Editorials
A Comprehensive Guide to the Golden Age of Slashers, Part 1: 1978-1980
One of the foundational sub-genres of horror is the Slasher, a type of horror film that sees a killer stalk and slay a group of characters. Usually, the killer is masked, and the preferred weapon of choice tends to be of the bladed variety. Slashers have been around for decades, with films like Peeping Tom and Psycho credited as prototypes for the sub-genre and Halloween touted as the seminal slasher that set the mold for the modern slasher. It was the latter’s massive success that heralded in the Golden Age of Slashers.
This period, from Halloween’s release through 1984, marked an endless wave of slashers. It dominated horror’s output. But what exactly does that look like?
To give an idea just how immense this slasher boon was from 78-84, we’ve put together a comprehensive look at the slashers released during this period. Starting with the film that inspired it all, of course. Slashers lend well to the murder mystery, noir, and crime thrillers so there is some overlap. What’s not included are Giallo entries, as that’s a whole other category that warrants its own discussion. While there are likely a few titles that slipped through the cracks, this lengthy guide should get you well on your way to checking off all the Golden Age titles, and give context to the enormous scope of the craze. In Part 1, we cover 1978-1980…
1978
1978 offered numerous noteworthy slashers. Titles like The Toolbox Murders, Eyes of Laura Mars, Patrick, and more. Being that the Golden Age unquestionably started with Halloween, however, that’s where we begin.
Halloween
John Carpenter’s seminal slasher launched an ongoing franchise and kickstarted the true Golden Age of Slashers. Fifteen years after Michael Myers murdered his sister on Halloween, he escapes the mental hospital and stalks his new target, babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).
1979
The wave of slashers was only just beginning at this point, and the sub-genre was still exploring its identity. Mostly, Halloween’s success was still too fresh at this point.
Beyond the Darkness
Not the traditional slasher that this movement would come to embrace, but a gory flick only Joe D’Amato could make. An embalmer can’t cope with the loss of his girlfriend, so he exhumes her and keeps her body with him in his home. His sanity snaps, and the death toll mounts.
Bloodrage
A sexually frustrated man targets and slays prostitutes. A sleazy grindhouse-level slasher directed by Joseph Zito, the man behind slasher favorites The Prowler and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
Delirium
One of the more obscure video nasties. The plot sees a group of wealthy businessmen hire Vietnam vets to clean up the riff raff on the streets. Instead, one of the ex-soldiers goes on a murderous rampage targeting women.
The Demon
A schoolteacher finds herself stalked by a killer that prefers to suffocate women with plastic. Extremely low budget, and possibly the first slasher to directly copy Halloween, right down to the jumpsuit and white-masked killer.
Don’t Go in the House
A deranged man who was horrifically disfigured as a child by his own mother uses his beloved flamethrower when stalking and murdering women. Arguably one of the most creative weapons of choice for a slasher villain.
Don’t Go Near the Park
Murderous prehistoric cave siblings are cursed for eons to feast off the flesh of youth, and their hunting grounds eventually become a park in a Los Angeles neighborhood.
The Driller Killer
Abel Ferrara directs and stars as an artist crumbling under the pressures of work, caring for roommates, and paying bills. At night, the struggling artist takes to the streets of New York and murders the homeless with a power drill.
Effects
Crew members working on a horror movie begin to suspect that the movie’s kills are real, and that they’re actually working on a snuff film. Tom Savini appears in the movie alongside Joseph Pilato, and Savini handles the special makeup effects as well.
The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher
The film’s title says it all; a Hollywood model strangler crosses paths with a wino slayer from Skid Row. Lowbrow sleaze and chaos ensues.
The Meateater
A family purchases an abandoned theater with the hopes of turning it into a lucrative business. Little did they know, it’d been home to a movie-obsessed psychopath. The madman embarks on a murder spree over the disturbance.
Savage Weekend
A group of friends head out for a weekend getaway, where they’re stalked by a masked killer. While it sounds straightforward slasher, think proto-slasher with a touch of Deliverance.
