Christmas in July: 10 Holiday Slashers

 

 

            Got the summertime blues? Heat melting your brain? Must be time for Christmas in July! I gotta say, I absolutely hate the hot weather. I hate the allergies. I hate the bugs. There’s really only one thing that really gets me through the atrocious summer months, and that is the anticipation of Fall, and Halloween! In the meantime, however, let’s tide us over with a look at something completely, grossly out-of-season… Holiday Slashers!

 

            Ever since Halloween kicked off the slasher boom in the fall of 1978, holiday hack-em-ups have part and parcel of the horror genre. Killer Santas and snowmen and garden variety jilted lovers have sliced, stabbed, and shish-kabobbed their ways through every imaginable day of celebration. Some are truly godawful, like the Thanksgiving romp Blood Rage (1987) – it’s not cranberry sauce! – while others like Bloody Birthday (1981) are truly inspired. And of course, many grab at any occasion at all to set a horror film in; from the surprisingly great (Prom Night [1980]) to the unbearably wacky (Graduation Day [1981]).

 

So let’s crank the A/C and beat the heat with 10 Holiday Slashers!

 

 

10) X-Ray (1982) dir. Boaz Davidson

 

            This Cannon Films-produced slice of weirdness was also titled Hospital Massacre, and like many slasher films of the time, is set around Valentine's Day for absolutely no reason. It centers on a woman who is being stalked by a maniac from her past in a hospital where nobody will let her leave. Sure, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but the kills are bloody and the cinematography echoes that of Dario Argento, plus the movie goes well with those gross candy hearts.

 

 

 

9) New Year’s Evil (1980) dir. Emmett Alston

 

            This is one of those unusual slashers that focuses on adult victims instead of hapless teens. A tv news anchor who is somewhat of a local celebrity finds herself the target of a murderous maniac in the lead-up to her much-anticipated New Year’s Eve special. The film is another Cannon Films production and has all the superficial glitz and zaniness one expects from the famously low-budget 80s movie house. It also has a halfway clever title which, in all honesty, is probably the only real reason for its existence.

 

 

 

8) Christmas Evil (1980) dir. Lewis Jackson

 

            Speaking of convenient names, here’s another one! The difference here is that Christmas Evil is actually very good. It’s not your typical slice-n-dice either, saving most of the red stuff for the very end. It centers on Harry, a middle-aged man obsessed with Christmas due to seeing his parents getting it on as a kid while his dad was dressed up as Santa Claus. Naturally, Harry works at a toy factory by day, and pretends he’s Santa by night. No possible way that could end poorly, right? The film has obvious parallels to Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), but never steals outright and hard-earns its suspense. An underseen gem in a Santa suit.

 

 

 

7) Terror Train (1980) dir. Roger Spottiswoode

 

            Jamie Lee Curtis is stuck on a college costume party train on New Year's Eve with a killer who wants revenge on her and her friends for a prank gone wrong. The claustrophobic nature of the train cars adds quite a bit of tension to this one, and the gore is well-done. The film also sidesteps a number of clichés by having the murderer switch disguises regularly, adding an anything-can-happen element to the proceedings.

 

 

 

6) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) dir. Charles E. Sellier Jr.

 

            PUNISH!!! This loony, thoroughly enjoyable cinematic disaster sailed straight into infamy when it was unceremoniously pulled from theaters after backlash from Conservative Killjoy Karens who protested its depiction of a killer in a Santa outfit. Never mind that it was hardly the first flick to try that particular gimmick (Christmas Evil was released four years earlier, and it wasn’t the first either) but Silent Night, Deadly Night is pretty damned clear that it’s not actually Santa going around murdering half the town. No, no, that would be Billy, a young man who saw his parents murdered by a criminal in a Santa outfit as a child, was subsequently abused by the mother superior at his orphanage, and now finds his fragile mental state thoroughly pulverized with a potato masher when he’s asked to play Santa Claus at the toy store he works for. Naturally, he goes about deciding that everyone is naughty and punishes them severely with an axe, Christmas lights, a box cutter, and even trophy antlers! Naughty…

 

 

 

5) Jack Frost (1997) dir. Michael Cooney

 

            This movie features the world’s most pissed-off snow cone! That’s right folks, it’s the one with the mutant killer snowman! Not to be confused with the children’s movie of the same name (dear God, please don’t show this to your kids… without making popcorn), Jack Frost is your definitely normal example of a movie where a serial killer gets splashed with some experimental whatever and becomes a really homicidal snowman with a penchant for cringy one-liners. It has Christmas tree crucifixion. It has oatmeal with antifreeze. It has the sex scene with the most layers of clothing ever! It’s almost perfect, is what I’m saying.

