Movies
Slasher Movie Essentials: A Watchlist for Every Horror Fan
I have devoted my life to watching slasher movies (including a project where I’m reviewing every 1980s slasher). Whether or not that’s a good idea is up to you. But if you want to get slasher experience without sitting down to watch hundreds of movies, I can help. With this Slasher Movie Essentials watchlist, we’ll trace the entire vibrant history of the subgenre.
Note: I’m intentionally trying to shape my list around movies that are actually good. Or, bar that, extremely worth watching within this historical context. Sorry, When a Stranger Calls.
The Primordial Soup
With any cinematic subgenre, no film is ever truly the “first.” There are some key movies (Psycho, Halloween, etc.) that shaped what we now know of as the slasher. But that’s mostly because they were major hits. Various elements of the subgenre can be traced back much farther than those titles, to the earliest horror movies. These largely took the form of detective fiction adaptations at first.
Thirteen Women (1932) – This Myrna Loy movie follows sorority sisters being murdered by a vengeful killer. You can draw a direct line from Thirteen Women to everything from Prom Night to Sorority House Massacre. And it came out just a year after Frankenstein!
The Scarlet Claw (1944) – This Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie features some early slasher-y kills.
And Then There Were None (1945) – Agatha Christie is basically directly responsible for the popularization of the “killed one by one in an isolated location” trope.
Slasher Movie Essentials: German Krimi
As the elements that formed the foundation of the slasher began to coalesce, the next wave came from mainland Europe. From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, krimi movies ruled the roost in Germany. These were still in the realm of crime fiction, but mostly involved adapting the work of a single author. That would be British novelist Edgar Wallace, whose books often featured detectives hunting down serial killers. These film adaptations were often quite kooky, as German filmmakers tried their best to depict British life but often failed.
Fellowship of the Frog (1959) – More of a gangster movie, with the slasher elements at a slight simmer.
The Sinister Monk (1965) – Here we get a proper masked killer tale, with plenty of krimi wackiness layered on top. I mean, a girl squirts someone with a water gun full of sulfuric acid. Come on!
Creature with the Blue Hand (1967) – Pure zany fun with Klaus Kinski playing twin brothers.
Slasher Movie Essentials: Psychos & Hags
If there’s a single most important movie in the history of the slasher, it’s Psycho. While it has very few deaths, the Alfred Hitchcock classic opened the floodgates for more outré kills in horror movies. Thank you, shower scene.
The English-language slasher cycle of the 1960s was mainly populated with Psycho rip-offs that promised lurid murders. Eventually, these were hybridized with the post-What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? hagsploitation craze. Hence movies like 1965’s Fanatic and 1967’s Berserk!
Psycho (1960)
Peeping Tom (1960) – A British contemporary of Psycho that was massively influential, if less commercially successful.
Strait-Jacket (1964) – Perhaps the best of the hagsploitation Psycho riffs, thanks to director William Castle and star Joan Crawford.
Slasher Movie Essentials: Italian Gialli
From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Italy took the torch of the slasher from Germany with their giallo movies. (Giallo is Italian for “yellow,” referring to the yellow covers of a popular run of murder mystery novels.) The lavishly stylized and frequently nonsensical whodunits often combined beautiful women and bloody murder, two core staples of the slasher.
Blood and Black Lace (1964) – This beautiful Mario Bava film is one of the first gialli.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Dario Argento’s directorial debut is a classic giallo, featuring a black-gloved killer stalking through Rome. It’s also an early slasher to feature a shot from the killer’s POV.
Bay of Blood (1971) – Mario Bava’s later giallo features multiple kills that would inspire similar scenes in the Friday the 13th franchise. It’s also one of the first gialli to feature a crop of specifically teenager characters getting killed one by one. Though they are just one part of a sprawling whole, this was hugely influential.
Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) – Sergio Martino’s adaptation of Poe’s “The Black Cat” is very nearly as lurid and compelling as its title implies. Which is still saying something.
