List: 25 Essential ’80s Slashers

With Jane Schoenbrun’s love-letter to one of the most denigrated sub-genres in the annals of horror currently riding high in cinemas on both sides of the Atlantic, I thought I might pass on some slasher recommendations from the golden age. Whether or not these are definitive choices will depend on one’s level of expertise on the matter (I’d cautiously say I’m somewhat versed in the material), and there are one or two rouge choices in the mix for sure. But if you’re (blood)thirsty for more of what lurks at the bottom of Tivoli Lake, here are 25 to sate that lust, both on and off the summer camp trail. Honourable mentions to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Bloody Birthday, Happy Birthday to Me, To All a Goodnight, Slaughter High and April Fool’s Day that didn’t quite make the cut. So to speak…

25. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988, Renny Harlin)

Conventional wisdom dictates that if you’re going to recommend an Elm Street sequel, you’re liable to proffer up the third entry, Dream Warriors. It’s a fine choice, no doubt. But, increasingly, I’m finding myself returning to Renny Harlin’s follow-up. In some respects it’s a thankless choice – bridging from the diminishing heroes of the fan favourite to a new crop of tormented teens – but the new blood are a top-notch bunch. Tuesday Knight takes over from Patricia Arquette as Kristen (to the consternation of some) but Lisa Wilcox becomes the driving force as incoming dreamer Alice. By this point the quips and effects work were reaching their zenith and there are plenty of memorable incarnations for Freddy (Robert Englund) to get his (razor) claws into. As fun a watch as the series mustered ahead of a sudden and swift downturn.

24. The Burning (1981, Tony Maylam)

As briefly alluded to in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Tony Maylam’s The Burning has been sullied by association, being the brainchild of the now-notorious producing powerhouse behind Miramax and the primary target of the #MeToo movement. It can be hard to look past the shadow of Harvey Weinstein, particularly during the movie’s more pointedly misogynistic moments. Based on the Cropsey mythos, this summer camp slasher boasts a couple of noteworthy before-they-were-famous appearances from Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander, but it’s Tom Savini’s practical gore effects that steal the show in an outlier that winds up in the hands of a rare Final Boy.

23. Psycho II (1983, Richard Franklin)

Making a belated sequel to the granddaddy of slasher movies some 23 years later sounds, in theory, like a fool’s errand doomed to failure. And while Psycho II doesn’t come close to the landmark heights of Alfred Hitchcock’s none-more-influential original, it’s still far better than anyone might reasonably expect. Released from a psychiatric hospital, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) returns to the town of Fairvale, the family home and motel, only to receive a rocky reception from the locals. Before long Norman suspects a conspiracy to tip him back over the edge, and the sympathetic ear of local waitress Mary (Meg Tilly) seems a little too good to be true. By the end the movie piles up revelations as briskly as corpses, but the getting there is handsomely rendered by Richard Franklin. Perkins so welcomed the opportunity to reprise his most iconic role that he took on directing duties for the inevitable – and less successful – third effort.

22. Pieces (1982, Juan Piquer Simón)

And then there are some slashers so grubby, so sordid that you simply need a shower afterwards. Spanish effort Pieces most definitely falls into that category, but there’s no denying that this trashy favourite has some absolute peak moments for the decade, not least if you’re ‘treating’ yourself to the US version (“BASTARDS! …BASTARDS!”). A loopy, sickly hodgepodge of ideas, set pieces and lascivious depictions of women, everything about Pieces feels tawdry… but it kind of has everything, from chainsaw wielding sleazebags to impromptu martial arts and aerobics sessions. Plus husband-and-wife leads Christopher and Linda Day George. One of a kind.

21. Cheerleader Camp (1988, John Quinn)

Dutch angles galore in this exceedingly camp late entry in the slasher cycle, intersecting my twin sicko predilections for trashy summer camp horrors and catty cheerleader movies. Future Mrs. Jigsaw Betsy Russell herself plays Alison, a cheerleader plagued by nightmares in the run-up to the all-state finals. Turns out her subconscious fears are well-founded, as the body count starts rising at, yep, cheerleader camp. The energy’s a little more horny frat house than sorority, but once the claws come out there’s nothing but fun to be had spelling out victims with your arms. Keep an eye-out for grindhouse mainstay George ‘Buck’ Flower in the peripheries.