 

 

 

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

 

            Harry Warden was trapped in a mineshaft collapse and went nuts, cannibalizing those trapped with him before he was rescued. Then he killed a bunch of people he thought were responsible on Valentine’s Day. Twenty years later, the murders have begun again. Is Harry Warden back? My Bloody Valentine is one of the absolute best one-off slashers out there. The miner’s outfit is remarkably scary, the gore is top notch, and the Canadian-ness of the whole thing is just… very Canadian. Get your heart broken!

 

 

 

3) Friday the 13^th (1980) dir. Sean Cunningham

 

            Is Friday the 13^th actually a holiday? Well, it’s a day, and people think it means something, so I guess it counts? You know this one. A bunch of teens are trying to get Camp Crystal Lake ready to reopen for the first time in years, but someone doesn’t want them too. In fact, the don’t want it bad enough that they start picking off the kids one by one. Everything about the film works, from the score by Harry Manfredini to the famous gore effects by Tom Savini (and any other rhyme I can make with “ini”). There’s a reason it spawned an entire franchise. It’s got a death curse!

 

 

2) Black Christmas (1974) dir. Bob Clark

 

            Perhaps the best Christmas movie ever made (and one of the greatest horror films ever by far) Black Christmas set the template for the slasher format to come. This rather simple tale of a sorority house being stalked by a killer as everyone gets ready to go home for the holidays is a masterpiece of suspense and terror. Director Bob Clark makes use of killer point-of-view shots years before Sam Raimi did the same in The Evil Dead (1981), and employs what may be the first instance of “the call is coming from inside the house” plot device, now so common in the genre. Add to that some incredible performances by Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, John Saxon, and Margot Kidder, and you have one unmissable experience. Oh, and turtles.

 

 

1) Halloween (1978) dir. John Carpenter

 

            Of course, Halloween is number one! Did you really think I’d leave it out? Not only is John Carpenter’s defining work the whole reason for the early slasher avalanche AND the first to set the pattern for holiday-themed slashers as well… it’s quite simply one of the best movies ever made! You all know what it’s about, but for good measure let’s just say Michael Myers escapes his mental institution, puts on a Captain Kirk mask, and goes about killing some babysitters and chasing Jamie Lee Curtis. The camerawork is bar none, the music is iconic, the pacing, editing, acting, and scripting are all pitch perfect. And the atmosphere is unequalled. It’s a perfect film and deserves to top any list it appears on. Full stop.

10 Lesser-Known Video Nasties

           When the UK enacted the Video Recordings Act of 1984, it was the height of moral majority censorship. Nutty conservatives in Britain were absolutely frothing at the mouth with outrage against what they saw as the decay of their pure and wholesome society. They enshrined into law the ability of the government to prosecute and convict films of obscenity. It seems almost Orwellian… and yet right-wing insanity seems to be alive and… unwell today.

           

            The Reagan administration here in the United States at the time was certainly setting up a trend toward conservative extremism and deregulation, but it never really managed to find a way to legally bury movies it didn’t like. The United Kingdom bears that dubious badge of dishonor. Violence, drugs, and above all sex were the targets of this heinous censorship.

 

            The effort was also famously bungled, with police raiding video stores and seizing movies at random that they believed violated the new law – including a now notorious slip-up in which they confiscated copies of the Dolly Parton musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). Such a debacle underscores just how ludicrous the whole affair really was. While some of the films banned or censored do contain content that could be considered extreme, most leave modern audiences weaned on the likes of The Walking Dead on modern television wondering what could have possible pissed off the baby-brained alt-right loonies so much.