Want to learn more about Giallo? Read our Horror 101 entry on it here!
The Dawn of the Slasher Movie
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas both arrived in North America in 1974. This was a watershed moment for the slasher. Neither movie features a full slate of slasher tropes. However, they each assemble more in one place than had ever happened before.
This kicked off a wave of proto-slashers that led to the debut of John Carpenter’s Halloween four years later. Halloween mapped out the full slasher formula. This includes common tropes like the silent, masked killer and the virginal final girl. But it wasn’t until the early 1980s that movies figured out the right way to ape it.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Black Christmas (1974)
Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) – This sleazy proto-slasher features a young Brooke Shields being butchered.
Halloween (1978)
Tourist Trap (1979) – This weirdo movie features vacationers being tormented by a mannequin-wielding telekinetic killer.
The Driller Killer (1979) – This Abel Ferrara joint is a classic, thoroughly grimy psychological thriller.
The Golden Age of the Slasher Movie
The first movie to really figure out how to rip off Halloween was 1980’s Friday the 13th. Right on down to its “holiday” setting, it mimicked the formula that Carpenter and Debra Hill created with their screenplay. However, it added a splash of Bay of Blood’s whodunit vibes and gore by master special effects artisan Tom Savini. Bam, they had a hit on their hands, and the slasher boom began in earnest.
Friday the 13th (1980)
Prom Night (1980) – In addition to being a “holiday” slasher, it helped cement Halloween’s Jamie Lee Curtis as THE scream queen of the early 1980s.
My Bloody Valentine (1981) – An exquisite holiday slasher, and an example of how Canadian slashers are almost always superb.
The Burning (1981) – This summer camp slasher not only took Friday the 13th’s location, it also features effects by Tom Savini.
Halloween II (1981) – Michael Myers got in on the sequel fun early in the slasher boom he helped to create.
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) – This early attempt at a feminist deconstruction of the slasher is also a fun movie in its own right.
The House on Sorority Row (1983) – Sororities were common targets for slasher villains, and this Hitchcockian thriller is an excellent example of the trope.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) – The platonic ideal of the 1980s slasher. Gory kills (again by Savini) and nude bodies abound in this John Hughes-esque teen romp that also features an early Corey Feldman performance, as franchise mainstay character Tommy Jarvis.
The Second Wave of the Slasher Movie
Just as the slasher boom was beginning to die out, in came Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) stalking teenagers in their dreams terrified a new generation of fans. It also inspired a wave of more over-the-top slashers with supernatural storylines. Even established slasher franchises got in on the fun, adding supernatural angles to their post-Elm Street installments.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) – Zombie Jason!
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) – Freddy came into his own as cinema’s premiere murderous prankster in this special effects bonanza.
Slumber Party Massacre II (1987) – What? A killer who comes in through your dreams?
Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) – Forget whodunits, this one’s about a vengeful ghost.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) – This is a great sequel, but begins the franchise’s slow slide into Druid nonsense.
Child’s Play (1988) – Introducing the now iconic killer doll, Chucky.
The Passion of the Slasher
In 1989, the slasher subgenre started to plunge off a cliff both in terms of box office and mainstream respect. Slashers began to lurk in dark corners, trapped in direct-to-video hell. While video shelves were chock full of one-off slashers, they mostly felt cheap and tossed-off. However, there are a few important gems that arrived during this era.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) – The death knell of the franchise era begins with the movie that begged the question, “why is Jason on a boat in 70% of this movie?”
Leprechaun (1992) – This kicked off the most robust franchise of this period, even if most of the installments are pretty crappy.
Candyman (1992) – A true masterpiece. It’s completely unlike anything else that came before. That’s how it was able to thrive even during this dark period for the subgenre.
Dr. Giggles (1992) – A surprisingly solid one-off slasher.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) – An early, excellent postmodern take on the slasher, bringing Freddy into the real world.
