I’ve watched a lot of slasher movies over the years. Some genuinely scared the hell out of me. Others were so ridiculous that I couldn’t stop laughing. And a few somehow managed to make me emotional while people were being stabbed, strangled, or otherwise disposed of.
That’s the thing about slashers. They don’t all have to involve a masked lunatic chasing teenagers through the woods. Sometimes the killer is hiding in an attic. Sometimes he’s carrying a camera. And sometimes he’s a foul-mouthed turkey puppet that looks like somebody made it in their basement.
I’m not going to give you the usual Halloween, Scream, and A Nightmare on Elm Street recommendations. Everybody knows those movies. Instead, I’ve picked 13 slashers ranging from early genre pioneers to modern horror-comedies, with a few oddities thrown in because I can’t help myself.
I’ve watched every one of them. Some are among my favorite horror movies of all time. Others are here because they’re so absurd that I couldn’t possibly leave them out.
And yes, there’s a bonus movie, because apparently I can’t count to 13 when Donald Pleasence is involved.
The Funhouse (1981)
One of my favorite horror movies of all time, and it probably explains why I’ve always had a soft spot for creepy carnivals.
Tobe Hooper, who gave us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, takes a group of teenagers into a carnival funhouse, where they decide spending the night sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea. Of course, they discover something they were never supposed to see, and suddenly those fake monsters aren’t the biggest problem.
What I love about The Funhouse is the atmosphere. The carnival is already a strange place after dark, with its mechanical creatures, flashing lights, distorted faces, and attractions that look a lot less inviting once the crowds disappear. Hooper turns all of that into something genuinely sinister.
And here’s the funny thing: I used to love carnival funhouses even after seeing this movie. I’d happily wander through them, surrounded by creepy props and dark corners.
Although, come to think of it, who the hell knows what was lurking in those shadows?
Black Christmas (1974)
I will argue until I’m blue in the face that Bob Clark’s original Black Christmas is one of the most underrated horror films ever made.
Long before Michael Myers started terrorizing Haddonfield, a killer was already stalking a sorority house, making obscene phone calls, and hiding in the attic while everyone downstairs went about their lives.
And that’s what makes this movie so frightening. We know he’s there. They don’t.
Olivia Hussey plays Jess, a young woman who isn’t your typical helpless horror heroine. She’s dealing with her own complicated relationship and making decisions about her future while somebody is murdering her housemates.
I love Hussey in this film. There’s an innocence and vulnerability to her performance, but Jess isn’t stupid, either.
One of the images that has stayed with me for years is the murdered girl sitting in a rocking chair with a plastic bag over her head. It’s quiet, disturbing, and much scarier than a lot of elaborate modern kills.
In fact, there’s a scene in Buzzkill involving a plastic bag and an attic that made me think immediately of Black Christmas. I can’t say it was intentional, but the resemblance caught my attention.
And that ending? No neat explanation. No comforting resolution. Just dread.
Forget the remakes. Watch the 1974 original. Oh, and did I mention Margot Kidder is in this one, too? As if you needed another reason.
Peeping Tom (1960)
Everybody talks about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which came out the same year. And I love Psycho. I’m a Hitchcock fan, although The Birds is actually my favorite of his movies.
But if we’re comparing the two, I think Peeping Tom is the better film. There. I said it.
Michael Powell’s psychological horror film follows Mark Lewis, a cameraman who films women as he murders them. He’s obsessed with fear, and the camera becomes part of the killing itself.
What makes the movie so unsettling isn’t the amount of blood. There isn’t much. It’s the way Powell presents the killer, pulling us into his perspective and making us understand his obsession without excusing what he’s doing.
And it’s all presented in glorious color, which makes it visually striking in a way that still feels unusual for a horror film from 1960.
Psycho became a legend. Peeping Tom was so controversial that it badly damaged Powell’s career before eventually earning recognition as a major work of psychological horror.
If you want to see how disturbing a slasher can be without throwing buckets of blood at the screen, start here.
Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
What is it with horror movies and creepy masks? Seriously. Give somebody an expressionless mask and suddenly even the most ordinary hallway becomes a place I don’t want to visit.
Alice, Sweet Alice takes that idea and runs with it. Set in a Catholic community, the film centers on a young girl’s murder and the suspicion surrounding her older sister, Alice.
There’s something deeply uncomfortable about this movie. The religious imagery, the family tensions, the raincoats, the masks — everything feels slightly wrong, even when nobody is being killed.
And poor Alice. She’s hardly an angel, but the adults around her aren’t exactly making things easier.
Frankly, I’m inclined to blame the mother for a good portion of the family dysfunction.
The movie also features a young Brooke Shields in one of her earliest film appearances, although don’t expect her to be the center of the story.