 

Many of these “arrested” films – termed video nasties – are now well-known to genre fans. Cannibal Holocaust (1980), Zombie (1979), The Beyond (1981), and even The Evil Dead (1981) are just a few titles that are practically household staples these days. However, a great portion of these banned pictures remain hard to see, even in the US, due to their presence on the nasties list. In light of a new, rising push by right-wing extremists in America to censor and even outright ban books, films, and curriculums from schools and control what you can and can’t see… perhaps there is no better time to highlight some of these films that suffered the weight of fascist policy, along with a rating do determine how “nasty” each flick is, and whether or not it really belongs on the infamous list. Without further ado I present…

 

10 Lesser-Known Video Nasties!

 

 

 

10) Evilspeak (1981) dir. Eric Weston

 

            Clint Howard, brother of director/actor Ron Howard and recognizable from dozens of horror films and literally every series of Star Trek, stars as a bullied cadet at a military school who discovers that he can get revenge against his tormentors by… programming a computer with the knowledge of a satanic book? Whatever. The point is, this movie is wacky and the kills are pretty damn entertaining, with no shortage of the red stuff. It’s not a masterpiece, but it holds your attention and Howard gives an expectedly great performance.

 

Nasty Rating: 4/10 devil computers “Not that Nasty” A great horror flick, but nothing extreme.

 

 

 

9) Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) dir. René Cardona Sr.

 

            René Cardona Jr. is a mexploitation hero, and his films include Tintorera: Tiger Shark (1977) and Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979). His father, René Cardona Sr. directed this movie. And others, I guess. But none of them included actual footage of a real heart transplant. And none of them included a man with a gorilla heart transplanted in him that slowly turns him into an ape-man who runs around killing dudes and trying to sex their lady friends. Mexican exploitation films are great, is what I’m saying.

 

Nasty Rating: 6/10 open monkey heart surgeries “Kinda Nasty actually” Not well-made, but damn…

 

 

 

8) Gestapo’s Last Orgy (1977) dir. Cesare Canevari

 

            Gerbils. Plus, some of the most tasteless scenes in all of nazisploitation. Also titled Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler, this little exploitation remake of The Night Porter (1974) focuses on the somewhat complicated relationship between a concentration camp survivor and her former nazi commandant. So, nasty stuff to be sure. Plenty of shocking scenes to tickle your tasteless buds. But the one in which she is strung up above a bunch of hungry rats (that are actually gerbils) is probably what you’ll remember.

 

Nasty Rating: 9/10 backwards swastikas “Das ist Nasty, mein Fuhrer” Yeah, this one is kinda understandable.

 

 

 

7) The Ghastly Ones (1968) dir. Andy Milligan

 

            Andy Milligan is the filmmaker that everyone loves to hate, but also still loves? He’s kinda like Herschell Gordon Lewis, except Lewis’ films are at least recognizable as… well, films. Milligan was a passionate, gay, and perpetually drunk genius. The Ghastly Ones is perhaps his most well-known work, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense or is in any way competent. That being said, it’s still quite fun somehow… It’s a typical setup regarding an old mansion, siblings squabbling over an inheritance, and someone killing them one by one. Maybe not particularly nasty (though it could be if anyone involved had talent), but Milligan’s style of hysterics and bottom-barrel melodrama is oddly – if not perversely – engaging.

 

Nasty Rating: 5/10 uncentered frames “Flamboyantly Nasty-ish” Bong not required, but recommended

 

 

 

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

 

            This slasher had a dream demon and was released two years before one, two, Freddy Krueger came for you. It’s a small cast, only four main characters, and focuses on this motley group vacationing on an island where they get very dead, very gruesomely. It’s well-paced, well-acted, and the kills are nice and splattery. What more could you want? Okay, it’s not as nasty as a lot of others, and if this made the nasty list, then Friday the 13^th (1980) should have qualified. But we know the whole legislation was bullshit anyway, and here it is. It’s spooky, and a slasher that belongs on your shelf.

 

Nasty Rating: 3/10 latex demon masks “Nasty in your dreams maybe” Good movie, not particularly shocking.