The Resurrection of the Slasher
Wes Craven sighed and stepped in to resurrect the slasher yet again with 1996’s Scream. The screenplay by Kevin Williamson featured stylish modern teens deconstructing the tropes of the subgenre. It was a zeitgeist-redefining hit, igniting a wave of postmodern teen slashers. While these hit a wall after Columbine in 1999, Scream’s influence can still be felt today.
Scream (1996)
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) – Another Kevin Williamson script that was quickly hustled into production and became a hit.
Scream 2 (1997) – It arrived less than 365 days after the original!
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998) – An uncredited Kevin Williamson also had a hand in this reunion between Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode and Michael Myers.
Bride of Chucky (1998) – Chucky and his bride, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), gleefully eviscerate horror tropes – and unsuspecting victims – in this road trip romp.
Cherry Falls (1999) – This cleverly flips the “sex = death” trope on its head with a killer who’s stalking virgins.
Final Destination (2000) – This supernatural slasher features Death itself hunting down victims who escaped its clutches.
Hellbent (2004) – The slasher was so back that they even decided to make a gay one. It’s not “the first gay slasher,” as advertised, but it’s pretty great!
Hatchet (2006) – A back-to-basics gory slasher starring Friday the 13th legend Kane Hodder.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) – This hilarious mockumentary slasher came during the waning days of the postmodern cycle.
The Final Girls (2015) – A latter-era meta slasher comedy that will tear your heart out and stomp on it.
Slasher Movie Essentials: The Remakes
In the 2000s, outside of the torture porn cycle of Saw and Hostel, the remake was king. Classic horror movies of all stripes got remakes, many of them produced by Platinum Dunes, but the majority were slashers.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003) – Not technically a remake, but this long-awaited crossover was a portent of the IP orgy to come.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) – Torture porn influences and tank tops abound in this progenitor of the remake craze.
Friday the 13th (2009) – Model-pretty CW types populate this slick and not-half-bad reboot of the first four installments.
Sorority Row (2009) – A bubbly, mostly in-name-only remake of The House on Sorority Row.
Scream 4 (2011) – while it was itself a sequel, it was largely a sendup of the remake trend.
Slasher Movie Essentials: The Legacy Flicks
In the modern era, the slasher subgenre has largely split into two factions. In franchise land, we’re mostly getting legacy sequels, which bring back classic characters alongside a crop of fresh, young victims. Elsewhere, we’re getting “slash-ups,” which combine the slasher with other, non-horror, subgenres.
Happy Death Day (2017) – This excellent Groundhog Day riff is the first contemporary “slash-up.”
Halloween (2018) – Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the scene of the crime, 40 years later.
Freaky (2020) – A body swap slasher from Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon (and screenwriter Michael Kennedy).
Scream (2022) – The core cast returns as new denizens of Woodsboro are hunted down by a knife-wielding Ghostface killer.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) – Leatherface chainsaws his way through Gen Z in an isolated Texas town.
Heart Eyes (2025) – Slasher meets rom-com in this Josh Ruben feature, which boasts Freaky’s Landon and Kennedy as co-writers.
Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) – Tony Todd returns as eerie mortician Mr. Bludworth to advise a new group of Death’s victims.
Slasher Movie Essentials: The New Blood
The slasher is still alive and well in the 2020s outside of the franchise universe. While these titles are often still beholden to tropes of classic slashers, they bring fresh ideas into the mix.
There’s Someone Inside Your House (2021) – A charming adaptation of the young adult novel of the same name.
X (2022) – The kickoff to Ti West’s X trilogy is part Texas Chainsaw, part A24 horror movie, and part madcap porno adventure.
The Blackening (2022) – This satire foregrounding Black characters offers a new angle on the Scream style postmodern slasher.
In a Violent Nature (2024) – This outrageously gory slow-burn slasher follows the exploits of the killer rather than the victims.
Clown in a Cornfield (2025) – Another fun YA adaptation following teens imperiled by economic instability and killer clowns.
