The films

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Boardinghouse

The first shot-on-video horror feature, blown up to 35mm and just as ugly as that sounds.

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Human Lanterns

A Shaw wuxia that turns into a slasher, with lanterns made of human skin.

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Rituals

The Canadian Deliverance, and grimmer than the nickname promises.

cult

The Toolbox Murders

A proto-slasher that front-loads its nastiness, then becomes a different and stranger film.

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Pieces

Spanish, incoherent, and gleefully stupid. 'Bastard! Bastard!'

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Tourist Trap

Mannequins that move, telekinesis, and a masked killer. Far stranger than a slasher should be.

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Tales from the Crypt

The best Amicus omnibus, and Joan Collins versus a killer Santa two years before Black Christmas.

known

StageFright

A killer in a giant owl mask, a locked theatre, and Soavi announcing himself.

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The Funhouse

Tobe Hooper does a carnival slasher. A deformed killer, a hall of mirrors, and real dread.

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Alice, Sweet Alice

American giallo in Catholic New Jersey. Genuinely disturbing and well acted.

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Maniac

Savini's effects, Spinell's performance, and a very bleak little film.

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Terror Train

A costume party on a moving train, a killer swapping disguises, and Jamie Lee Curtis again.

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Sleepaway Camp

Ninety minutes of nothing, then an ending nobody who has seen it forgets.

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The Prowler

A killer in WWII combat gear stalks a graduation dance. Savini's best gore work.

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My Bloody Valentine

Canadian, mine-set, unusually well shot. The censored cut ruined it for decades.

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The Burning

The raft scene is the best kill in any slasher. The rest is fine.

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Prom Night

Jamie Lee Curtis, a masked killer, and a decade-old secret. Halloween cashes in, disco included.

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Maniac Cop

A dead cop stalks New York in uniform. Larry Cohen writes, Robert Z'Dar's jaw does the rest.

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A Bay of Blood

Bava invents the slasher a decade early. Friday the 13th copied two kills outright.

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Black Christmas

Predates Halloween and is scarier. The phone calls still work.

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Almost bloodless, and still the most upsetting film here. The heat is the horror.

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Friday the 13th

Cynical, derivative, and it industrialised the whole form. Savini's finest hour.

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Halloween

$325,000 into $70 million, and every slasher after it is a photocopy.