Your Opinions on the Slasher Genre

[vampyr789]

Idk if this has been a past thread, but i was wondering what your thoughts on the slasher genre is. Personal Favorite? Most Hated?

what are your thoughts on it?

[old-boo-radley]

You know, I used to love the damn genre, as filthy as it is. Then somewhere along the line I just sort of lost my way. I still can enjoy them. I like Rituals Terror Train and Funeral Home and to a lesser extent, Humongous. But too many poor ones left a bad taste in my mouth. And, I love ones like Slumber Party Massacre and Cheerleader Camp.

I think I'm turning it around though and starting to get back into them. I just am going to be much more selective this time around so this doesn't happen again. No more buying a movie because it's a rare slasher with a cool cover.

Plus, it's hard to hate a genre where the fat dudes rule the world.

[gore]

When I first got into really collecting movies I kind of sought after gore shock stuff, the crave didnt last long. It mostly meant a lot of italian shockers. To be honest those started to get pretty old and BORING! I still have a soft spot for cannibal flicks though. In short, yes this is my personal favorite genre, Especially 80's, pre 87 and the 70's were solid as well. There are some bad ones, but even they can keep me more interested than some italian murder mystery with a splash of gore.

[NaturesMistake]

It's fun mostly mindless entertainment. Black Christmas is a masterpiece of cinema though.

[Matt89]

You know, I used to love the damn genre, as filthy as it is. Then somewhere along the line I just sort of lost my way. I still can enjoy them. I like Rituals Terror Train and Funeral Home and to a lesser extent, Humongous. But too many poor ones left a bad taste in my mouth. And, I love ones like Slumber Party Massacre and Cheerleader Camp.

I think I'm at that stage right now. Most of the movies I watch now are from the '30s-late '60s. I tend to go through phases. (My horror/slasher phase lasted a whopping 8 years.) I LOVED the genre at one point, it was all I watched, then somewhere along the line my love slowly faded. There's still a few I LOVE, (most of them are the first slashers I ever saw) Halloween, Black Christmas, Prom Night, Hell Night, but most of the "rarities" that I tracked down, I've lost my love for those too. (I can honestly see why they were OOP for so long.)

I've wasted so much money on blind buys. I look at them now and go, "Shit I don't know if I'll even watch that again." Put it this way: Horror/slashers used to make up a little over half my movie collection, now they barely make up a third. The "classical Hollywood"-era films make up about half of it and the other quarter are movies from about the '80s-present. I've definitely grown away from the genre as of lately (the past year or so) but the love is still there, which is partly reason why I still do come here. There's some that I'll always love, but right now I think my "slasher" days are over.

~Matt

[vampyr789]

I tend to go through phases. (My horror/slasher phase lasted a whopping 8 years.) I. There's still a few I LOVE, (most of them are the first slashers I ever saw) Halloween, Black Christmas, Prom Night, Hell Night, but most of the "rarities" that I tracked down, I've lost my love for those too. (I can honestly see why they were OOP for so long.)

I've wasted so much money on blind buys. I look at them now and go, "Shit I don't know if I'll even watch that again."

~Matt

wow, the exact same thing happened to me, i go through phases as well, it tends to be more of the sub-genres of horror. I started with the old 50s-60s suspense, asian horror, video nasties, euro horror, then i came to the slashers. i still am obessed with them, but i own a copy of Graduation day, but i never watch it..

[rhett]

I still can enjoy them. I like Rituals Terror Train and Funeral Home and to a lesser extent, Humongous.
Damn, now that's spoken like a true Canadian! The fact that the slasher was the one genre that Canadians pwned at was one of the initial reasons I got into the genre, growing up on late night airings of all the PROM NIGHT flicks. It wasn't until I started reading Laura Mulvey and Robin Wood in college that I started to take the genre really seriously, and I haven't looked back since. At its best it's the genre of the sub-conscious, and at its worst it's still bloody fun.

There's too many reasons to list here why I cherish the genre, that's for another thread and another time, but suffice to say that I don't think I can ever rest until I've seen every slasher ever made. Or, realistically, at least the ones made before 1992 or so, after shot on video gave the genre a second life, and before SCREAM made it a parody.

[Matt89]

Prom Night
Terror Train
Funeral Home
Humongous
Happy Birthday to Me
Black Christmas
Curtains
My Bloody Valentine
American Nightmare
Visiting Hours
Phobia
Deranged
Corpse Eaters
Spliced

Fuck yeah Canada! :D We fuckin' kicked ass.

~Matt

[Matt89]

....fuck I never knew Curtains was filmed in Muskoka, either! And Prom Night was filmed in Scarborough...wow LOL.

~Matt

[old-boo-radley]

If you guys ever get a chance to see the only Saskatchewan-lensed slasher, Spliced... don't. I will leave it at that. When Drew Lachey is the highlight of the movie, things are all sorts of wrong.

And Matt, don't forget Deranged! I think Playgirl Killer is a type of slasher, but don't quote me on it. I bought it when I was gathering up all my Canadian horror flicks but never got to it because I was kind of pissed off I ended up paying $8 for a DVD in a paper sleeve...