This is a strange, grimy little horror movie that gets under your skin and stays there.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Here’s a slasher that almost feels like a documentary when it begins.
Charles B. Pierce based The Town That Dreaded Sundown on the real-life Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946, when an unidentified attacker terrorized people around the Texas-Arkansas border.
The film mixes dramatized violence with a documentary-style presentation, complete with narration that gives the whole thing an eerie sense of authenticity.
And then there’s the Phantom Killer.
There’s something genuinely frightening about watching a masked man emerge from the darkness while a young couple is parked somewhere secluded, hoping to enjoy a little privacy.
It’s such a familiar horror setup that you almost forget how terrifying it would be if it actually happened.
One minute, people are going about their lives. The next, the entire community is afraid of what might be waiting outside.
There was a later film in 2014 that revisited the story, but I’m sticking with the 1976 version. Its rough edges and strange mixture of crime reconstruction and slasher horror are part of what makes it memorable.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Everybody talks about the ending of Sleepaway Camp, and for good reason. But can we discuss Angela’s Aunt Martha for a minute? Because that woman is creepy as hell.
Desiree Gould plays Martha, the eccentric aunt who sends Angela and Ricky off to summer camp, and she manages to be deeply unsettling before anybody even arrives at the camp.
She reminds me of those bizarre supporting characters who appear briefly in horror movies and somehow haunt you more than the actual monsters. Think the chauffeur in Burnt Offerings, Reverend Kane in Poltergeist II, or the Tupperware-obsessed mother in the first episode of Eerie, Indiana.
There’s something not quite right about Martha, and Gould makes sure you never forget her.
As for the camp itself, Sleepaway Camp initially looks like another early-’80s Friday the 13th imitation. You’ve got obnoxious campers, unpleasant counselors, bullies, and a growing body count.
But it’s meaner and stranger than you might expect. The characters are often downright nasty, the kills are creative, and the movie has a bizarre personality all its own.
And yes, there’s that ending. If you’ve never seen it, don’t let anybody spoil it for you.
American Gothic (1988)
No, this isn’t the American Gothic television series starring Gary Cole as Sheriff Lucas Buck. Although now that I’ve mentioned it, I really should revisit that show.
This American Gothic is a 1988 horror movie starring Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo, and it offers another valuable lesson that horror characters apparently refuse to learn:
Stop going into strange houses occupied by even stranger people.
A group of travelers winds up stranded on an isolated island, where they encounter a deeply peculiar family whose ideas about hospitality and morality are considerably different from everybody else’s.
The family seems almost comically old-fashioned at first, but the longer you spend with them, the more disturbing they become.
And Yvonne De Carlo as Ma? She’s a long way from Lily Munster.
What makes American Gothic entertaining is that its family is so bizarre. You’re never entirely sure whether to laugh at them or run screaming in the opposite direction. Personally, I’d recommend running.
April Fool’s Day (1986)
A group of college friends heads to a secluded island mansion for a weekend of drinking, pranks, and generally behaving like people who have never watched a horror movie.
Naturally, things start going wrong. Or do they?
April Fool’s Day is one of those slashers that has more fun messing with your expectations than simply lining up victims for the killer.
It has the familiar ingredients: an isolated setting, suspicious behavior, disappearing guests, and a growing sense that nobody knows what’s really happening. But the movie has a mischievous streak, and its twist is a big part of the appeal.
Some people love that ending. Others probably want to throw something at the television. I think it’s fun, and that’s enough for me. Just go into it knowing as little as possible.
The Final Girls (2015)
Here’s a movie I absolutely love, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t come up more often when people talk about horror-comedies.
The Final Girls follows Max, played by Taissa Farmiga, who finds herself trapped inside an old slasher movie with her friends. And that movie happens to star her late mother.
Malin Akerman plays Max’s mother, Amanda, who portrayed a character named Nancy in the fictional 1980s slasher Camp Bloodbath. So when Max enters the movie, she gets an impossible opportunity to spend time with a version of her mother again.
That’s what makes this film so much better than a simple slasher parody.
Yes, it has fun with the genre’s ridiculous rules, including the doomed teenagers, the final-girl conventions, and all the terrible decisions people make in these movies.
But underneath the jokes and the killing, there’s a genuinely touching story about grief, love, and a daughter who misses her mother. And Taissa Farmiga is terrific.
The movie manages to be funny, inventive, and surprisingly emotional without losing its horror credentials. I wish more people talked about this one.
She Came from the Woods (2022)
Here’s another movie that understands a basic rule of horror: if you’re sitting around a campfire telling scary stories about some terrible local legend, maybe don’t try to bring that legend to life. Apparently, the counselors in She Came from the Woods missed that particular lesson.
