Slashers — that gloriously grubby, stabby subsection of horror — were first unsheathed in the early 1970s, when Mario Bava stalked his cavorting, frequently disrobed victims around in A Bay of Blood. You can even look to Texas Chain Saw Massacre from the same time period, or even go back and pay Alfred Hitchcock a visit as he’s filling up the bathtub in Psycho.
But the Bava Blood bash set up mood of the slasher: Sexually charged, with a degree of mystery, where the ample cast of characters one-by-one take a sharp turn into doom. Slashers can be stylish (Opera, Dressed to Kill), carnal (Torso, Friday the 13th), grimly violent (The Prowler, The Burning), trashy (Pieces, The Slumber Party Massacre) and even supernatural (Halloween, Child’s Play). We’re studying all sides of the blade as we assemble movies that best represent this killer genre in the Essential Slasher Movies.
#1
Adjusted Score: 112462%
Critics Consensus: Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because Psycho was filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn’t just create modern horror, he validated it.
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#2
Adjusted Score: 105143%
Critics Consensus: Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films.
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#3
Adjusted Score: 99942%
Critics Consensus: Wes Craven’s intelligent premise, combined with the horrifying visual appearance of Freddy Krueger, still causes nightmares to this day.
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#4
Adjusted Score: 104608%
Critics Consensus: Pearl finds Ti West squeezing fresh gore out of the world he created with X — and once again benefiting from a brilliant Mia Goth performance.
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#5
Adjusted Score: 89630%
Critics Consensus: Terrifier 2 outdoes the original in every way — which makes it bad news for the squeamish, but a bloody good time for genre enthusiasts.
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#6
Adjusted Score: 97472%
Critics Consensus: An entertaining slasher with a gender-bending, body-swapping twist, this horror-comedy juggles genres with Freaky fun results.
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#7
Adjusted Score: 92347%
Critics Consensus: Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema.
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#8
Adjusted Score: 88926%
Critics Consensus: With arresting visuals and an engrossingly lurid mystery, Dressed to Kill stylishly encapsulates writer-director Brian De Palma’s signature strengths.
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#9
Adjusted Score: 87117%
Critics Consensus: Horror icon Wes Craven’s subversive deconstruction of the genre is sly, witty, and surprisingly effective as a slasher film itself, even if it’s a little too cheeky for some.
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#10
Adjusted Score: 86190%
Critics Consensus: You’re Next‘s energetic and effective mix of brutal gore and pitch black humor will please horror buffs and beyond.
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#11
Adjusted Score: 100544%
Critics Consensus: Halloween largely wipes the slate clean after decades of disappointing sequels, ignoring increasingly elaborate mythology in favor of basic – yet still effective – ingredients.
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#12
Adjusted Score: 86105%
Critics Consensus: Though it ultimately sacrifices some mystery in the name of gory thrills, Candyman is a nuanced, effectively chilling tale that benefits from an interesting premise and some fine performances.
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#13
Adjusted Score: 93707%
Critics Consensus: Certain aspects of horror’s most murderously meta franchise may be going stale, but a change of setting and some inventive set pieces help keep Scream VI reasonably sharp.
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#14
Adjusted Score: 93656%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#15
Adjusted Score: 91193%
Critics Consensus: The Opera house location gives plenty to work with for director Dario Argento, who hits his decadently bloody high notes here.
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#16
Adjusted Score: 91760%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#17
Adjusted Score: 86837%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#18
Adjusted Score: 83137%
Critics Consensus: Sleepaway Camp is a standard teen slasher elevated by occasional moments of John Waters-esque weirdness and a twisted ending.
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#19
Adjusted Score: 77436%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#20
Adjusted Score: 77824%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#21
Adjusted Score: 66240%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#22
Adjusted Score: 78417%
Critics Consensus: Child’s Play occasionally stumbles across its tonal tightrope of comedy and horror, but its genuinely creepy monster and some deft direction by Tom Holland makes this chiller stand out on the shelf.
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#23
Adjusted Score: 78264%
Critics Consensus: Happy Death Day puts a darkly humorous sci-fi spin on slasher conventions, with added edge courtesy of a starmaking performance from Jessica Rothe.
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#24
Adjusted Score: 71736%
Critics Consensus: The rare slasher with enough intelligence to wind up the tension between bloody outbursts, Black Christmas offers fiendishly enjoyable holiday viewing for genre fans.
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#25
Adjusted Score: 72370%
Critics Consensus: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors offers an imaginative and surprisingly satisfying rebound for a franchise already starting to succumb to sequelitis.
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#26
Adjusted Score: 68318%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#27
Adjusted Score: 71809%
Critics Consensus: Rather quaint by today’s standards, Friday the 13th still has its share of bloody surprises and a ’70s-holdover aesthetic to slightly compel.
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#28
Adjusted Score: 62296%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#29
Adjusted Score: 60176%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#30
Adjusted Score: 59870%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#31
Adjusted Score: 59021%
Critics Consensus: It’s a Wonderful Knife takes an enthusiastic stab at holiday-themed horror-comedy, even if it doesn’t cut quite as deep as it should.
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#32
Adjusted Score: 55388%
Critics Consensus: Friday the 13th: Part VI – Jason Lives indeed brings back ol’ Vorhees, along with a sense of serviceable braindead fun.
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#33
Adjusted Score: 50362%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#34
Adjusted Score: 49700%
Critics Consensus: Horror aficionados might have a ball with Prom Night, but a lack of mystery and inability to capitalize on the dance hall setting makes for a generic night of mayhem.
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#35
Adjusted Score: 51010%
Critics Consensus: A by-the-numbers slasher that arrived a decade too late, the mostly tedious I Know What You Did Last Summer will likely only hook diehard fans of the genre.
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#36
Adjusted Score: 47664%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#37
Adjusted Score: 47712%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#38
Adjusted Score: 43582%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#39
Adjusted Score: 45287%
Critics Consensus: There is indeed a good amount of tension in this French slasher, but the dubbing is bad and the end twist unbelievable.
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#40
Adjusted Score: 41349%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#41
Adjusted Score: 29546%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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#42
Adjusted Score: 33879%
Critics Consensus: Bearing little resemblance to the 1953 original, House of Wax is a formulaic but better-than-average teen slasher flick.
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#43
Adjusted Score: 18597%
Critics Consensus: A disengaged Sylvester Stallone plays the titular Cobra with no bite in this leaden action thriller, queasily fixated on wanton carnage and nothing else.
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#44
Adjusted Score: -1%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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