Silent Scream
A college co-ed desperate to find a place to stay prior to the start of the semester locates a seaside boarding house run by a reclusive mother and her son. Shortly after her arrival, one of the residents winds up dead, causing the student to become entangled in a twisted murder mystery.
Tourist Trap
A group of friends find themselves stalked and murdered by a killer with telekinetic powers when they’re stranded at a remote roadside attraction. Mannequins, mayhem, and a delightful early slasher by David Schmoeller.
When a Stranger Calls
Opening with a chilling portrayal of a famous urban legend, this slasher sees a babysitter (Carol Kane) terrorized by a psychopath, who returns seven years later to torment her once more.
1980
Studios and filmmakers hoping to ride the wave of Halloween’s success were starting to see their efforts released by 1980. Ronald Reagan’s presidential election boosted conservatism, and major concerns about violence in film came along with it. In turn, that put slashers at the forefront of political and media ire, making them even more coveted among horror audiences.
Along with many notable entries in the sub-genre, 1980 marks the birth of an enduring franchise in Friday the 13th.
Anthropophagus
Joe D’Amato once again brings his love of gore to an island-set slasher that sees a group of tourists stalked and preyed upon by a cannibalistic madman. Entrails and death ensue.
The Boogey Man
A supernatural slasher turned Video Nasty in which a young girl witnesses her brother commit murder through a reflection in a mirror. Many years later, that evil mirror comes back to haunt and kill the family and anyone associated with them.
Christmas Evil
Mentally traumatized as a child upon the discovery that Santa Claus isn’t real, a toy factory worker suffers a nervous breakdown and embarks on a murder spree. Dressed as Santa, of course.
Cries in the Night
Also known as Funeral Home, this one sees a woman heading to grandma’s house to help her convert it into a bed and breakfast. Her home, naturally, used to be a funeral home at one point. So it may not surprise you that when the guests start arriving, the body count starts rising.
Cruising
Al Pacino stars in William Friedkin’s crime/thriller/slasher about a police detective that goes undercover on the underground S&M scene in New York City to root out a serial killer that’s preying on gay men.
Demented
Rap-revenge thriller meets slasher, in which a poor woman is institutionalized after being sexually assaulted. The nightmares don’t stop when under the care of her unfaithful husband. Finally, a group of masked youths decide to break into her home, and the woman snaps completely.
Don’t Answer the Phone!
A deranged Vietnam vet stalks and brutalizes women in Los Angeles, then taunts a radio psychologist with detailed accounts of his crimes.
Dressed to Kill
Brian De Palma channels Hitchcock in this erotic thriller. A sexually dissatisfied wife is murdered shortly after a tryst, and her son teams up with a prostitute to find the killer.
The Exterminator
When a man’s best friend is murdered on the streets of New York City, he’s so violently enraged that he becomes a ruthless killer himself. The city becomes a war zone. Look for The Brood’s Samantha Eggar in this one.
Fade to Black
Dennis Christopher stars as Eric Binford, a lonely cinephile obsessed with a woman who has an uncanny resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. But bullying has pushed him too far, and he begins donning costumes and committing murder.
Friday the 13th
Sean S. Cunningham’s seminal classic, which sees a group of counselors working to reopen a summer camp years after it closed due to a tragic accident. The problem is that someone is willing to kill to ensure they don’t succeed. Phase one of making Camp Crystal Lake and Jason Voorhees household names, complete.
The Ghost Dance
An anthropologist and her crew excavate the remains of an evil shaman, and its spirit possesses a Native American medicine man. The spirit causes him to become a homicidal maniac, of course.
He Knows You’re Alone
A young bride-to-be seeks help from a former lover when she’s stalked by a serial killer on Staten Island. A serial killer that only seems to target brides, no less. This slasher marks the first film appearance by Tom Hanks.
The Long Island Cannibal Massacre
A group of cannibalistic lepers living in, you guessed it, Long Island are feeding off of unsuspecting victims, leaving the authorities stumped. The network of killers is led by a mutated monster.