 

5) The Toolbox Murders (1977) dir. Dennis Donnelly

 

            Hammer? Check. Nail Gun? Check. Screwdriver? Check. Incest, Star Trek child actors, homoerotic crime scene clean-up, and Cameron Mitchell? CHECK. A killer in a ski mask is cracking open his toolbox and using the contents therein to murder women in an apartment complex. There’s some nonsense about religious mania, and the cops seem weirdly willing to let the local teens solve the murders themselves. Outside that, this is mostly an excuse for blood, boobs, and biblical babbling. Can’t recommend it highly enough, is what I’m saying.

 

Nasty Rating: 8/10 handyman maniacs “Blue-collar Nasty” Don’t miss this one.

 

 

 

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

 

            Tom Savini did the gore effects for this, and then proceeded to deny it for the next forty years. Scuzzy, sleazy, lemon-squeezy… this slice ‘n’ dice extravaganza doesn’t have much of a plot outside a lunatic escaping from the hospital and slaughtering people doing the nasty on his way to find his family in Florida. So… the original “Florida Man” story. Truth be told, you’ll need a shower after this. So grab your Old Spice shower gel and sparkly loofah, and go to town; because if you like your horror positively slathered in blood and weird sex, this is for you, you filthy animal.

 

Nasty Rating: 10/10 decapitated step-mothers “Nasty-licious” If anything should qualify as a video nasty, it’s this movie.

 

 

 

3) Dead & Buried (1981) dir. Gary Sherman

 

            Here’s one that manages to be both jarring, spooky, and legitimately excellent. Written by Dan O’Bannon of Alien (1979) fame, it centers on the quaint seaside town of Potter’s Bluff. Here, the locals like to murder passersby who then turn up alive and well, having joined the homicidal mob. It’s honestly so good, I don’t really want to spoil anything. Just know that the kills are not of the typical “single stab with a knife” variety and are kinda wince-inducing. Also, the atmosphere is par excellence.

 

Nasty Rating: 7/10 skin grafts “Sorta Nasty, more spooky” An essential horror film, but not quite the nastiest.

 

 

 

2) Don’t Go in the House (1979) dir. Joseph Ellison

 

            Taxi Driver (1976) but make Robert De Niro a serial killer who torches women to death with a flamethrower. That’s all this is. And yet, it’s brilliant. Dan Grimaldi is better known for his roles in The Sopranos, but here he turns in an excellent performance as an even-more-fucked-up Norman Bates who descends into madness after the death of his sadistic mother. Tackling themes such as child abuse and isolation, this is about as nasty as it gets. Unlike other champs on this list though, it’s both nasty and a great flick.

 

Nasty Rating: 9/10 incinerated blondes “Flaming Nasty” Highly recommended for those with strong stomachs or pyromania

 

 

 

1) Night of the Demon (1980) dir. James C. Wasson

 

            The ultimate bigfoot movie. The opening scene features a fisherman getting his arm ripped out if its socket wookie-style and the spurting blood filling a sasquatch footprint before the main title jumps onscreen. After that we get inter-species copulation, religious insanity, and a biker getting his dick ripped off while he attempts to take a leak. The level of nasty lunacy here is impossible to do justice in a blog post. Not scary. Not traditionally “good”. But nonetheless, it is an undeniably fun and gooey time.

 

Nasty Rating: 8/10 baby bigfoot skulls “Big, hairy Nasty” See it.

10 Great 70's Proto-Slashers

 

Starting with John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), the slasher phenomenon exploded. It not only set the course of horror for the coming decades, but effectively defined the 1980’s. In Wes Craven’s own Scream (1996) – perhaps the definitive ode to the genre – the term “horror movie” is used many times to describe slashers specifically; a sure sign that most people by that point considered the majority of horror cinema to be hulking killers offing teens one by one.

 

            The slice-n-dice boom of the early 80’s certainly didn’t come from nowhere, though many armchair internet writers like this one sometimes act like it did. Rather, it was the culmination in many ways of decades of refinement by exploitation filmmakers from all over the world. Alfred Hitchcock is often credited with making the granddaddy of them all with Psycho (1960). The film definitely bears many hallmarks, from a mysterious origin of evil, to a big bad using a butcher knife to hack up apparently random victims. And it doesn’t hurt that star Janet Leigh’s daughter is one Jamie Lee Curtis, providing an inextricable connection to Halloween.