And since we have Ontario peoples in the house, check out Corpse Eaters. Best thing to come out of Sudbury!

I kind of get a kick out of the fact that no matter where you go, when slashers are spoken of by people who really know them, it all comes back to Canada. Gives me a good chuckle.

[Matt89]

;) Duly noted. Added to the list.

~Matt

[old-boo-radley]

Corpse Eaters is actually a zombie flick, sorry I wasn't clear on that. But, it sure feels like a slasher. Normally when a POV shot on a couple of lovebirds pops up, it's that bastard with a hook in the woods just waiting to make its move. Not in Corpse Eaters. Nope. Just an owl. I'm dead fucking serious.

There's also a shot where a guy pops a can of Molson Ex all over a lady's tit. Only one way to describe those Sudbury boys; classy.

[Mark Relford]

I love this genre. I grew up with some of those movies and it was an excellent intro to horror. The slasher movie took a nose-dive in the late 80's, but has recovered. Do some horror fans still consider this genre as a red headed stepchild of horror? There seems to be plenty of love for slashers these days.

[onebyone]

If loving slashers is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I can honestly say that never, not once, in my movie watching career have I been in an "anti-slasher" phase. I do not expect that to ever change.

[fattyjoe37]

Halloween got me into horror movies and therefore slasher movies. They aren't my favorite (I'm more of a monster movie guy), but I'll always love them.

[Erick H.]

I was growing up when the cycle was at it's high point and must confess,at the time I found a lot of them to be pretty thin,simply because the market was choked with them.These things always run in cycles,they start out straight,get into stranger,more extreme areas ,then get spoofy,then peter out.By the end of the 80's the slasher was fizzling,the ELM STREET's were still going but the genre as a whole was slipping and the studio censors were really neutering these pictures.In short they were becoming teen comedies with a bit o' gore.
The 90's slasher revival,the "ironic" slashers started off solidly but fizzled even faster than the original cycle did.Having characters be wise to the conventions of the slasher genre seemed clever at first but eventually you ended up with a bunch of films directed by guys who wanted to mock the conventions of slasher films without having any real fondness for the genre,this "I'm too cool for the room attitude" condecended to the fans and hastened the revivals demise.It also didn't help that all many producers could think to do was revive old 80's horror series and then add nothing to them but CGI and jokes.Not many made an effort to really expand slashers,they just milked existing properties.

Nowadays I look back on the best of the late seventies to late 80's slashers with a lot more affection.At their best they were tightly directed,stylishly lensed pictures that were a great training ground for a lot of up and coming talent.There's a reason films like the original HALLOWEEN,FRIDAY THE 13TH and BLACK CHRISTMAS have lasted.Even a lot of the second string entries are fun,cinematic junk food that are easy to enjoy with buttery popcorn and a big soda.Yeah there was plenty of crap, but age and nostalgia makes even some of the lame entries kind of fun.I'd probably still rather see a stupid old slasher than a stupid new drama.Guess I have a fondness for cheese.

[old-boo-radley]

I love this genre. I grew up with some of those movies and it was an excellent intro to horror. The slasher movie took a nose-dive in the late 80's, but has recovered. Do some horror fans still consider this genre as a red headed stepchild of horror? There seems to be plenty of love for slashers these days.

I think it is the red headed stepchild quality wise, but the fans are incredibly devout. Sort of like Eurohorror.

[Kim Bruun]

It's my favourite subgenre. I love slashers for their chase scenes, suspense, and jolts. To me, slashers represent a distillation of scare tactics combined with something familiar and cosy - most slashers establish a comfortable environment before introducing a scary killer. I love most of the ones I've seen, with a few exceptions (Terror Train, Slumber Party Massacre, The Forest, Silent Madness, and most attempts from the 90's and beyond).

My favourite is probably Halloween II, which was my first - it still scares me to this day, and I'm a grown man.

[HAEMORRHAGE]

My favorite genre but I'm not sure which ones that I hate come to think of it. I never cared for the dude with the guitar/drill in Slumber Party Massacre III, that's just silly.

[spawningblue]

My favorite genre, with zombie flicks and Euro horror jsut slightly behind. Nothing more fun then ordering a pizza, grabbing some beers, and sitting down with your friends to watch a slasher flick or two. And I ma a big fan of the late 70's/ early 80's ones. They were a lot more fun then, and more creative with their kills. Slashers these days just try to be realistic and disturbing, which is just boring in my eyes. I'd rather see Jason cut someone in half, or put their face through a tree any day of the week, over someone getting tortured in a chair for an hour.

[Body Boy]

Slashers, to me, are silly fun, at times follow the same layout, but is still different among each film. I hate when people say that they are the same film remade over and over again, when the same can be said for any horror genre, in the sense. Slashers get a bad rap, and are often referred to as the mindless subgenre. It's funny, because zombie movies are often praised, when I usually find those films far more braindead.

Wow! Really, that was no pun intended. Coincidence. I swear. :D