Yet Another 10 Underrated 80's Slashers

           Alright, we all know the drill by now. Ten underrated little slasher pictures from that one glorious decade. In the first list, we focused on the good – the truly noteworthy installments that flew under the mainstream radar. The second, the bad – the goofy entries with something to enjoy while doing so many things in a z-grade fashion.

 

Now here come the ugly.

 

Some of these movies are just a bit garish. Others are downright sleazy. And some are simply so violent, so scuzzy, that people went to jail for trying to distribute them. Of course, publicity like that cannot be bought, so these naughty flicks have managed to stand the test of time. Through development hell, blacklisting, subpar home video releases, and into the digital age. Now here they are, collected in one convenient list, ripe for your discovery.

 

Yet Another 10 Underrated 80’s Slashers!

10) Doom Asylum (1988) dir. Richard Friedman

 

            For our first spot on this list, we bring a film where absolutely nothing makes sense. It’s okay though, because Doom Asylum is a one-two punch of hilarious gags and low budget gore effects! A group of teens decide to have a picnic at the local abandoned mental asylum (as you do) and run afoul of an all-girl punk band. Both groups then mutually run afoul of a killer with a skinned face and terrible sense of humor. All in all, the only logical thing about this movie is that it went straight to video.

 

 

 

9) The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982) dir. Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter

 

            All of the movies on this list are low budget, but this is the lowest of the low in that regard. Also known as Death Dorm, this independently-financed picture is a surprisingly well-done hack ‘n slash. It’s a simple tale of a killer on a college campus (sound familiar?) What sets it apart from other academic assaults is the wealth of homemade gory killings. Pieces (1982) might have been gorier, but its campiness lessened the impact. Dorm brings a seriousness that only a drill through the back of the head can provide. Incidentally, said head drilling is likely the reason that this film is the first of three listed here to be labeled in the UK as a video nasty. A final, interesting note: the fantastic gore effects here were done by Matthew Mungle, who would later lend his talents to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), among others…

 

 

 

8) Happy Birthday to Me (1981) dir. J. Lee Thompson

 

            Here’s a film whose cover art is a sublime example of how slashers were marketed. While Happy Birthday to Me does feature a fine parade of kills, none quite match the shish-kabob to the mouth of the VHS cover art – which, by the way, never actually appears in the movie itself. Nevertheless, this style-over-substance installment is quite the gothic stabathon; and deserves to be seen by any fan of the genre. Poor Virginia is recovering from a terrible accident, and on top of that, her classmates at a snobby prep school are disappearing just in time for her birthday… Not much of a mystery, but a very visually grabbing one for sure.

 

 

 

7) Curtains (1983) dir. Richard Ciupka

 

            One of literally three(!!!) entries on this list that involves a troupe of actors being done away with, Curtains is likely the most high-brow of the lot. Show-biz slashers enjoy their own subgenre in much the same way campus slashers do. Here, an actress is forced to go a bit too far in preparing for a role, while the rest of her supporting cast gets picked off one by one. While a bit short on the red stuff compared to others offered here, this film makes up for it in effective creepiness, atmosphere, and a surprising turn by John Vernon.

 

 

 

6) Nightmares (1980) dir. John D. Lamond

 

            John Lamond is better known for his sexploitation classics such as Felicity (1978) and The ABC’s of Love and Sex: Australia Style (1978), but his one horror film is a remarkably engaging and bloody affair. Another example of the show-biz slasher, Nightmares, also known as Stage Fright, centers on a traumatized young actress and her first major role in a new stage play. Meanwhile, “someone” is slaughtering other cast members with broken glass. While Lamond himself was not pleased with how the film turned out, it does have enough blood, nudity, and scuzzy attitude to keep the most hardened genre fan entertained.

 

 

 

5) Edge of the Axe (1988) dir. José Ramón Larraz

 

            More well-known for his gothic chiller Vampyrs (1974), Spanish exploitation director José Ramón Larraz helms this straight-to-video effort about a sleepy California town, a deranged axe murderer, and a couple nerdy computer teens trying to solve the mystery. The European weirdness seeps in everywhere, despite the obvious attempts to be as American as possible. Nevertheless, there is a lot of campy fun to be had here, and the kills are suitably bloody. It speaks to Larraz’s aptitude as a director that Edge of the Axe rates so high on this list.