            Shortly thereafter, Italian director Mario Bava launched the giallo genre beginning with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and cementing it his masterpiece Blood and Black Lace (1964). The tropes of giallo may seem familiar to slasher fans: Scantily clad ladies, operatically staged, graphic murders, and usually a deranged mass murderer. The 1960’s got the ball rolling, with filmmakers slowly turning away from the “kid friendly” approach to horror involving vampires, witches, werewolves, and Charlie Brown in favor of more adult-centric content and themes.

 

            Now we come to the 1970’s. An era of cinema that, thanks to the relaxing of content guidelines and collective disillusionment of the post-Vietnam era, is often considered something of a wild west. Serial killers entered the public consciousness for the first time. Crime and inflation pounded on the international economy. People were angry, and the movies got meaner. Over the course of about a decade leading up to Halloween, the approach to horror got slimmed down until the slasher emerged – a lean, mean, teen-killing machine. Today, we count down some of the greats that led to the genre’s final form. The prototypes, if you will, of a craze that defined a generation.

 

            As the great Bob Marley told us, “If you know your history, then you know where you are coming from…” So without further ado, here we have…

 

 

10 Great 70’s Proto-Slashers!

 

 

10) Tourist Trap (1979) dir. David Schmoeller

 

            Charles Band is better known today as the owner of the much-maligned home video company Full Moon Features, and as the director of such dubious gems as Evil Bong (2006). But in the 70’s he helped to produce a number of cult favorites, including this title from Compass International Pictures, concurrently made around the same time as their breakout success with Halloween. Tourist Trap revolves around a group of friends stranded at a roadside museum of curiosities. Incidentally, the museum is home to a maniac who can control dolls with his mind. Good luck sleeping tonight! The film is surprisingly creepy, but of course has more in common with the likes of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) than it does Friday the 13^th (1980). The body-count nature of it, however, is squarely in slasher territory.

 

9) The Toolbox Murders (1977) dir. Dennis Donnelly

 

            Hammers, screwdrivers, nail guns… good ol’ fashioned knives! A killer in a ski mask is stalking through an apartment complex and using his toolbox for some truly devious inspiration! Recognizable as slasher but pumped to the gills with blood, nudity, and scuzzy atmosphere, this exploitation flick earned itself a spot as a Section 2 video nasty thanks to the UK’s Video Recordings Act of 1984. One of the common features of 80’s slashers is their relative tameness in regard to the T’n’A. Sure, there were kills and boobs, but the appeal to teenagers lay in the innocent attitude of it all. The meaner attitude of the previous decade tosses innocence out the window in favor of sleaze, and here we have a prime example!

 

 

 

8) Drive-In Massacre (1976) dir. Stu Segall

 

            Here’s one that often shows up in discussions of “so bad it’s good” movies. And… it’s true! The gimmick this time out is a killer is randomly slaughtering people at a drive-in movie theater, and a couple “smart” cops are hot on his trail! It shouldn’t be this hard for them to catch a guy hacking at people with a huge-ass sword, but it is what it is. The gore is pretty great though, and we start to see some of the fat-trimming that streamlined these killer-on-the-loose offerings into the template we’re used to today. I, for one, still love going to the drive-in…

 

 

 

7) Don’t Answer the Phone (1979) dir. Robert Hammer

 

            Don’t Go in the Woods (1981), Don’t Go in the House (1980), Don’t Look in the Basement (1973), Don’t Go Near the Park (1979)… Scary flicks love telling us to not do things! I have a secret head canon that all the Don’t movies all share the same cinematic universe. It’s like Marvel, but with blood and generally not propping up the entire military industrial complex with ticket sales! Don’t Answer the Phone is one such installment that owes its existence directly to the 70’s hysteria about serial killers. The fascination with horrid crimes committed by the likes of Ted Bundy and Kenneth Bianchi is grippingly translated to the screen in the form of Kirk, who has an obsession with attacking and murdering women while wearing pantyhose as a mask. It’s a gritty, affecting work of grindhouse shlock, and one of the first of its kind to show us the events through the perspective of the villain. The first truly scary installment on this list.

