10 Best Slasher Films Of All Time

The first Friday The 13th was a blah Halloween knock off directed by a porn grad, but this sequel is the archetypal 80s slasher movie, full of idiot victims (love that skinny dipping blonde) who die in unpleasant ways courtesy of a machete-wielding villain who won’t stay dead.

It’s basically an Americanization of Mario Bava’s A Bay Of Blood, and even recreates two murders from that film (the machete to the face and the spearing of the two lovers). On its American rerelease, Bava’s film was marketed as an unofficial sequel to The Last House On The Left, which is ironic: Steve Miner, who called the shots on Friday The 13th parts 2 and 3, was a production assistant on Last House.

Unlike several of the later sequels, Part II is a bona fide exploitation movie that serves up all the blood, shocks and gratuitous nudity a crowd could want. Several sympathetic characters bite the dust in horrific ways, and it’s a very nasty movie indeed that reserves one of the most unpleasant (and admittedly spectacular) deaths for the sole handicapped character. It’s not a movie long on PC or feminism, but it is loads of down and dirty fun.