their sleep. It’s one of the most popular horror movies of all time - and Freddy Krueger has become one of the most famous villains in cinema history.
4. Saw (2004)
A violent, bloody, psychologically exhausting and exhilarating exercise in terror. Some of the torture scenes are excruciatingly hard to watch.
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
This cult flick is the granddaddy of all splatter films, and still gets remade, sequeled and prequeled regularly. A family of mass murderers is led by the gruesome, chainsaw-wielding Leatherface.
2. Friday the 13th (1980)
A group of fun-loving teenagers in a deserted camp that closed twenty years earlier after a series of unexplained deaths… Along with Halloween, this set the standard for the slasher flicks of the 1980s.
1. Halloween (1978)
Of course. This movie about a mad killer stars Jamie Lee Curtis in her first, star-making role and set the standard by which all modern horror films are measured.
And one bonus…
Scary Movie (2000)
So many disfigured, disguised, deranged, obsessive characters – they were bound to be mocked eventually. Scary Movie does it just right. A campy, riotous mash-up of everything from Scream and Halloween to non-slasher horror like Carrie and The Blair Witch Project. The film leaves no classic scene untouched and never passes up the chance for a joke, however crude. It was so successful that it became a franchise of its own.
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October 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am
Nice list but “I Know What You Did Last Summer” deserves a higher rank - I would put it before “Black Christmas.”
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October 31st, 2008 at 8:08 am
I’ve seen all the movies on this list, and now I want to see them again!
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October 31st, 2008 at 9:45 am
A great list of movies. I have watched every single one of them. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a classic.
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October 31st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Whats Halloween Really About? (Not Candy!) | CommentURL.com…
\r\nDont hand Halloween over to the candy corn eaters and bunny outfit wearers. This h…
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October 31st, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Buried… I Know What You Did Last Summer?? And Scary Movie at 11?
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November 1st, 2008 at 9:01 am
I love Time After Time. It’s never gotten the recognition it deserves.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 6:21 pm
not impressed. i know what you did last summer is a joke; the fact that so many people agree that it should be on this list makes me sad. go watch some takashi miike, dario argento, lucio fulci and then you can give out your opinions on horror. this list was lame and predictable.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
ps if you’re going to list nightmare on elm street, at least get a screen cap from the actual movie, not one of the lamer sequels.
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:22 am
boooooring! what a cliche list
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March 13th, 2009 at 1:52 am
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March 13th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I have read a number of your post and I love it, can’t wait to read some more.
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August 4th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Saw is the best film ever!! I like it
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May 8th, 2011 at 7:38 am
Tks…
Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!…
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