 

 

 

6) The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) dir. Charles B. Pierce

 

            A surprisingly effective mash-up of grindhouse insanity and documentary format, The Town That Dreaded Sundown follows the dramatization of the very real Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946. Said murders – attributed to the so-called Phantom Killer – were never solved. Director Charles B. Pierce made several regional southern exploitation films, including The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), a “documentary” all about the supposed deep South bigfoot! The hybrid approach works well once more here, providing some fairly shocking kills while feeling somewhat safe for more mainstream audiences thanks to the inclusion of newspaper clips and a relaxing narrator. Of special note: The killer here is depicted wearing a burlap sack for a mask, something directly taken by Friday the 13^th Part II (1981) as the look of choice for the first outing of Jason Voorhees! As this list will show, it wouldn’t be the first film that movie stole things from…

 

 

 

5) Torso (1973) dir. Sergio Martino

 

            The first giallo to make this list is Sergio Martino’s grubby little shocker Torso, also known as I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale, translated: Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence! Yet another ski-masked killer is making his way through a group of university students, with yet another motive entrenched in fragile masculinity, so… that checks. Many of the future tropes are here in spades, including the college campus setting, a final girl, and even a secluded house for the finale. It’s also genuinely suspenseful, almost unbearably so in the third act where our heroine has to hide from the villain while he dismembers the bodies of his victims!

 

 

 

4) Massacre at Central High (1976) dir. Renée Daalder

 

            The first legitimately great film on this list combines future slasher themes with juvenile delinquency to create a biting political commentary about human nature and the drive for cultural revolution. David is a blue-collar transfer student to an upper-class prep school that seems to be run by a group of sadistic bullies. After standing up to them, David finds himself the recipient of their wrath and in the hospital with a shattered leg. Soon thereafter, the bullies expire in a series of apparent accidents, but the liberated student body then descends into chaos as they vie for a newfound social supremacy. It’s an excellent study of what can happen when the status quo is justly overthrown without a structure to take its place; and a subversively socialist call for not only the dismantling of capitalism, but also the creation of an equitable system that benefits all instead of a power vacuum to be filled by a new oppressor.

 

 

 

3) A Bay of Blood (1971) dir. Mario Bava

 

            Our second video nasty, and one of the best body-count flicks ever, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood is also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve, and Reazione a catena – Chain Reaction! The plotline is typical giallo, wherein a group of ne’er-do-wells all stand to inherit a lot of money as well as a massive lakeside estate from a recently deceased (read: murdered) countess. They then expire in a variety of creative ways. Who could the killer be? This was Bava’s second take on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians – the first being Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970) – and is the most direct blueprint there is for the future slasher genre as a whole. The kills are downright garish for the time and hold up well. Friday the 13^th Part II steals wholesale again by aping the centerpiece kill where two lovers are shish-kabob-ed together in the sack! Italian horror aficionados will recognize a number of faces, especially Laura Betti who couldn’t wait to work with Bava again after her excellent turn in Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970). Anyone looking for an entry point to eurocult exploitation should definitely start here.

 

 

 

2) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) dir. Tobe Hooper

 

            Next to Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the most common title to pop up when talking about the beginnings of the slasher film. Everyone and their mama know that it’s about some vacationing teens getting lost in the Texas wilderness and getting subsequently sliced, diced, and uh… seasoned by a bunch of cannibalistic, BBQ-obsessed hicks. Oh, and Leatherface. Not much to say except that the film is a masterpiece of tension and a veritable assault on the senses. Unlike the genre to come, and even its own sequels, there is an extreme lack of humor, or indeed levity at all, to lighten the mood. Chainsaw plays everything straight and deadly serious, making for one white-knuckle ride. Consider this: Director Tobe Hooper was aiming for a PG rating, and so didn’t include much of in the way of onscreen blood and guts, but the film is so intense it got an R anyway…

 

 

 

1) Black Christmas (1974) dir. Bob Clark

 

            Finally, we have the top spot, and my favorite movie ever next to Halloween! Black Christmas is an instant classic no matter how you… uh… slice it. A crazed, POV killer makes his way into a sorority house on Christmas Eve and makes a series of obscene phone calls before killing off the students. Bob Clark directs masterfully, and the film remains as scary and effective today as it did over forty years ago. Olivia Hussey, John Saxon, Keir Dullea, and the great Margot Kidder all turn in incredible performances. Everything about the flick works impeccably, and it deserves to be seen by anyone who likes movies, but especially those who love horror. Oh, and it’s quite possibly the most direct inspiration for a certain, oft-mentioned John Carpenter film.