Maniac
Joe Spinell stars as Frank Zito, a greasy, psychologically disturbed New Yorker who murders women and keeps their scalps as souvenirs. Because it’s from Zito’s perspective, William Lustig’s cult favorite plays more like a sleazy character study than your average slasher. It’s effective nonetheless.
Motel Hell
It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s Fritters. Really, it just takes people. In this comedic slasher, a farmer and his sister kidnap travelers and bury them alive as stock to create their famous special meat.
Mother’s Day
Two brothers are willing to go to any length to make their mama proud. In this case, that entails Mother getting her kicks off of watching her sons rape and murder. Their latest captives, three women, are held prisoner and used as pawns in the twisted game between Mother and sons.
New Year’s Evil
A Los Angeles radio DJ gets a call during her New Year’s Eve celebration from a creep laying out their dastardly plans. Each time the clock strikes midnight in a different time zone, someone dies. The DJ is intended to be the final victim.
Night of the Demon
There’s a slasher for everything. Case in point; Night of the Demon unleashes Bigfoot in slasher form. His victims? A professor and his students aiming to track Bigfoot. They’ll clearly rue that decision.
Nightmares
Also known as Stage Fright, this one sees a girl suffer a mental breakdown after she accidentally causes a car crash that results in her mother’s death. Sixteen years later, she’s changed her name and become an actress. But someone is killing the cast of her new play.
Patrick Still Lives!
An unofficial Italian sequel to Australia’s 1978 Patrick. Like the original, the plot sees a bedridden telekinetic use his powers to inflict death on those around him.
Phobia
A psychiatrist has developed a radical new form of therapy, but his methods are called into question when his patients start dying according to their specific phobias. Directed by John Huston (Chinatown, The African Queen), from a story by Poltergeist III’s Gary Sherman.
Prom Night
In-demand scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis starred in this slasher about a masked killer stalking teens at their high school senior prom. The targets happened to be involved with a deadly prank six years prior. Prom Night also stars Leslie Nielsen.
Scared to Death
An inspector and a former cop-turned-novelist team up to investigate a series of grisly murders. The duo descends into the sewers to find the culprit, which turns out to be a genetic experiment gone monstrously awry. Scared to Death takes a slasher setup and turns it into a creature feature.
Schizoid
A “Dear Abby”-style advice columnist begins receiving threatening letters from a mysterious stalker. The stalker happens to be targeting and slaying members of the therapy group the columnist is a part of, and she starts to suspect the therapist and her ex-husband might be behind the murders. This one stars Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lloyd.
Shadows of the Mind
Over a decade after witnessing the drowning of her mother at a young age, a wealthy woman is finally deemed mentally sound and released from the mental institution. When she returns to her childhood home, greedy friends and family converge on the house in hopes of obtaining some of that wealth. The body count rises.
Terror on Tour
Glam rock band The Clowns are on tour when they come under suspicion thanks to a series of murders by a band member lookalike.
Terror Train
Three years after a horrendous college prank gone wrong, the pranksters are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year’s Eve celebration aboard a train. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as the final girl in a slasher with a plot setup similar to Prom Night. Also look for magician David Copperfield to lighten the mood.
To All a Good Night
In this yuletide slasher, a group of teens at a party find themselves stalked by a maniac in a Santa Claus suit. The holiday slasher tradition, after all.
The Unseen
A freelance reporter and her two friends can’t seem to find reasonable lodging around town due to holiday parade the reporter is covering. When a museum owner offers up his farmhouse for the cheap, the ladies aren’t aware that the place harbors a homicidal being in the basement.
Windows
Andrea is so psychotically obsessed with her neighbor Emily that she hires a rapist in order to get audio tapes of Emily’s reaction. When Emily embarks on a love affair with a Detective, Andrea’s obsession gets even more dangerous.
Without Warning
A sci-fi horror mashup that sees an extra-terrestrial stalking and slaying human prey. Look for notable cast members Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and David Caruso.
In Part 2, we’ll be taking a look at slashers released between 1981-1984.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Evil Dead Burn.