 

 

 

4) Bloody Birthday (1981) dir. Ed Hunt

 

            And now we’ve reached the truly great films on this list. Part The Bad Seed (1956), part Halloween (1978), Bloody Birthday features three very naughty homicidal children, a buffet of nudity, and some hysterical nonsense about horoscopes and solar eclipses. The pace never lets up here, and it is supremely creepy seeing children act in such a brutal manner. But beyond bloody kills and taboo-shattering themes, the picture is actually good, with suspense landing well and the child actors turning in astonishingly good performances. It certainly is a movie that couldn’t be made today.

 

 

 

3) StageFright (1987) dir. Michele Soavi

 

            The finest of the show-biz bunch, and Dario Argento apprentice Michele Soavi’s first turn in the director’s chair. StageFright, alternatively titled Deliria, Aquarius, and Bloody Bird, is yet another slasher to dump its frights into a theatre house as the troupe rehearses a new play. What sets this one apart is the quintessential Italian giallo flair that Soavi brings to the proceedings, and the attendant amount of gore that entails. Add a killer in an owl headpiece, and Giovanni Lombardo Radice getting his customary abuse, and StageFright is an unmissable entry in the slasher canon.

 

 

 

2) The Funhouse (1981) dir. Tobe Hooper

 

            Tobe Hooper is often credited with helping to launch the slasher genre with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Here, he dives headfirst into the craze with a psychedelic and impossibly fun romp through a carnival ride and unsuspecting victims. The Funhouse has some decent gore, but it’s the atmosphere that really drives this one; so much so that it’s hard to explain just how good it is if you haven’t seen it. Character actor Kevin Conway turns in not one, not two, but three excellent performances here, and the uncomfortable themes landed this one on the video nasties list as well.

 

 

 

1) Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1981) dir. Romano Scavolini

 

            Here at #1 is one of the ugliest, sleaziest slashers ever made. Banned in the UK as a video nasty, where the distributor was sentenced to eighteen months in jail for refusing to censor just one second of footage. Sued by FX guru Tom Savini, who demanded his name be removed from the project. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain is a sexually deviant, violently depraved slice of exploitation cinema. George is a sociopath with repressed memories. He escapes his hospital in New York and makes his way to Daytona, Florida searching for his family, and killing anyone who gets in his way out of sick and irrepressible urges. See it to believe it, because this exercise in decapitations, throat-slittings, axe murders, and psycho-sexual depravity is absolutely the ugliest of the ugly; and unequivocally deserves the top spot on this list.

10 MORE Underrated 80's Slashers

 

About this time last year – well, actually it was more like last December – I created a Top Ten list of my favorite, underrated 80’s slashers. Facebook has since then decided to do away with its Notes feature and thus all but buried many of my lists that stubbornly refuse to admit that nobody reads. So…

 

            I moved that Underrated 80’s Slasher list to this blog and it has subsequently inspired me to make another list of ten MORE Underrated 80’s Slashers! Because nobody asked for it. Because nobody cares. And yet… I cannot help myself.

 

            The truth is that the deeper one gets into the slasher genre, especially of the 1980’s, the more bizarre these films get. For those such as myself, the weirder the better. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger… even Leatherface or Chucky can’t boast of the strangeness that some of these truly unique flicks throw on the screen. Whether it be a curious proclivity for good versus evil twins, cheesy pop rock theme songs, or stand-up comedy monologues to pad the run time, these… uh… deep cut slasher offerings are often a veritable buffet of sheer lunacy.

 

If you’re as twisted as I am, then you are just itching to get started! So, without further ado…

 

10 MORE Underrated 80’s Slashers!

10) Final Exam (1981) dir. Jimmy Huston

 

            Briefly mentioned in our first list, Final Exam is a curious example of the campus slasher subgenre. This wonky blend of Animal House-esque fraternity comedy and stalk-n-slash horror is often lambasted, both for how long it takes for the violence to get going, and for how relatively bloodless said violence is once it makes an appearance. Truth be told, there is a decent amount of the red stuff here. It may not be as in-your-face as some of the more infamous titles on this list, but it is certainly more explicit than Halloween (1978), and that flick is the best of the best. The film also takes its time developing characters, something not terribly common for the genre.