 

Dear God, Still 10 More Underrated 80's Slashers

            After a brief hiatus, we have… 10 Underrated Slashers Part IV: The Final Chapter! It’s the last one! Just as much as every slasher sequel claiming to be “The Last One” definitely was. Guaranteed. Right?

 

            So, let me be honest. The ‘underrated’ part of this series is starting to get dubious. Some of these gems are truly horrible in every sense of the word. Some are certainly worthwhile, but… well, we don’t come to these movies for traditional qualities and if you’re reading this list then you’ve probably stuck around far longer than those normies out there.

 

            You know the formula by now: Unsuspecting teens/brides/hikers/innocents/douchebags run afoul of a deranged killer and an array of sharp implements. Gore! Boobs! Bad dialogue! Rip-offs of better movies! All in a breezy 80-90 minutes or so. Let’s get to it!

 

10) Don’t Go In the Woods (1981) dir. James Bryan

 

            One of the worst is certainly… one of the best? Shot on location in the Utah Rocky Mountains by a few friends who doubtless thought they were doing something special, this little independent curiosity centers on yet another group of hikers getting lost in the woods and picked off by… you guessed it! A throwback neanderthal caveman descendent. Put a chip on your bingo card. The main draw here is the admirable gore effects done by people who were pretty much making it up as they went. Spears, axes, knives, hysterics abound here. It actually adds up to something a bit more than the sum of its parts if you can deal with almost everything else about it.

 

 

9) Island of Blood (1982) dir. William T. Naud

 

            Also known as Whodunit, this slice of… uh… slicing is another entry in the pantheon of show-biz slashers alongside the likes of Curtains (1983) and Nightmares (1980). This time out, a group of actors are sequestered on an island to film a horror film of their own, only to be stalked by a killer who has a fondness for choosing his methods based on… the lyrics of his favorite song? Despite the cheapness of pretty much everything, the picture provides some decent atmosphere, and the central conceit offers plenty of variety to the mayhem. While much of the violence is offscreen, the makeup for the aftermath shots holds up well, and the runtime is short enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

 

 

 

8) The Forest (1982) dir. Don Jones

 

            Not to be confused with the more recent Natalie Dormer vehicle of the same name, The Forest combines the typical template of hikers getting murdered by a maniac in the woods with some good ol’ fashioned gothic ghost story nonsense. Oh, and there’s some cannibalism for good measure. A couple phantom children try to help and warn potential victims but are mostly unsuccessful. One thing this film has going for it – it’s not in the extremely poor taste of setting the entire thing in a forest famous for suicides like that aforementioned 2017 film. Like most of the entries on this list, there is a decent amount of the red stuff. Added to the weirdness, that makes for a breezy Saturday matinee for slasher freaks like Yours Truly.

 

 

 

7) Slaughterhouse (1987) dir. Rick Roessler

 

            Here’s one that ends up being something truly special! One-time director Rick Roessler takes a few cues from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Motel Hell (1980) in equal measure to deliver a comedic slasher that doesn’t skip on the humor or the kills. In a bid to save his meat factory from foreclosure, a slaughterhouse owner unleashes his towering idiot of a son on the unsuspecting buyers… and sheriff’s deputies… and random teens… pretty much anyone unlucky enough to wander by. The gore here is positively inspiring for such a low-budget flick, and the jokes tend to land. Well, they land if your sense of humor is screwed up beyond repair, at any rate. I think it’s hilarious!

 

 

 

6) Cemetery of Terror (1985) dir. Rubén Galindo Jr.