Fans of The Evil Dead franchise have become accustomed to an excess of gore. From the low-fi horror of Sam Raimi’s 1981 original and the slapstick comedy of Army of Darkness to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake, which literally ends in a rain of blood, grotesque dismemberment and comedic violence are as important to an Evil Dead film as the outline of Bruce Campbell’s iconic jaw.
Sébastien Vaniček‘s franchise installment, Evil Dead Burn, follows suit with wall-to-wall violence and set pieces built around extreme carnage. As the Deadites rise once again, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) must fight to the death against her possessed in-laws hell-bent on punishing her for their family’s sins.
Co-written by Vaniček and Florent Bernard, Evil Dead Burn follows the ill-fated Price family, descendants of Dr. Benjamin Price who discovered an ancient dagger capable of sending Kandarian demons back to hell. Newly uncovered from its protective spell, this dagger has called to the evil dead and led them to the family’s ramshackle home. Keeping plot to a bare minimum, Vaniček fills nearly every scene with powerful Deadites and their dastardly acts as they torture the Prices to find the weapon. Horrific moments like a woman drinking hot wax from a lit candle and a shocking post-credits child murder don’t even crack the top ten of disgusting, painful, and disturbing carnage that floods the film.
In any other franchise, we would be listing the film’s most gruesome kills. But fans of Evil Dead know that when we’re talking about the Necronomicon, mere death is only the beginning.
10 ) Deadites Burn
Though Burn checks off all the Evil Dead boxes, its story is a franchise anomaly. Rather than possessing anyone who crosses their path, Vaniček’s Deadites have set their sights specifically on an unwitting clan, intent on recovering the powerful dagger. Resurrected from a nearby lake, Deadite Jessica (Greta van den Brink) informs us of this plan while murdering the eldest Price son. Will (George Pullar) is speeding down a deserted road when he slams into the malevolent demon standing in the middle of the road. After his car rolls off the deserted road, he awakens to find himself upside down, a strange woman lodged in his cracked windshield.
As he desperately tries to reach his phone, Jessica slowly twists her head, tearing the skin of her distended neck. Completely detached from her shattered body, the demon’s head rolls out the window and begins chanting a Kandarian curse. Will’s car bursts into flames as Jessica vows to seek out the rest of his family. While burning alive, Will learns that he is merely the first on a deadly hitlist filled with the people he loves most.
9) Dinner from Hell
Despite a remarkably streamlined plot, Vaniček hints at the Price family’s extensive dysfunction. An uncomfortable dinner erupts in aggression as they gather for lunch after Will’s funeral. Mother Susan (Tandi Wright) berates her recently widowed daughter-in-law while father Edgar (Erroll Shand) — already under Kandarian influence — blames younger son Joseph (Hunter Doohan) for his eldest son’s death. No one is safe as long-held tensions break through to the surface and family secrets ricochet through the air.
With Edgar behaving erratically, Alice and Thya (Luciane Buchanan), Joseph’s girlfriend, try to move sharp objects out of his reach. But Edgar manages to get a hold of a fork and turns his rage on the family dog. As he stabs Max repeatedly in the face, Joseph tries to pull his father away. Both are injured in the struggle and rush to the hospital, leaving Susan and Alice to deal with the corpse. A horrific moment of animal cruelty, this scene sets up a no-holds-barred film in which anyone can be brutalized. But perhaps most disturbing is the viciousness already lurking in this troubled family, barely concealed resentments that existed long before the Kandarian threat.
8 ) Bathroom Brawl
As Deadites possess the Price family, Alice barricades herself in an upstairs bathroom. She reluctantly shields her mother-in-law, despite Susan’s atrocious behavior. Almost immediately, Alice regrets this decision when the woman reveals the depths of her hatred. She rejects clear evidence of Will’s domestic abuse, continuing to blame Alice for their troubled marriage. Leaning her cheek against a scalding hot radiator, Susan submits to Kandarian possession and becomes a Deadite before our eyes. Though disturbing on its face, she seems to choose possession over an honest reckoning of her family’s dark secrets.
