A few more days till Halloween, so let’s have one more week of spooky fun. To end the 2024 season of scary, how about a list of some of my favorite slasher flicks? I’m honestly not a huge of fan of a lot of the newer slasher/horror movies, so most of this list is going to include older franchises. The classics focused more on the scare factor and characters, and less on the gore. Obviously most of films in this list are older, so I shouldn’t really need to put in a spoiler warning at this point, but here it is anyway. If you don’t want to be spoiled, you can go here to check out some of my other lists. Otherwise, let’s get to the list.
5. Happy Death Day (2017-2019?) – Up first is the most current franchise on my list. I’m not sure why I like these so much, but they are just a lot of fun. The “Groundhog Day-esk” storyline with a classic horror movie feel is a great start. But, a mostly likable cast including Jessica Rothe as Tree and Israel Broussard as Carter the two main protagonists. Christopher Landon even directed both of the movies. Seeing Tree have to keep reliving the same day over and over again while getting killed in various ways sounds like a recipe for a bad film, but they play if off well and do a nice job of picking up exactly where they left off with part 2 starts. Now let’s just hope that the rumors of part three are true.
4. Scream (1996-2023) – If you read my article from last October (October 16, 2023 to be exact), you will already know that I’m a fan of this franchise. If not, you can read that here. I feel like the slasher movie craze was starting to wind down when Director Wes Craven came along and gave it a jolt. Not only was “Scream” a success, but it has spawned several mostly successful sequels. In fact, they are making another one for release in a year or two. Not only were the stories intriguing, but the characters were great, and it was always a fun side game to try and figure out who the killer was as you were watching. Even though most times it was two different people just so it kept you guessing. The three characters that define the franchise Neve Campbell’s Sidney, Courteney Cox’s Gale, and David Arquette’s Dewey have made many appearances throughout and have withstood the horror movie cliché’s by surviving more than two movies until poor Dewey finally met his demise. Craven was a master at this art and he may show up on this list again.
3. Friday the 13th (1980-2009) – Now, it’s time for the classics. Friday the 13th is an odd one because most people know Jason Vorhees as the main antagonist of the series, but it was actually his mother that wielded the weapons against the campers in the first one way back in 1980. Since then, Jason took over for his mom and has taken down so many teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake. A few of the sequels don’t hold up, like watching part 3 without the 3D effects is almost laughable. However, some of them are very good. The remake in 2009 was probably the best of the whole bunch. One of my personal favorites is Freddy Vs. Jason. Plus… a very young Kevin Bacon taking a knife right to the back of the throat! But overall, Jason has been stalking our movie screens and televisions for decades and hopefully we get to see him again.
2. Halloween (1978-2022) – I’m not going to lie, I went back and forth on the final two internally for quite some time before I decided what I already knew to be true. As much as I love Halloween (the 1978 original is one of my all-time favorite horror movies), but the series overall has some duds. Between retconning large portions of the earlier films, Halloween 3 being literally a completely different movie, and Rob Zombie’s remakes it’s had it’s share of bad times. However, it has one of the best soundtracks, Jamie Lee Curtis is absolutely amazing every time she plays Laurie Strode (even more so in the newest trilogy), and it’s hard to be any creepier than Michael Myers. I still remember watching this when I was younger and now, I still enjoy watching it every Halloween time.
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-2010) – Finally, the last spot goes to the Dream Master himself, Freddy Krueger. This series has always held a special place in my heart (and dreams). I remember sitting as a child on the couch watching this with my cousin and some friends and being scared. Sure, this one has some pretty crappy sequels that don’t hold up, but really all of the franchises on this list do (except “Happy Death Day” so far) and really that’s part of the charm when you go back and re-watch them. Someone falling asleep, turning into a cockroach, then being crushed by Freddy while stuck in a roach motel… classic! But, the one thing that rises this to the top was this was the one slasher franchise to stick with it’s original baddie. Robert Englund playing Krueger made the franchise what was and still is. No one… I do mean no one will ever be able to top playing Freddy the way he did for years and it’s all thanks to Wes Craven (I told you he’d be on the list again) for bringing the magic along with the fedora to our silver screens and into our dreams. Plus, a young Johnny Depp being sucked into a waterbed…Nine, Ten, never sleep again indeed!
So, there you have it for my list of my favorite slasher movies. What did you think? Have you seen all of these? Would you add or remove any from the list? If so, what slasher movies do you think should be in this sort of list?
Also, if you haven’t done so, check out my other lists here or some of my other reviews as well here. I will be back next week with some more mindless movie fun!
You’ve got the classics! Can’t top that.