Set at a summer camp in 1987, the film follows a group of counselors who unleash an old evil after performing a ritual.
It’s cheesy as all hell, and I mean that affectionately.
There are moments when the characters are so stupid that you almost feel like they deserve whatever comes out of the woods. But the movie also has some genuinely frightening sequences, and its throwback summer-camp atmosphere fits right alongside the older slashers on this list.
It was released as a feature in 2022, with wider distribution in 2023, and you can find it on Tubi.
It’s exactly the sort of movie I love stumbling across while wandering through streaming services looking for something to watch.
Lowlifes (2024)
One of the things I appreciate about Lowlifes is how quickly it makes you realize you’ve been looking at the story the wrong way.
This Tubi Original starts with a family on a road trip, and the setup encourages you to make certain assumptions about who is in danger and who might be dangerous. And then the movie pulls the rug out from under you. I love that.
It’s difficult to say too much about Lowlifes without ruining what makes it entertaining, because the way the story changes direction is a huge part of the experience.
I will say that I hated the ending. Not necessarily because it was badly done, but because it wasn’t what I expected. Or maybe it just wasn’t what I wanted. Sometimes those are two different things.
Still, I had a great time with the way the movie plays with audience expectations. It’s nasty, unpredictable, and proof that a low-budget streaming original can still have a few tricks up its sleeve.
Heart Eyes (2025)
Who knew a movie about a serial killer targeting couples on Valentine’s Day could be so sweet? I’m serious.
Heart Eyes is one of my favorite recent slashers, and a big reason is the chemistry between Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding. They play Ally and Jay, two people who get caught up in the killing spree of a murderer who targets romantic couples.
The movie has the bloody kills and masked-killer nonsense you’d expect, but it’s also a romantic comedy, and a surprisingly charming one at that. You actually want these two people to end up together, preferably with all their limbs still attached.
That’s what separates it from a lot of slashers where the characters are simply waiting around to become the next victim.
I liked Ally and Jay. I liked their banter. I liked watching their relationship develop while somebody was trying to murder them.
It’s romantic, ridiculous, bloody, and a lot more entertaining than it has any right to be.
ThanksKilling (2008)
And now we’ve reached the bottom of the barrel. I mean that in the best possible way because I love this movie.
ThanksKilling features a murderous turkey. Not a guy dressed as a turkey. An actual foul-mouthed killer turkey who goes around murdering people and making obscene jokes.
Is it a traditional slasher? Absolutely not. Do I care? Not even a little.
This thing is proudly crude, ridiculously cheap, and completely aware of the garbage fire it’s lighting.
The turkey puppet looks like somebody assembled it in a basement with leftover craft supplies. The acting is questionable. The dialogue is outrageous. And it’s funny as hell.
This turkey has a mouth on him that would make some of the most obnoxious human slasher villains blush.
I can’t imagine recommending it to somebody looking for sophisticated horror, but that’s not why you watch ThanksKilling. You watch it because sometimes you want to see a homicidal turkey terrorize a bunch of idiots while delivering terrible one-liners.
And really, isn’t that what the holidays are all about?
Bonus: Alone in the Dark (1982)
I said 13 movies, but I’m making an exception for Alone in the Dark because I refuse to leave Donald Pleasence out of a slasher discussion if I can help it.
And this one also has Jack Palance and Martin Landau. What a cast.
Four dangerous psychiatric patients escape during a blackout and decide to go after their new psychiatrist, played by Dwight Schultz.
Palance and Landau are particularly entertaining, giving performances that make you wonder whether somebody told them they were competing for the title of Most Deranged Man in the Movie.
Meanwhile, Pleasence plays the hospital’s eccentric psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Bain, with a strange mixture of warmth, idealism, and complete obliviousness to how dangerous his patients might be.
It’s a weird, unpredictable movie that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
And did I mention Donald Pleasence?
Because Donald Pleasence.
There’s More to Slasher Horror Than a Hockey Mask
One of the reasons I’ve always liked slashers is that the genre can be just about anything.
A genuinely disturbing psychological study like Peeping Tom. A grim holiday nightmare like Black Christmas. A summer-camp bloodbath. A surprisingly touching horror-comedy. Or a homicidal turkey with absolutely no manners.
Some of these movies scared me. Some made me laugh. A few managed to do both, and others left me wondering what the hell I’d just watched. But that’s half the fun of horror.
Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers can keep their franchises. There’s an entire world of strange, nasty, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking horror movies out there, and half the fun is discovering one you never knew existed.
Just remember a few basic survival rules: stay out of strange houses, don’t spend the night in carnival attractions, avoid secluded parking spots, and for the love of everything, stop summoning things in the woods.
And if a turkey starts talking to you?
Run.
