10 Hidden Gem '80s Slasher Horror Movies
2. The Mutilator
Buddy Cooper's The Mutilator - also known as Fall Break - is one of the great overlooked slashers of its time. Sure, it might be a personal guilty pleasure of your writer, but there really is a whole bunch to enjoy with this 1984 offering.
Setting the table for this feature, the opening sequence shows Big Ed returning home to celebrate his birthday after a day at work. There, his wife has baked a cake, and Ed Jr. is polishing his old man's guns as a birthday treat. Unfortunately, the youngster accidentally unloads one of these guns through his mother's chest, just as Big Ed enters the house.
From there, we get a mildly bizarre scene where Big Ed hugs the corpse of his wife and tries to get her to drink some bourbon, before The Mutilator jumps forward to Ed Jr. in college as he and his friends head out to the family's beach house.
Of course, Big Ed has spent the subsequent years stewing over his wife's death and detesting his own son. As such, he's waiting at this beach house to slaughter Ed Jr. and his pals. What follows are some nice kills, some decent gore, and the ridiculously cheesy-but-catchy Fall Break theme song.