You know we love a well-themed month here at Horror Press, and like a slasher villain, you can’t keep us down. So, let’s talk about our favorite foreign slashers the right way.
While domestic releases are all well and good, I never want to become complacent when looking for new horror films to watch, especially when they involve knife-wielding maniacs of the human or supernatural varieties. So, in an effort to spread the spirit of S.M.M. and inspire our dear readers to expand their interests out from the sprawl of North America, I’ve curated a list of slashers from across the world for your viewing pleasure.
6 Foreign Slasher Films from Around the World
From Japan…Evil Dead Trap (1988)
Evil Dead Trap (literally translated to Trap of the Dead Spirits) takes under five minutes for us to be exposed to some truly nasty eye horror, which must be a world record of some kind.
When Nami receives tapes containing grisly torture at the television station her program runs out of, she and an all-female crew of reporters go to find proof of the murders. What they find is an abandoned military base full of traps and a crossbow-wielding killer who will stop at nothing to end them. Oh, and he also has pyrokinetic powers for some reason? The movie never explains why, but we get some great pyrotechnic stunts out of it. Remember kids, don’t pop off roman candles indoors unless a camera is running!
(KIDDING. Obviously.)
Of note are some brutal and completely unpredictable deaths, and a genuinely unexpected twist that leads into an even more baffling final scene. With strains of inspiration in its directing and plot ranging from Suspiria, to Friday the 13th, to (would you believe this?) even the Evil Dead, it is every bit as cinematically interesting as its sequel, even if the latter has better directing.
The last thing I have to say about both Evil Dead Trap films, though it is spoilery: they both make surprisingly compelling films for dissecting as reproductive horror; if that sort of cinema analysis interests you, you should make a nice double feature out of the two of them.
From Spain…Edge of the Axe (1988)
Is Edge of the Axe exceptional on a technical level? No, not really. Is it a campy but still brutal slasher shot in Spain with a part American, part Spaniard cast? Yes!
With principal photography in both Madrid and Big Bear Lake, this Spanish-American fusion slasher follows a computer nerd and his unfaithful friend trying to navigate romance in a small California town over the summer…while a horrifying killer in a blank white mask preys on women young and old across Paddock County and outmaneuvers the police at every turn. Tale as old as time.
This has a pretty genius set piece for an opening kill that makes me wonder why it hasn’t been imitated more often, as well as one of the most baffling soundtracks I’ve heard in a film. The music is just a microcosm of the massive, very odd duck that this movie is. Bizarre dialogue and character work pockmark this film with schlock that makes it much more memorable than it would have been if it was actually competent. Where else would you get a town of anti-computer gaming Luddites and eccentrics masquerading as normal people?
With the kind of acting you’d see out of a car insurance commercial, a surprising amount of Coca-Cola product placement for a film as meanspirited as this one is, and a new potential killer being introduced what feels like every fifteen minutes, Edge of the Axe is the kind of semi-suspenseful slasher you can turn your brain off for and enjoy.
From the Netherlands…Amsterdamned (1988)
Before diving into this one, you need to ask yourself: do you like your protagonist to sound like the Dutch version of Eeyore, and do you like your killer lurking in shadowy waters the entire runtime? If it’s a yes to either, Amsterdamnedis the movie for you.
There’s no waiting when it comes to figuring out what this film is about: detectives hunt down a killer in diving gear who stalks the canals of Amsterdam by night, ripping and tearing through anyone that gets near the water with his diving knife. Despite its violent subject matter, this slasher plays more like a thriller. It is a good starter horror film for anybody looking not to terrify a beginner with copious amounts of blood. It also has some decent humor for a film with a genuinely scary climax.
If you ever had a nightmare where something is trying to pull you underwater, this movie captures that sensation with incredible skill. With some great special effects on the fake bodies, and one particularly well-shot underwater sequence, Amsterdamned is exceptional for an entry-grade slasher.
From Australia…Cut (2000)
I have a soft spot for any movie that reminds me of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and Cut does just that. Sue me.
This Australian slasher follows the story of Hot Blooded!, a horror movie set in the film that’s come to life when a scorned bumbling stuntman dies in costume and curses the reels themselves. As film students try to resurrect the movie and bring back one of the original actresses to complete it (played by the perennially lovely Molly Ringwald), the Scarman is summoned from the celluloid and resumes his rampage. It makes for a bloody good show!
(Apologies to any Australians reading that.)
Parts New Nightmare and Scream 3, Cut is a delightful horror comedy that is a neat slasher beyond being meta-humor horror. Even if it’s opaquely riding the coattails of the Scream franchise’s explosive success, it acknowledges it and never feels like the shameless rip-off a few of its contemporaries at the time managed to end up like. It’s meta double indemnity, making fun of the very kind of movie it could be if it were taking itself too seriously.
It’s a plucky little movie with great pacing, a nice (if not a bit generic) slasher design, and a satisfying number of kills that make it worth the watch.
From Norway… Cold Prey 2: Resurrection (2008)
Norway’s biggest horror franchise has some issues with its first film. With a so-so soundtrack, unappealing directing, and straight-up ugly color grading, Cold Prey spends a lot of its runtime spinning its wheels with shots of characters wandering a filth-caked, abandoned ski hotel in service of an ultimately unremarkable slasher. It’s cold and cruel but uneventful, and that’s its greatest crime.
But Cold Prey 2? Cold Prey 2 kicks ass.
Even better, you don’t need to have seen Cold Prey to enjoy this entry, so there’s no slogging through an inferior first film. The sequel starts cooking with gas as this homage to Halloween 2 brings back the last survivor of the first entry, Jannicke, and the tortured Mountain Man who stalked her and her friends in the previous movie. Picking up right where it left off, Resurrection trades up settings for a Norwegian hospital where the hulking, pickaxe-wielding killer gets to unleash the full extent of his rage with some genuinely brutal hits using an assortment of weapons.
It feels like Roar Uthaug trading over the directing reins for a spot on the writing team for this movie was the right choice, because Cold Prey 2 is a complete overhaul that learned everything that was wrong with its predecessor and fixed it. And for that, I must commend him and the rest of the crew for a killer second installment.
From Italy…Deliria (1987)
If it sounds unfamiliar, it’s because this 1987 film is best known by one of its many localized titles, Stage Fright. But not to be confused with Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, or the weird American one from 2014 that had singer Meatloaf in it. That’s how you know this one’s quality!
While I originally thought about including one of the many giallo from Fulci or Bava, it was too obvious to put any genre progenitors on this list. So instead, I’m bringing up an oft-known but not talked about film, which many don’t even acknowledge is a foreign film despite being filmed entirely in Rome with an entirely Italian cast.
Directed by genre great Michele Saovi, Stage Fright/Aquarius/Bloody Bird (you get the idea) follows the rehearsal of a horror musical plagued by a deranged mental patient dressed as the plays main character, a serial killer known as The Night Owl. Yes, it’s the quintessential campfire story, fueled by the unfiltered power of theatre geeks. What could be scarier?
With lots of quotable lines, an incredible soundtrack by Simon Boswell, and a charismatic cast, Deliria is unforgettable in many regards. But most of all is The Night Owl, with his freakish emotionless cowl that still haunts me to this day. How he manages to be so terrifying for a villain that literally leaps into the movie’s opening scene and dances to hot 80s jazz is beyond me. Saovi’s creative vision is just unbeatable.
And really…
I’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg with this article. I would love to do another for the slasher super-fans, so are there any films missing from this that you think need more love? Let us know in the comments here and on Twitter!
And until next time, remember to lock your doors and put your kitchen knives somewhere safe. Oh, and stay tuned for more Horror Press articles like this one!