10 Slasher Movies That Broke All The Rules

As predictable as some critics complain the horror genre at large can be, there’s no subgenre with a more recognizable formula than the venerable institution of the slasher movie. Ever since Bob Clark’s Black Christmas inspired John Carpenter’s megahit Halloween—which in turn inspired Sean S Cunningham’s cheap rip-off Friday the 13th—the simple set up of “masked killer murders a handful of transgressing teens” was transported everywhere from abandoned summer camps, to leafy suburbs, to eerily empty hospitals, to college dorms, to the Brooklyn Bridge (you know, when Jason finally took Manhattan).

So how is it that the basic slasher premise has given rise to some of the most inventive, surreal, and strange films that horror—and its bastard brother, horror comedy—have to offer? Maybe it’s their exploitable simplicity, but since their heyday in the eighties slashers have produced a far more diverse range of meta-movies, parodies, satires, deconstructions, and genre mash-ups than, say, the haunted story or demonic possession subgenre.

Before we begin, a quick shout out to some honourable mentions which didn’t make the final cut—1990’s no-budget There’s Nothing Out There, Unmasked Part 25, an existential British spoof which saw its masked slasher have an existential crisis between murder sprees, 2006’s cult classic Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, 2012’s Kill Me Now, 2000’s teen-beach-movie-meets-slasher Psycho Beach Party, TV’s Scream Queens and American Horror Story: 1984… You know what, maybe this list just needs a sequel, as is the custom for slashers.

The king of subversive slashers, Scream rewrote the same rules that it broke for every flick that followed and its effect on the subgenre remains immeasurable decades later. 1996 saw a spec script titled “Scary Movie”, written by then little-known screenwriter/future Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson, sold to A Nightmare On Elm Street helmer Wes Craven.

Hot off the critical success of 1994’s strange, self-referential Freddy Krueger reboot, New Nightmare, Craven brought to life a gruesome, brutally violent but also clever, hilariously meta slasher wherein the teenage victims had not only seen Halloween, but were able to name drop Jason Voorhees and chided each other for embodying horror movie clichés.

Aided by a likeable young cast including teen heartthrobs Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich, real-life sweethearts David Arquette and Courtney Cox, and improv-happy serial-scene-stealer Matthew Lillard, the film saw both its killer and their victims deconstruct the formula of slasher movies, adding a layer of believability and meta-comedy to proceedings.

Scream’s success relied on a clever plot which not only avoided clichés, but used familiar slasher tropes against the viewer—most famously, the film cast Drew Barrymore as its first victim, wrongfooting audiences who assumed the star’s fame meant she would be playing the lead role of the final girl.