 

            Rubén Galindo Jr. consistently vies with René Cardona Jr. for the title of Mexploitation King. The Mexican director is also famous in horror cinema for outings such as Don’t Panic (1987) and Grave Robbers (1989). His directorial debut Cemetery of Terror features a group of unwise teens attempting to raise the dead… on Halloween night, naturally. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, the corpse they steal from the morgue happens to be that of a recently deceased serial killer obsessed with Satan and the Occult! Spoiler Alert: the ritual works, and they succeed in bringing him back to life. Lots of screaming in Spanish and Fulci-level gore effects ensue as he hacks his way through every doomed youth in sight while also raising some flesh-eating skeletons of his own. Genre-stalwart Hugo Stiglitz is on-hand to do his best poor-man’s Doctor Loomis as well. This is the first unmissable installment on this list!

 

 

 

5) Just Before Dawn (1981) dir. Jeff Lieberman

 

            After gaining some cult notoriety in the 70’s with midnight movie hits like Squirm (1976) and Blue Sunshine (1977), director Jeff Lieberman hopped on the early slasher boom with this entry in the backwoods hack-em-up canon. The premise is as familiar as mom and apple pie: A bunch of campers hiking in the woods encounter a machete-packing killer. But it’s in Oregon this time, so it’s… different? Nonetheless, Lieberman crams the feature with stylistic panache, aided by some quite believable effects and a great performance from Cool Hand Luke (1967) actor George Kennedy. Unlike many of the one-offs on this list, there’s an assured hand at the helm here that lifts it above the standard fair.

 

 

 

4) Eyes of a Stranger (1981) dir. Ken Wiederhorn

 

            Part Halloween (1978), part Rear Window (1954). Shock Waves (1977) director Ken Weiderhorn does his best at a John Carpenter/Alfred Hitchcock mash-up with Eyes of a Stranger, and it… surprisingly works quite well. A rapist serial killer is stalking the streets of Miami and an intrepid news host believes she knows who it is… and he lives in her apartment complex? FX Guru Tom Savini delivers some of the fantastic gore he’s famous for, and Jennifer Jason Leigh makes her big-screen debut as a trauma victim who is deaf, blind, and dumb. The sequences between her and the killer at the climax are legitimately terrifying, but the rest of the picture maintains a convincing level of suspense as well – when it doesn’t literally copy Halloween shot-for-shot… more than once. Also of note: this is the first of two entries on this list to feature a head in a fish tank.

 

 

 

3) He Knows You’re Alone (1980) dir. Armand Mastroianni

 

            This is the other entry that has a head in a fish tank! That didn’t take long. It’s also the second to boast a first-time film role for a future A-lister with a baby-faced Tom Hanks! He Knows Your Alone follows a bride-to-be who doesn’t want to be, stalked by a killer who kills women about to get married. It is one of the first films to jump on the craze started by Halloween, and many parts (especially the score) show it, including an obsessed cop as the stand-in for a Loomis character. It’s also quite a bit lighter on the bloodletting, but makes up for all these failings in atmosphere, style, and a lean narrative that cuts most of the unnecessary fat that other offerings use to appear more “serious”.

 

 

 

2) Alone in the Dark (1982) dir. Jack Sholder

 

            The first true classic on this list flips slasher conventions upside down to feature a team of killers over the usual solitary maniac. When their favored doctor dies, a group of institutionalized killers led by Jack Palance and Martin Landau escape their confinement to go after their new doctor – whom they blame for the last one’s demise – and his family. Hot on their heels is the great Donald Pleasence! The unique nature of the premise lands it high in the rankings alone, but it also succeeds on pretty much every level with a pitch-black sense of humor and some reliably excellent makeup effects from Tom Savini.

 

 

 

1) Fade to Black (1980) dir. Vernon Zimmerman

 

            Fade to Black is not only a great slasher, but also a bona fide great film period and an ode to classic Hollywood that trumps any modern nostalgia offering. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans will recognize a young Dennis Christopher as the bullied film nut Eric Binford, who is driven to kill by rejection while sporting a variety of classic movie costumes. In the same way as Maniac (1980), the audience sees most of the film through the eyes of the killer as opposed to the victims. Moreover, we’re encouraged to sympathize with Eric, as his isolation and pain drive him to take vengeance on those who have wronged him. The ending on the roof of the famous Mann Chinese Theater has all the heartfelt, dramatic gravitas of the best pictures from Hollywood’s golden years, and it’s absolutely essential for fans of the genre.