20. The Funhouse (1981, Tobe Hooper)

An odd one from Tobe Hooper, here, with many forgettable characters and microdramas, a deeply problematic mutant villain in a truly unconvincing mask and a meandering sense of momentum. And yet The Funhouse is one of the 80s’ quintessential ‘and yet’ movies; a recurring comfort watch in spite of it’s nagging and nastier elements. This is in large part thanks to cinematographer Andrew Laszlo who catalogues this nightmarish ordeal at a local carnival with the kind of moody, widescreen elegance that Dean Cundey brought to John Carpenter’s cuts from this era. The Funhouse gains by association.

19. Prom Night (1980, Paul Lynch)

Hungry for more Jamie Lee Curtis but with Halloween II still a year away, burgeoning slasher fans were partway sated by Paul Lynch’s deeply uneven offering, which meanders almost interminably for the better part of an hour before offering up a backloaded stalk ‘n’ slash fest as well as the genre’s biggest show-stopping dance floor number. Disco was far from it’s peak by the time of the movie’s release, but watching Curtis strut her way around a school gymnasium almost convinces to the contrary. The headline credit goes to Leslie Nielsen – playing things straight and barely there – but Curtis’ would-be prom queen steals the show.

18. The Wind (1986, Nico Mastorakis)

Greek workaholic Nico Mastorakis cultivated a wildly chaotic body of work. Best known for the nasty Island of Death, The Wind is an underrated, minimalist curio from the mid ’80s, which forefronts Meg Foster (They Live) as a writer struggling for inspiration who holes up on a craggy little Mediterranean island only to be menaced by a killer using the daunting, inclement weather as cover. Discovering that she’s all-but-abandoned, Foster’s Sian Anderson is thrown into an atmospheric cat and mouse game that rewards repeated viewings.

17. Sleepaway Camp (1983, Robert Hiltzik)

Perhaps the greatest influence on Jane Schoenbrun’s latest and certainly one of the most notorious slashers of the 1980s… largely for all the wrong reasons. Sleepaway Camp is an odd one; a summer camp slasher that mostly treads water as its unusually-young cast – focusing on the campers as much if not more than their counsellors – are whittled down in a series of deadly offings that are shrugged off as awry pranks. It’s the intense, bizarrely staged finale that gets this one it’s place in genre history; a shrill transphobic reveal that obliterates all memory of what came before. As iconic as it is messy, amateur and undeniably strange.

16. The Initiation (1984, Larry Stewart)

The Initiation meanders about a bit, throwing all manner of ideas and details into the mix, making its 93 minutes feel a good deal longer than that. Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga) is pledging with a sorority that’s big on hazing rituals, who’re keen to use her father’s store (in actuality an entire goddamn mall) as a staging ground. There’s also a killer on the loose prone to stabbing people with a gardening trowel, and Kelly’s also suffering recurrent night terrors of repressed memories which her inappropriately familiar psychology professor is convinced can be unlocked by studying her sleeping patterns. Again, it’s the third act that promotes this one to classic status, and a reveal not entirely unique in this list.

15. The Prowler (1981, Joseph Zito)

Before directing Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Joseph Zito put himself on the slasher map with one of it’s nastier entries. The Prowler finds a masked menace in a WWII helmet terrorising a group of college students as the anniversary of a 1945 graduation day murder approaches. What sets Zito’s film apart from a number of it’s contemporaries are the grislier gore and impaling practical effects shots – courtesy of rising star Tom Savini – which are queasily believable. It’s a mean and dirty little movie, especially if all you have access to is one of the grubbier old prints. Compared to some of the campier offerings on this list, The Prowler is darker, more sombre and severe… if just as nonsensical when all’s said and done.

14. The Final Terror (1983, Andrew Davis)

Some years before breaking the box office with Harrison Ford hit The Fugitive, Andrew Davis took the slasher off the beaten track for woodsy survivalist horror The Final Terror as a group of ten hikers are menaced in the forest by a killer who may be the a mythologised escapee from a nearby insane asylum. Among the busy cast you’ll find the notable likes of Daryl Hannah and Joe Pantoliano but the out-and-out star of the show here is the Northern California wilderness. The Final Terror suggests that returning to nature from the affluence of ’80s suburbia is just as deadly as ever. A true walk on the wild side.

13. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Tobe Hooper)

How to follow-up one of the most notorious movies ever made? Tobe Hooper decided the answer was to satirise yuppie culture, place rampant American capitalism in the cross hairs and hire Dennis Hopper to go off-the-charts crazy as a former Texas Ranger looking to avenge the murder of wheelchair bound Franklin from the first movie. The reception to his sequel brought to bare by Canon Films at the time was confused and muted at best, which can’t be said for the movie itself which shrieks and hollers every bit as much as Hooper’s hands-down classic original. Caroline Williams is every bit as exceptional as Hopper, but the MVP this time out might just be Cary White for the creative production design of deranged underground lair ‘Nam Land. An utterly unhinged follow-up.

12. Blood Rage (1987, John Grissmer)

Forget Eli Roth. If you want a real Thanksgiving horror, look no further than John Grissmer’s micro-budget gonzo effort from the tail-end of the slasher boom. Grissmer was responsible for the wild-twist-heavy 1978 feature Scalpel (aka False Face). His slasher entry also goes by another name (Nightmare at Shadow Woods) which is all kinds of fitting considering it’s fondness for duality. Like The Initiation, here’s one that goes positively loopy with the notion of identical twins. There are some off-the-wall gore effects here (the severing of a hand, in particular) that truly set Blood Rage apart but, again, its the over-the-top finale that makes this one feel classic.

11. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985, Danny Steinmann)

Another opportunity to champion a supposed lesser-sequel from one of the big franchises of the decade. Conventional wisdom (that darned phrase again) would suggest the entirely-worthy Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter from the year prior as the obvious go-to at this juncture, so I’m gonna give a shout to the much-hated A New Beginning, which is mostly criticised (perhaps fairly) for, well, not featuring Jason Voorhees. Sitting between the first cycle of films and the latter ‘zombie Jason’ entries, A New Beginning details the murders of a copycat killer picking off a set of teens with histories of mental instability staying at a halfway house. It’s the cheesier end of a cheesy franchise, but with lots of lovable characters and memorable moments. Just get past the Corey Feldman prologue and let the fun commence!

10. The Slumber Party Massacre (1982, Amy Holden Jones)

The slasher boom was scarcely a few years old and here came a female director ready to both embrace and parody the tropes. Showing that women can hold their own in the genre just as well as their male contemporaries, Amy Holden Jones presents the ultimate slasher sleepover movie featuring a killer brandishing a comically phallic drill (a couple of years before Brian De Palma’s enjoyably excessive Body Double did something similar). Cosy and stylish, The Slumber Party Massacre got an equally lovable (and equally maligned) sequel from Deborah Brock five years later; a quasi-jukebox musical effort featuring a murderous rock star with an electric guitar that doubles as a bayonet!

9. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985, Jack Sholder)

A confession. I’m not much for Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street. I know, I know. Maybe it’s the Johnny Depp of it all. Maybe it’s the sense that the idea is still forming, still crystalising. Regardless, I’d cite Jack Sholder’s reviled follow-up as the far more interesting film, a stumbling attempt to confront and reconcile a self-hating queer teen’s evolving homosexuality. Here Freddy Kreuger becomes a possessing force that troubled teen Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) struggles to quantify and fight against. The film unfairly dead-ended a number of careers, though it’s been heartening to see Patton turn up in a number of indie roles of late, capitalising on the growing nostalgia for Freddy’s Revenge. The best Elm Street sequel, and the one that also toughened up and sharpened the tropes to come (for better and for worse).

8. Doom Asylum (1987, Richard Friedman)

Ah, Doom Asylum. A guilt-free pleasure if ever there was one. Directed by Richard Friedman of Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge ‘fame’, this threadbare slasher is approximately 80% original footage as a bunch of incredibly stereotypical late-’80s teens fall foul of a zombiefied menace at a derelict insane asylum that they’re visiting out of nostalgia/reverence for a deceased parent or two. Boasting laughably lame practical effects, a bitching OTT no-wave performance from Ruth Collins and a before-she-was-famous role from Sex & the City‘s Kristin Davis that she’d probably rather you forget, this is as much a classic slasher as any of the rightly revered franchise favourites. Leave any and all pretensions at the door and enjoy yourself.