 

 

 

9) Blood Rage (1987) dir. John Grissmer

 

            It’s not cranberry sauce! The first – arguably the only – Thanksgiving slasher is an odd duck if ever there was one. It pairs well with The Initiation (1984) further down this list in that both films make the very weird choice to deal with the relationships between twins… One is evil, one is not. It’s very obvious, but the characters are very stupid. Louise Lasser shows up as their mother in a bonkers performance that must be seen to be believed. Redemptively, there is a gigantic amount of practical gore effects! The film was finished in 1983, but not released until 1987 when it was unceremoniously shoved straight on to VHS, where it made a name for itself as a staple in video stores.

 

 

 

8) The Prey (1983) dir. Edwin Brown

 

            Continuing the trend of these films being released years after they were finished, The Prey was completed in 1980, but didn’t hit screens or shelves for three to four years. It’s tale of hikers at national campground being hunted by a backwoods mutant takes on a new freshness when put into context as a contemporary of Friday the 13^th (1980), rather than yet another imitation of it. The film is surprisingly well done for its budget, strikingly unique in its execution, and well-acted to boot. The gore effects hold up well, even if they aren’t particularly professional in construction. It also boasts a strange comedy bit where a park ranger tells a much too long joke to a stock footage deer, so… something for everyone?

 

 

 

7) The Slayer (1982) dir. J.S. Cardone

 

            The current trend in slasher films has been to populate the cast with as many needless characters as possible, in order to facilitate the maximum number of kills. A recent example is David Gordon Green’s Halloween (2018) in which Michael Myers slaughters no fewer than fifteen people on screen. Remarkably, many of the one-off slashers from the 80’s featured small casts, opting to build tension rather than throw ridiculous body counts at the audience. The Slayer is fantastic entry that takes this approach, spinning a creepy tale of two couples taking a vacation in an old seaside mansion. Keeping the central cast limited to four allows for more breathing room in the narrative and more time spent with the potential victims. Gruesome kills, lots of atmosphere, and a dream villain two years before A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) make this unassuming picture a hidden horror gem.

 

 

 

6) The Mutilator (1984) dir. Buddy Cooper

 

            Initially titled Fall Break, this film is widely considered one of the goriest slashers of the early 80’s boom! It also has an absolute banger of a theme song! A group of college students take their fall break to help close up a friend’s summer cabin and party while doing it. Naturally, they get murdered one by one in increasingly gory ways. It is yet another example of a slasher that was released largely straight-to-video with limited screenings but found popularity on the small screen.

 

 

 

5) Maniac Cop (1988) dir. William Lustig

 

            Bill Lustig, who famously helmed Maniac (1980), creates a more typical slasher villain with Matthew Cordell – a cop framed for corruption and murdered in prison by the criminals he put away, comes back to life for revenge! Throw in Tom Atkins and Bruce Campbell, and you have a nearly perfect recipe for a classic horror movie. What more do you need to know? You have the right to remain silent… FOREVER!!!

 

 

 

4) Intruder (1989) dir. Scott Spiegel

 

            The late 80’s were a showcase for the weirder and more unusual installments in the slasher genre. The popularity of straight-to-video releases allowed low budget films to get away with extreme amounts of gore, quirkiness, and humor. One the quintessential examples of this is Scott Spiegel’s Intruder. Spiegel was a friend and colleague of Sam Raimi (of The Evil Dead [1981] fame), and he brought his experience in over-the-top practical effects to bear in this bizarre tale of a spree killer picking off employees after hours in a supermarket. Intruder is one of the most splatter-ific hack-n-slash flicks of its kind.

 

 

 

3) Pieces (1982) dir. Juan Piquer Simón

 

            Its original Spanish language title is Mil gritos tiene la noche, roughly translated “The Night Has a Thousand Screams”! Simply put, a sex-crazed murderer is chainsawing college coeds to bits for some reason, and the police decide the only way to stop him is to rely on the help of a nerdy student and a tennis coach. The gratuitous gore is nearly matched by the lunacy here, but you won’t believe it until you’ve seen it. It’s exactly what you think it is.

 

 

 

2) Madman (1981) dir. Joe Giannone

 

            I have long maintained that the best slice-n-dice pictures are based in urban legends and myths. Madman is one of the best. A group of campers and counselors anger the spirit of campfire tale villain Madman Marz, and he emerges from the woods to pick them off! Like The Mutilator (1984), it features a very catchy rock theme song and a parade of gory kills that include decapitation by car hood. Lastly, zombie fans will recognize Dawn of the Dead (1978) star Gaylen Ross in the lead role.

