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Two Sheets to the Wind: Top Five Slasher Movies

We’re continuing our look at horror for October. We’ve beheaded the zombies, vanquished the vampires and now we turn our blunt instruments to that other great horror staple, the slasher movie.

Whether it’s the supernatural killing machine of Jason Voorhees or the quiet mummy’s boy Norman Bates, the psycho killer has both terrified and enthralled us for decades. One of the earliest examples of the mainstream slasher movie is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho from 1960 and Hollywood still churns them out today.

But it’s tough to define a slasher movie. Does A Nightmare on Elm Street and it’s subsequent sequels count as a slasher movie? It’s certainly has the crazed psycho killer, but does Freddy’s penchant for killing teens in their dreams make is more of a supernatural horror than slasher? How about Jigsaw’s traps and elaborate revenge schemes, does that exclude Saw from the genre – does it firmly belong in the torture horror subset?

Lottie decided that when compiling our list, we should limit ourselves to the slashers that have a solid basis in reality – the films that ‘could happen’. Granted, that eliminates Freddy and Jigsaw. Many of the Friday 13th and Halloween sequels are out and both Candyman and Chucky are off the list too. But that still leaves us with a wealth of knife and axe wielding psychos to choose from.

Darren’s Top 5 Slasher Movies

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

“That’s the last goddamn hitchhiker I ever pick up.”

Once again, it’s always tough to choose 5th place. There’s so many other movies which could be here in its place, but The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is of such importance to the genre, I’d be remiss to leave it out. Inspired by 1950s mass murderer Ed Gein, Tobe Hooper’s debut opens with five teens driving in a van through rural Texas. After a terrifying exchange with a demented hitchhiker, the group ends up at an old farmhouse, where the residents begin to wreak havoc on the youngsters. When her friends and brother disappear one by one, the terrified Sally must summon the strength to escape from the ghoulish family of mass murderers, who are led by the gruesome, chainsaw-wielding Leatherface. This low-budget exploitation slasher became a cult hit and helped define the genre by introducing such standard features as the house of terror and the girl in peril becomes the heroine.

4. Wrong Turn (2003)

“We are never going into the woods again.”

Steeped in the traditions of classic ’70s-style horror movies, Wrong Turn stars Desmond Harrington and Eliza Dushku who end up stranded in the back arse of middle America, surrounded by crazed inbred killers. Borrowing heavily from the likes of Texas Chainsaw and The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn manages to set itself apart from the many other carbon copies by being clever, brilliantly directed by Rob Schmidt and having some truly chilling original horror moments. I have watched this movie countless times and I still love it after every viewing.

3. Halloween (1978)

“I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.”

There’s very little I need to say about this movie. Halloween takes us into the world of a mad killer, Michael Myers, for the first time. The film launched the careers of director John Carpenter and scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. Produced for very little money and a tight shooting schedule, it was a massive success when it was released and is single-handedly responsible for turning the slasher movie into a viable, successful, mainstream genre.

2. Psycho (1960)

“Oh, we have 12 vacancies. 12 cabins, 12 vacancies.”

The original and best slasher film? Well, not quite on either count. There were slasher movies before this and there are better examples of the genre too, but Psycho will be remembered forever as being the father of the modern horror movie. Hitchcock introduced us to Norman Bates and twisted the suspence movie beyond all recognition to create a frightening and unforgettable film.

1. Scream (1996)

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Part spoof, part satire, part slasher, Scream manages to balance funny and scary at a level never even attempted before. Often credited with reinventing horror in the 70’s, there is no doubt that Wes Craven re-reinvented it in the mid-nineties. He took all the elements that went into making the typical slasher movie and turned them on their heads to make a post-modern, intelligent and yet still very scary film that is not just a parody of the genre, but also a prime example of it. It spawned sequels and imitators, but no film has ever come so close to perfectly defining what the slasher movie is, while also breaking every rule in the slasher movie guidebook. Genius and completely re-watchable time and time again.

Lottie’s Top 5 Slasher Movies

Like Darren what makes a slasher scary for me is that it has the potential to be real, it could happen.  This is the reason I’ve always found Slashers that little bit more unnerving  than the supernatural horrors. As always my list is a mixture of those movies which I find fun, entertaining, those that I watch again and again and those that entirely terrified me. While I concede that Darren’s list is almost perfect, do I  agree with it entirely? Well where would the fun be in that?

The interweb says that a “Slasher” movie involves “a crazed human or sub-human is tracking or preying on another human being for the express purpose of torturing, maiming, stabbing, shooting, scaring to death, dismembering and/or killing for absolutely no reason at all.” I think my list hits the mark.

5. Wolf Creek (2005)

“What was it your mate said again? Oh, yeah, that’s not a knife – *this* is a knife!”

Wolf Creek made my fifth spot when we did our Top 5 Horrors back in July. The innocuously named villain, Mick Taylor plays that mild-mannered helpful stranger Norman Bates precision. You do not immediately suspect that he will be our baddie.  It’s vicious, clever and magnificently infused with that tension that all great Slasher movies require.

4. American Psycho (2000)

“Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, it even has a watermark!”

Does this fall more into the genre of psychological thriller? I think so.

Set in the world, arguably the mind of Patrick Bateman, a misogynistic,  affluent Wall Street yuppie whose mindless lifestyle of compulsive consumption, pop culture binging and one-night stands is peppered with improbable acts of  murder and torture carried out with inexplicable impunity.

With nods to Hitchcock this social satire of a slasher is clever, brutal and stays with you long after you’ve taken out the DVD and put it in the freezer with The Shining and Little Women. **Culchie points for whoever gets this reference first.**

3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

“Those girls… those girls don’t wanna go messin’ round no old house!”

I only found out that this is based an actual true story.  I mean they all say that but actual real-life events? While I enjoyed the 2003 remake starring Jessica Beale it lacked the grit of the original.

2. Halloween (1978)

“He came home!”

Halloween has everything.  Genuinely scary with none of the kitsch of it’s successor Friday The 13th (1980). Halloween invented the slasher movie as we know it today not least of all the concept that one’s survival was directly proportional to one’s sexual experience.  The spine chilling theme music, the William Shatner-like pale mask peeping through the bushes, the suspense created by the seemingly slow lumbering giant with freakish stealth…it still gets me.

One of the most successful independent films ever made the legacy of Halloween can be seen throughout the  effects can be seen in the Friday the 13th series, The Nightmare on Elm Street series, the Hellraiser films right up to the more modern of this genre such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

1. Psycho (1960)

“I think I must have one of those faces you can’t help believing.”

The “mother” of all slasher suspense movies with a subtlety and consideration for plot and character that was lost in later generations. Hitchcock manipulates the audience into identifying with both the victim and the killer.

The famous shower scene is one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. It has been parodied in countless movies from Dressed to Kill (1980) to  Scream 2 (1997) and even in animated features such as Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), in which Bugs acts out with the film’s black-and-white footage with chocolate syrup poured down the drain.

Honourable Mentions: Madman, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Severance,Pathology, Friday the 13th,  Wrong Turn (notably one of my favourite modern horror movies but, for me, it didn’t sit right in this list).

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