Now a Deadite, Susan attacks Alice with broken shards of the toilet bowl and wraps the shower curtain around her head. Scampering across the ceiling, she hangs her daughter-in-law by the neck with the plastic sheet as Alice desperately gasps for air. With only her hand free, Alice gouges Susan’s face with a safety razor, finally managing to break herself free. As Deadite Susan taunts her from the corner, Alice revs up a brush trimmer and plunges the circular blade into her shoulder and chest. We cheer for Alice as she finally pushes back against Susan’s passive-aggressive disdain.
7) The Pen is Mightier
In a sea of blood-splattered dismemberment, one scene is so tense that it makes us squirm despite its lack of visual gore. With the family’s ailing matriarch possessed, Deadite Polly (Maude Davey) attacks Alice in the upstairs hallway, pressing her face against the bush trimmer’s still blade. Insisting that Alice has caused Will’s death, Polly invites the grieving woman to avenge her child by turning on the power tool. An instant before her mother-in-law can send the blade tearing into her cheek, Alice manages to escape by jamming a shard of glass into Polly’s eye. But not before the elderly demon can deliver a cringe-worthy injury.
Though Alice struggles with all her might, Polly slowly drives a fountain pen into the younger woman’s ear canal. Ringing blots out all other sounds as Alice’s face twists in pain. We imagine a tiny object bursting through our own eardrums, puncturing the soft tissue lying beneath. Though Alice tries to extract the pen, she only succeeds in breaking it off, leaving half of the quill buried in her ear. She will eventually use tweezers to remove the tip, sparking another moment of deafening agony.
6) Chekhov’s Dishwasher
As Susan prepares for the aforementioned family meal, Vaniček drops a delicious bit of foreshadowing. While the grieving mother thaws frozen food, she absently fills an old dishwasher whose door has long since busted its latch. Reminiscent of a scene from Final Destination, the faulty appliance falls open, leaving a shelf full of gleaming forks and knives suspended a foot above the floor, just waiting for their moment to strike. After returning from a fatal incident we’ll discuss in a moment, Deadite Thya returns to the Price home, hell-bent on retrieving the powerful knife.
As she advances on Joseph, the frightened son retreats to the kitchen and brandishes a carving knife, subtly nodding to an ultra-violent kitchen scene in Álvarez’s Evil Dead. But Thya will not be deterred. Advancing on her boyfriend, the Deadite startles him into tripping on the outstretched door and impaling himself on the upturned utensils. She presses Joseph further onto the blades while he plunges a corkscrew into her throat. But even this will not stop the maniacal demon, who rips her throat open with the wine tool, dripping her blood over Joseph’s upturned face. Adding insult to injury, she marvels at his willingness to kill the woman he professed to love, casting a pall over their entire relationship. Not only gruesome and excruciatingly tense, but this moment plays into Joseph’s insecurities as the failed son of this disturbed family.
5 ) On the Lake
Evil Dead Burn begins on a seemingly peaceful lake overrun with lurking Kandarian demons. Jared (Keanu Karim) is trying to enjoy a quiet day of fishing but can’t stop his friend Leo (Victory Ndukwe) from answering the phone. Along the dock, Jared notices a bite on Leo’s reel and eventually pulls up a severed head savvy viewers may recognize from Lee Cronin’s 2023 sequel Evil Dead Rise. Moments later, Jared finds himself ensnared by reels, hooks digging into the corner of his mouth and eyelid. As the fishing line wraps around his neck, he’s dragged, screaming, into the lake.
Leo returns in the pouring rain and sees Jared desperately calling for help. He quickly boats out to save his friend, but a mysterious force pulls him down into the depths. Leo finally drags Jared back into the boat, only to see that his body has been cut in half, intestines spilling out of his bisected waist. As he struggles to make sense of this carnage, Deadite Jessica emerges from the lake and capsizes the boat, her clenched demon hands causing the water to boil. Though Leo manages to swim to shore, his skin is a blistered and bubbly mess. Deadite Jessica absently steps on his hand, easily peeling away flesh like overcooked meat. This jaw-dropping opener not only sets the stage for a brutal film, but situates the story in franchise lore while simply explaining the Deadites’ return.
