Ethan Hawke's The Black Phone, coming out on June 24th, 2022, seemingly embraces the classic masked killer horror motif. Apart from this common theme, horror movies come in many shapes and sizes, but the slasher subgenre is one of the most successful. And although many new improvements have been made to slasher films in recent years, there's nothing wrong with getting back to basics and following the traditional formula.
Every good slasher movie follows a few basic guidelines. A group of individuals (usually teens) are placed in an isolated location they probably shouldn't be in, stalked by an unknown assailant who typically wears a scary mask, and each picked off one by one until the final girl remains. If it didn't work, the industry wouldn't keep using the mold for decades.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
Netflix's original horror entry reinvents Leatherface for a new generation. While his victims change from hippies to stereotypical millennials, his appetite for slaughter remains the same. But that's why most fans watch him in the first place.
While it does update the graphics and gore, the film is still a paint-by-numbers slasher with a brutal body count and tons of blood. It doesn't do anything particularly extravagant, but it doesn't need to. Audiences just want to see Leatherface hack his way through a new crop of victims and that's exactly what they get.
The Burning (1981)
Jason Voorhees wasn't the only slasher to pick off a group of frisky teens at a summer camp, as anyone who's seen The Burning will know. Burned alive by a gang of teenaged miscreants, Cropsey seeks vengeance on a new batch of victims five years later.
Armed with his melted face and a pair of shears, Cropsey becomes the terror of Camp Stonewater and slices and dices his way through a host of campers, including a young Jason Alexander in one of his first films. It's a slow-burning film, but one that fans of the classics will appreciate.
Clownhouse (1989)
As Lon Chaney once said, "There's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight." What Clownhouse lacks in gore it more than makes up in scares and atmosphere. Directed by the infamous Victor Salva, the film concerns three escaped patients of a psychiatric facility in clown attire who stalk a trio of brothers on a dark night after the circus.
The clowns strangle their victims at the circus and take their costumes as they stumble upon the boys while they're staying home alone. What follows is an intensely creepy game of cat and mouse as the boys encounter the painted nightmares in the dark of the night.
The Funhouse (1981)
From the mind of Tobe Hooper comes The Funhouse, a stylish slasher set at a traveling carnival where a group of teenage victims decides to spend the night in the titular location. Unfortunately for them, a masked carnie named Gunther goes on a rampage and begins hunting them down.
Atmosphere plays a big part in the film's delivery. While it might not be as famous as Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, It's a great alternative for fans who are tired of the same old same old and Gunther's face reveal is certainly worth the price of ission on this dark ride.
Haunt (2019)
Although most slasher films stick to the classic formula, that's not saying the formula can't be improved. Haunt is one such example, as a group of partiers finds a roadside haunted house ran by a group of masked murderers who trap them in their deadly attraction.
Considered by many to be a hidden gem of the genre, the film has several common tropes but ups the game with its design and gore factor. The victims are about as clueless and cliché as they come, but that doesn't mean they aren't perfect lambs to the slaughter for the film's colorful cast of killers.
Edge Of The Axe (1988)
This 1988 murder movie seems to take a lot from Friday the 13th but mixes in a technological element by including two computer geeks in the mix. It's a standard-issue horror-comes-to-a-small-town scenario, but it serves as a decent framework. While it does pull a few novel elements, the film's killer couldn't be more stereotypical if he tried.
With his white mask, hunting jacket, and hatchet, he looks like the amalgamation of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and the Phantom Killer. That being said, he still stands out from the rest of his contemporaries and he's nothing if not memorable.
Hell Fest (2018)
One of the finest examples of the slasher genre getting back to its roots is Hell Fest, and it transitions the elements seen in many classic '80s slashers to the 21st century almost seamlessly. The masked killer hiding in plain sight as he stalks kids in a horror-themed theme park was a brilliant touch that resulted in what should have been a modern classic.
With its setting, design, and visuals that scream classic horror, the movie's simple-yet-effective atmospheric delivery is well worth the time to watch. A mysterious masked man with a knife never truly stops being scary, after all.
Friday The 13th Part 3 (1982)
Speaking of which, the Friday the 13th franchise is one of the most famous faces in the slasher genre, but it wasn't until after the first entry that the series truly stepped into its tried-and-true formula. A group of teens go camping in Jason's woods, they get romantic where they shouldn't, and the masked murderer hacks them to death, rinse and repeat.
Part 3, however, is where the series established its true identity. With Jason finding his famous hockey mask and the kills being cheesy and over-the-top, the movie set the bar for most slashers that followed.
Halloween (1979)
Jason might have set the bar for what a slasher could be like, but Michael Myers set the industry standard. A white mask and a sharp knife go a long way in this John Carpenter classic. The film gets its scares not through gratuitous amounts of gore or frequent jumpscares, but through its pacing, atmosphere, and direction.
Michael walked so Jason could run. Carpenter's tale of an escaped maniac looking to recreate his ritualistic killing defined the slasher genre, and it still holds up even by modern standards. Suspense is the name of the game, and the original horror classic had that in spades.
The Fear Street Series (2021)
If there's one series of horror films that truly understands the slasher genre, it's Fear Street. The series is practically a love letter to horror movies across the board, but the way it addresses slashers without being too meta or self-aware is absolutely brilliant.
It can be tongue-in-cheek when it needs to be, but the way it harkens back to the heyday of the genre will satisfy any hardcore horror fan immensely. It doesn't shy away from the graphic kills, treats its characters as more than a body count, and provides an original story for the events in Shadyside to make the series more cohesive. It truly stands out as a landmark entry amongst slasher films.