 

 

 

1) The Initiation (1984) dir. Larry Stewart

 

            In the number one spot we have a stylish and supremely underrated tale of twin sibling insanity and revenge. The majority of the film takes place in an upscale, high tech shopping mall; where a killer targets partying college kids spending the night for a pledge challenge. The setting positively makes the movie, giving a unique look and feel missing from the average summer camp or suburban exercise. Also on hand as our final girl heroine is future Melrose Place star Daphne Zuniga, who turns in an earnest and believable performance that elevates the picture from your run-of-the-mill slasher to an essential entry in the body count canon.

10 Underrated 80's Slashers

Man, I love a good slasher movie. Halloween (1978) is my favorite movie of all time, and it was the original Friday the 13th (1980) that really introduced me to horror films. The practical gore effects, the inspired simplicity, the no-budget can-do aesthetic... Since then, entire stab-a-thon subgenre has held a special place in my heart.

The setup is the most basic blueprint of nearly any genre of cinema. Take a bunch of teens based on high school stereotypes - the jock, the clown, the slut, the virgin - and dump them into a situation with a killer and no way out. The killer, who has some sort of basically passable motivation, picks them off one by one until the aforementioned virgin - aka the final girl - gets the better of them. Cut, print, and make a sequel!

Of course, slashers are a uniquely 80’s phenomenon. Sure, Scream (1996) ignited a millennial wave of proto-satirical wink-wink knock-offs, remakes are a dime-a-dozen, and some of these lumbering killers (such as Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers) have hacked their way through some 21st Century sequels... But they heyday of the mutilating masked mass murderers was most certainly between about 1978 - with the premiere of Halloween - until about 1985, when flustered audiences kind of threw up their hands at Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985), which might be the literal source of the cliche that says these franchises never truly die.

Nowadays, the nostalgia for these frights from the time of “Morning in America” has reached a bit of a renaissance. Even television seems to revel in the past, with the most recent (and arguable one of the best) seasons of FX’s American Horror Story taking on the slasher canon - complete with a summer camp, mythic killer, synth-y soundtrack, and the subtitle 1984. It’s high time we revisited a few of the unsung heroes of the forgotten age of slasher cinema.

Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) are well-worn stalwart franchises. Even if you don’t necessarily like horror films, you’ve probably seen a few of those. Today, we’re shining a creepy spotlight on ten lesser-known selections. No Jason’s, Michael Myers’, or Freddy Kreuger’s here. Without further ado...

 

10 Underrated 80’s Slashers!

 

10) The House on Sorority Row (1983) dir. Mark Rosman

 

We start things off with an entry more recognizable for it’s name than anything else. But a great title was often key in bringing audiences into the theater to see the latest hack-em-up. Here, a horrible, deformed secret that lives in the attic is slowly stabbing it’s way through the members of a local sorority chapter! This film is perhaps the most representative installment in the particular subset of slasher movies that take place on a college campus - such as The Dorm that Dripped Blood (1982), Final Exam (1981), and Pieces (1982). It gives a whole meaning to the concept of student bodies...

 

 

 

9) Slumber Party Massacre (1982) dir. Amy Holden Jones

 

This particular film is often considered the first slasher to be directed by a woman! It’s also, incidentally, also considered the first to send up the genre for satire and parody. More than fifteen years before Scream, director Amy Holden Jones creates a simple tale of a slumber party targeted by a drill-wielding killer that manages to be both scary AND funny. And, of course, there’s a fair amount of requisite gore to boot!

 

 

8) Hell Night (1981) dir. Tom DeSimone

 

Another take on the college campus setting, Hell Night stars the iconic Linda Blair in a grisly tale of fraternity hazing gone awry. Four pledges during rush week are forced to stay over Halloween night in the local ‘haunted’ mansion, unaware of the deadly resident within! Shorter on blood and gore than some of it’s contemporaries, the film opts instead to fuse the stalk-n-slash method with traditional gothic creepiness, resulting a more atmospheric outing. Fans of Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984) will recognize Peter Barton in one of the leading roles as a potential love interest for Blair’s final girl!