4) Car Trouble
The shocking trailer to Evil Dead Burns shows the aftermath of a vicious attack. As Deadite Thya crosses the family threshold, the camera reveals a car’s headrest still impaling her face. But this devastating sight merely hints at the cruel circumstances of her actual death. Incapacitated in the disastrous family dinner, Edgar slumps in the backseat while Joseph tends to his wounds. Though seemingly incapacitated, the possessed father snaps to attention and wraps his seatbelt around Thya’s neck, pushing against the back of her seat. Joseph holds a gun to his father’s head, but can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
As Thya tries to escape the car, Edgar viciously slams the door, severing four of her fingers. She manages to trigger a fire extinguisher, filling the car with cloudy white chemicals and giving Joseph a chance to escape. But Thya is not so lucky. Trapped in the car, she screams as Edgar pummels her with a detached headrest, stabbing the poles through her neck and face. Joseph watches from a safe distance as his father beats his girlfriend to death, knowing he was unable to save her life.
3) Head Shots
When Deadite Thya comes stumbling back home, Joseph believes he’s seen the worst. Unfortunately, his misery is only beginning. After fighting off his newly-sadistic undead girlfriend, he tries to flee with his surviving family, only to find Deadite Edgar blocking his path. Flanked by Deadite Max, Edgar taunts his son by insisting that he should be dead in Will’s place and confirming the young man’s greatest fears. Edgar then does what Joseph could not and shoots himself in the head.
The family screams in horror at this devastating sight, then freezes in stunned silence as Edgar does not fall. Grinning, the maniacal father shoots himself twice more, blowing gaping holes in the sides of his head. For the rest of the film, Deadite Edgar will terrorize his family with these unthinkable wounds, even tempting his wife with a bloody kiss. Vaniček mixes emotional devastation with gore as Joseph must watch his father’s suicide while confronting the truth of his own ineptitude.
2) Down Through the Chimney
Along with references to the beloved Ash (Campbell), it’s become tradition for an Evil Dead film to reference the franchise’s signature weapon. But Vaniček subverts our expectations when Edgar’s chainsaw is out of gas. Instead, Alice employs a rusty bush trimmer to fight off her Deadite mother-in-law. Unfortunately, the extended weapon only shreds her flesh, leaving the monstrous woman still able to fight. Trapped in the attic, Alice must clamber out of an upper window with Deadite Susan hot on her heels.
Having dropped the ceremonial knife off the third-story roof, Alice has no choice but to improvise. Toting the bush trimmer, she inches her way down the chimney, pausing to turn halfway down. As Susan follows her daughter-in-law down the chute, Alice turns on the bush trimmer and waits for impact. Vaniček brings us into the living room as buckets of blood and dismembered body parts begin to rain down over the hearth. It’s the kind of moment Evil Dead fans love, gleefully gory carnage via an unexpected power tool.
1 ) Goodbye Stranger
Despite this plethora of grisly gore, Vaniček’s final act tops the list while delivering a poignant beat of empowerment. With the house on fire and the Deadites subdued, we believe that Alice is finally safe. But as she watches the Price home burn to the ground, the corpse of her husband walks out of the flames. He taunts her memories of their abusive marriage, insisting that she stayed because she likes the pain. Demanding the sacred weapon, Deadite Will chases Alice to a construction site and into an open hydraulic press. In the fall, Alice impales her ankle on a massive spike, leaving her trapped as the pit fills with boiling hot tar.
But Alice finds the strength to save herself and pulls her ankle off the bloody spike. She distracts Will with a decoy knife, then pummels his chest with a jackhammer. Exacerbating her emotional pain, Deadite Will reminds her of his love. But it seems that Alice has had enough. She stabs him with the ceremonial blade, then crushes his head as it turns to ash. It’s a well-earned moment of empowerment as our final girl vanquishes her most powerful demon.
Vaniček’s crowd-pleaser continues the Evil Dead trend of gleefully crude massacres. Two extra scenes hint at a continuation of this gruesome massacre, promising more brutality in films to come.
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