We are finally in the midst of Shudder’s 61 days of Halloween! There are so many horror movies to consume and 31 days simply isn’t enough. Use the long Labor Day weekend to kick off your horror movie countdown and add these movies to your Shudder queue. Here is a list of what I would recommend checking out to ease into the Halloween spirit right before going into full blown premature trick-or-treating mode.
The Best Movies to Stream on Shudder This Month
The Yeti (2026)
A large creature has captured people in a remote Alaskan town in the 1940s. The sheriff has put together a search-and-rescue monster hunting party to bring back the captives. It sounds like the premise of a Cold Iron Studios co-op video game in the same vein as Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The stylization from co-directors Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta in the trailer makes me think they have cooked up a story that blends action, horror, and wilderness survival. Sign me up, sheriff!
Leave (2022)
Hunter was found as a baby abandoned in a cemetery wrapped in a cloth covered with satanic symbols. She has been searching for answers her whole life about where she came from. Her journey to find her parents takes her down a mysterious path, and she is being warned by something from the beyond to leave this mystery alone. Can she trust who this investigation is leading her towards? It’s a mysterious, supernatural, culty film that will give you chills.
Penny Lane is Dead (2026)
One crazy night in Australia with perhaps a dash of revenge. Shudder’s latest original looks to be packed with blood and violence in this story of girls just trying to have fun until the crazy cousin drugs the party and invites dangerous people to play. The trailer promises lots of body horror (trigger warning, there may be SA or threat of it). I’m not saying it will be Evil Dead level, but there’s definitely something in the Aussie water with Lee Cronin pumping out his gory deadites and mummy films, and now Mia Kate Russel with this one.
The Others (2001)
This is a PSA to the younger readers of Horror Press; stop what you’re doing and watch Nicole Kidman go 100 miles per hour in this classic ghost story with a twist. Dreary weather, massive estate, confusing corridors, creepy house servants you don’t know if you can trust, and sad British kids. The ending is an all-timer and spoilers should be avoided at all costs. It has exactly what you need to get right into the cozy, spooky mood for 61-days of Halloween.
Dark Harvest (2023)
If The Hunger Games and The Purge had a baby and raised it during Oktoberfest. Teenage boys are tasked with hunting and killing the entity known as Sawtooth Jack on Halloween night, or it could mean certain peril for their town. Of the movies I have listed here that I have not seen, this is going to be at the top of my watchlist. Teens fighting for survival on Halloween night and the battle setting is in a cornfield?! Say less. I am there with my Sam Adams seasonal in hand. Another perfect movie to cannonball me right into the Halloween spirit.
This list has been carefully curated to watch in a specific order to gear up for a Halloween marathon. Start with the wintry monster movie, move on to a macabre supernatural thriller, followed by a ramp-up in blood and gore, to then be lulled into a spooky, bump-in-the-night classic, all to end on a ritualistic hunt taking place on Halloween night. This is just getting things started for the first 30-days. Looking forward to sharing the next list to get you through October.
Anyone who follows legendary horror author Stephen King on social media or reads the back of books knows one thing. It’s harder to find something that King hasn’t blurbed than something that he has. The dude is a voracious consumer of genre media, and he finds a lot to love. It’s an admirable quality. But, speaking as someone who saw American Ultra after he praised it, you can’t always trust his recommendations. Today, I’ll cut some of the wheat from the chaff and break down the best modern horror movies he’s recommended.
Three notes: First, I have decided to define “modern” as “2001 or later.” Second, King practices good social media hygiene and has deleted many of his old posts. A lot of them are archived elsewhere. However, it’s more or less impossible to make a truly comprehensive list of his recommendations. I’ve synthesized multiple different sources and done my best to truly encapsulate the breadth of his recommendations. Third, I have not included any adaptations of his own work. He may be outspoken about the ones he doesn’t like, but he’s still obviously biased in that department.