 

 

7) Prom Night (1980) dir. Paul Lynch

 

Probably one of the more well-known titles on this list, Prom Night is best remembered for being the other horror film that Jamie Lee Curtis starred in after catapulting to success as Laurie Strode in Halloween. It also features Leslie “Don’t Call Me Shirley” Nielsen, and it’s motivation featuring an old sin is likely the most direct inspiration for later 90’s teen horror shows like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). Also, it’s soundtrack is almost unbearably retro.

 

 

6) Terror Train (1980) dir. Roger Spottiswoode

 

Okay, okay, so this is the other other slasher starring Jamie Lee Curtis. It also ranks higher than Prom Night (an arguably superior film) simply because the setting is so damned cool. A killer who likes to switch up his masks hacks his way through a college class on New Year’s Eve... on a party train! The locomotive locale ensures that the victims are trapped, but also adds an effective air of claustrophobia to the proceedings. Side note - yet another example of college campus slasher horror.

 

 

5) My Bloody Valentine (1981) dir. George Mihalka

 

One of the signature trends of the slasher movie is an installment for every conceivable holiday (thanks, Halloween). Here, Canada gets in on the action with a romantic comedy... just kidding, there’s blood everywhere. One Valentine’s Day, several miners in a small town are trapped in a mine collapse. One of them, Harry Warden, kills the other survivors to conserve the air. Oh, and he eats a few of them, for good measure. Years later, once again on Valentine’s, townsfolk are getting murdered in grisly fashion. Could it be Harry Warden once more? All sarcasm aside, My Bloody Valentine is one of the better holiday slashers out there, by far outpacing the ham-handed yuletide goofiness of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), or the over-stuffed Thanksgiving offering Blood Rage (1983).

 

 

4) Sleepaway Camp (1983) dir. Robert Hiltzik

 

That ending. Oh Lord, that ending. Summer camps have been the perfect setting for slasher films ever since Friday the 13th started slaughtering nubile young counselors. Sleepaway Camp takes it much farther than the more mainstream-friendly Jason Voorhees ever did. The victims aren’t counselors, they’re campers! And not only that, the campers are played by age-appropriate actors, so each murder just feels that much more icky. And then, of course, there’s that end reveal. No spoilers here if you haven’t seen it, but nothing in slasher flicks has outdone it since.

 

 

3) The Burning (1981) dir. Tony Maylam

 

The first rung of our Top Three is the movie special effects maverick Tom Savini (famous for the first Friday the 13th, Dawn of the Dead [1978], and all three top spots on this list!) turned down Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) to work on! Another summer camp setting, The Burning is a hack-n-slash take on the spooky campfire stories we grew up loving. It’s also one of the bloodier affairs in a genre known for, well... blood. Savini’s gore effects ooze (read: sprays) the red stuff in a way that reminds us of Japanese samurai films. The movie begins with a group of campers pranking the camp’s caretaker, Cropsey. The joke goes horribly wrong, and leaves the man burned beyond recognition. Years later (as always?) a new group of campers bears the brunt of Cropsey’s revenge! Also of note: the film features the debuts of both Jason Alexander (of Seinfeld) and Holly Hunter. That, and it was the inaugural release for Miramax Pictures!

 

 

2) The Prowler (1981) dir. Joseph Zito

 

Also known as Rosemary’s Killer, this film is one of the best one-off slashers out there. Tom Savini considers his practical gore effects here to be some of his best work, and it’s easy to see why! Pitchforks, bayonets, and even a head-exploding shotgun all take center stage. A local high school is prepping for it’s senior homecoming dance - the first in twenty years since a post-WWII tragedy - but someone with a homicidal streak doesn’t want it to happen! Director Joseph Zito puts 110% into the effort, and it shows. The success of The Prowler resulted in Zito being hired to do another classic slasher: Friday the 13 Part IV: The Final Chapter!

 

 

1) Maniac (1980) dir. William Lustig

 

Finally, we come to the top slot. Maniac can be argued for not being a slasher film, but with Savini’s talents once again on full display - including one of the most realistic and wince-inducing exploding heads ever - I feel confident including it here. Joe Spinell plays Frank Zito, a serial killer with severe mommy issues and a penchant for scalping his victims. More of a character study than an exercise in indestructible killer rampages, Maniac takes the unique approach of placing the audience with the killer instead of the horny teenagers. It’s a gritty, icky piece of film-making that leaves you wanting a shower; but it’s also a masterpiece that demands to be seen at least once by fans of horror cinema.