7. The Prey (1983, Edwin Brown)

Much like my affection for The Final Terror I’m a sucker for a backwoods slasher. The Prey is not well-loved. Padding out it’s slimline 80 minute running time with multiple digressions to (admittedly very pretty) nature footage, Edwin Brown’s modest offering may test the patience of many, but I find myself returning to it again and again, breathing in it’s leisurely atmosphere and beautiful scenery… before ultimately getting absorbed in its monstrously downbeat finale. Twin Peaks‘ Carel Struycken plays The Monster making his way through the movie’s dwindling cast, but it’s final girl Nancy (Debbie Thureson) whose fate you’ll lament for hours (and days) after…

6. Sorority House Massacre (1986, Carol Frank)

Sorority House Massacre goes to show that Amy Holden Jones wasn’t a one-off on this list. A relatively late entry in the ’80s cycle and a modest one at that (74 slender minutes), Carol Frank’s film has a mostly bad rep, perceived as uninspired after the glut of movies that had been and gone by this point. But Sorority House Massacre works so well because it’s a lean culmination of the tropes. A humble distillation of the things you need to make one of these things work (and work well). If you’re short of time and need that slasher fix, you can do much, much worse. As it’s high position on this list attests, I’m an unequivocal fan.

5. Madman (1981, Joe Giannone)

We’re firmly back in summer camp mode here for another genre staple that sticks to the basics and scores big time because of it. It’s the classic idea of a campfire story turned terrifying reality as a bunch of smug camp counselors call upon the cursed myth of ‘Madman Mars’ and are systematically slaughtered for their hubris. Madman, like The Burning, culls from the Cropsey mythos, but it’s the evocative cinematography from James Lemmo that helps this one standout. Plus, you get to watch someone bafflingly try to hide from an axe-wielding maniac by climbing inside a fridge, which doesn’t happen very often even in this crazy subset of movies.

4. The Slayer (1982, J.S. Cardone)

Is The Slayer a slasher movie? It’s cast of *counts fingers* four do get murdered one-by-one until only final girl Kay (Sarah Kendall) remains. And it has the perfect remote island setting and not one, but two thunder and lightning storms. The titular menace may be a sticking point for some, but Cardone’s movie is also surprisingly slippery in it’s mobius-strip finale, asking us to question what we’ve been watching all along. This time it’s the composer who takes MVP. Robert Folk’s yearning, stirring music imbues The Slayer with a tragic sense of uncertainty. One of the most artful movies that the subgenre has to offer, and certainly one of the most atmospheric. A slowburn that accumulates until it’s almost unbearably tense. One of the best.

3. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984, Charles E. Sellier, Jr.)

Slashers that focus on the killer are often hard to pull off. Things tend to skew morbid and tawdry as filmmakers zero-in on the pitiable psychological mires of their creations. Silent Night, Deadly Night is a bit that, but it’s also a delirious ride of stitched-together set pieces as we follow poor crazy Billy Chapman (Robert Brian Wilson) from one stressful yuletide situation to the next, dressed in the Santa suit that’s driven him to homicidal mania. “Punish!” he cries ruefully, following an impulse even he seems tortured by. There are plenty of seasonal slasher movies, but this one endures, not least for Linnea Quigley’s eye-popping wall-mounted guest appearance. Improbably, Mike P. Nelson’s underseen remake/reimagining from last year is *just as good*.

2. Halloween II (1981, Rick Rosenthal)

I love Halloween II almost as much as I love Halloween. Busy with The Fog and Escape from New York, John Carpenter handed off directing duties to Rick Rosenthal who, in the wake of the original’s success, doesn’t move far from the template (there are tales of Carpenter’s on-hand steerage). It’s cinematographer Dean Cundey who really helps stitch these two movies together, ensuring a remarkable level of visual and aesthetic consistency as The Night He Came Home continues. Jamie Lee Curtis has less to do, sporting a distracting wig as she’s wheeled to the hospital. But Michael Myers’ reign of terror remains just as moody, while Donald Pleasence ups the amount of cuckoo in Dr. Loomis’ clock. A classic.

1. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981, Steve Miner)

The quintessential ’80s slasher movie, and a summer camp one, to boot. Five years after the massacre at Crystal Lake, another poor collective of counselors in training find themselves targeted as they gather to ready for the summer onslaught. Jason Voorhees stalks for the first time, still a vague shape with his head masked with a burlap sack (the iconic hockey mask wouldn’t arrive until Part 3). By the series’ standards this one’s quite the slow-burn, building up to a sudden rush of bloodshed in the last half hour. But, in doing so, it creates a handful of characters worth genuinely caring for, like sweet would-be couple Mark (Tom McBride) and Vickie (Lauren-Marie Taylor), and all-time final girl Ginny (Amy Steel), who uses her psychology major smarts to try and confuse Jason in the memorable final confrontation. In a sense Friday the 13th Part 2 is a barebones genre example. The no-frills choice. But in that stripped down efficiency you have everything that makes it tick, and it runs like clockwork.