#10 Snakes on a Plane (2006)
To quote King himself (defending putting 2012 among his top 2009 movies), “no filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese.” Snakes on a Plane is a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin movie, delivering high-flying serpentine thrills. However, it’s also a remarkably faithful resurrection of the atmosphere of old 1970s airplane thrillers.
#9 Final Destination 5 (2011)
In his Best of 2011 entry on Final Destination 5, King called it “the best since the first,” and he’s absolutely right. While the sequels probably peaked with the highway prologue in Final Destination 2, the fifth installment is pound-for-pound the most thrilling entry. Between the bridge collapse, the laser eye surgery, and the nail-biting sequence where a screw falls pointy-side-up on a balance beam, there’s no denying there’s real power here. And that’s not even mentioning the fun final twist!
#8 A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Day One “the rare ‘big Hollywood film’ that is both intimate and textured.” It’s true. A Quiet Place: Day One is a mini miracle of horror filmmaking. An IP-drenched prequel to a duology of good-not-great post-apocalyptic popcorn blockbusters shouldn’t be this genuinely stirring. Plus, relative newcomer Joseph Quinn holds his own against the awe-inspiring Lupita Nyong’o, resulting in an all-timer two-hander.
#7 The Strangers (2008)
After watching The Strangers, King took to Entertainment Weekly to pontificate about what makes good horror. If you inspire someone who literally wrote the book on horror to think about it more, you’ve done something right. Bryan Bertino’s home invasion movie is one of the grimmest movies of the 2000s, but its desperate existential dread is terrifying and perfectly in line with King’s best works.
#6 Splice (2009)
King included Splice on his Top 10 list for 2010, particularly praising the “talented actors… who take the material seriously.” How did this grotesque genetic-experimentation horror movie directed by the guy who made Cube land Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley? Who knows. But they breathe life into some already super solid material. What Brody in particular gets up to feels even more twisted because it’s the guy from The Pianist doing it.
#5 Smile (2022)
In a since-deleted Tweet, King called Smile a “good, scary horror film.” He added that “the real surprise is Sosie Bacon as Rose. What a hell of a performance.” Bacon really was a revelation, but so was debut director Parker Finn. His control over tone and pacing leads to some of the best scare sequences of the 2020s.
#4 The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024)
King’s not fucking around about the New Zealand horror film The Rule of Jenny Pen. It’s one of just two horror movies on his New York Times ballot for the best of the 21st century. The underseen movie is a real corker, too. It follows a judge (Geoffrey Rush) recovering in a care home after a stroke. However, his relaxation is ruined by a sadistic retiree (John Lithgow) who is obsessed with his baby doll puppet. Lithgow’s performance is stunning, and his thrillingly dark energy commands the screen every second he’s in front of the camera.
#3 Barbarian (2022)
In a since-deleted reply to a fan’s Tweet about Barbarian, King said “Yeah, that movie blew me away. It was crazy! Crazy GOOD!” This movie contributed what is perhaps the definitive scary basement in horror, which is no small feat. That’s all thanks to director Zach Cregger’s control over onscreen darkness (one of his many skills). The man must be a shadowmancer of some kind.
#2 Train to Busan (2016)
Train to Busan is the only other horror movie on King’s NYT ballot. It has received a lot of international recognition over the years. Perhaps more than any other non-Parasite movie from South Korea. That’s because it’s flipping amazing. Its crackling energy makes it one of the scariest fast-zombie movies in history. But it also marries that with a compelling father-daughter story. There’s really nothing Train to Busan can’t do.
#1 The Descent (2005)
King put The Descent on his 2006 best-of list, calling it “the best horror movie of the year.” Forget that. It’s one of the top horror movies of the century so far. It’s a bloody good monster movie nestled into a skin-crawlingly claustrophobic spelunking movie.
Honorable Mentions:
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – I’ve never seen it, so I can’t in good faith recommend it
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) – A masterpiece, but it’s not really “horror”
Obsession (2026) – We gotta let this one sit, in order to avoid recency bias
