[Editorial] Deeper Cuts: 13 Non-Typical Slashers

Hack-O-Lantern (A.K.A. The Damning) (1988)

What it’s all about: An American family trying to celebrate Halloween as their friends are dying all around them. Who is running the violent cult behind the murders? 

What makes it special: I promise you have never seen a movie like this. It feels like an accidental anthology, with how many seemingly unrelated stories are stitched together by the end. At one point, the plot takes a break for a vaudeville show, including a woman doing a sexy dance with a snake, and an uncomfortable comedy routine.

The House on Sorority Row (1982)

What it’s all about: A prank-gone-wrong leads to a group of sorority sisters coving up a murder. They push through with their graduation party anyway, but when bodies start showing up, they have to wonder if the person they killed was ever really dead.

What makes it special: Even if you have seen the 2009 remake, the 1982 original is worth a watch. It has its own surprising plot twists, and questions of the supernatural variety. The acting is all over the place, as was the case in some ‘80s slashers, but you get the excellent line delivery of, “But how do we know that she is alive?”

Dark Ride (2006)

What it’s all about: A group of college friends on a road trip stop by an abandoned amusement park to check out a haunted attraction ride. But a killer is on the loose, and they get split up in an already scary setting. 

What makes it special: It’s one of the first 8 Films to Die For from After Dark Horror fest, which became a coveted prize throughout the 2000s. The beginning feels a bit like the Dr. Satan ride in House of 1000 Corpses, when we see the titular dark ride in action. The third act of the film takes place inside the haunt, before Hell House LLC or Haunt ever existed, and gave us some scary carnival imagery. The characters and tropes feel very ‘70s - including a hitchhiker to rival the weirdness of 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s hitchhiker - but with access to 2000s practical effects and hunger for gore.

Sorority House Massacre (1986)

What it’s all about: When a college student starts to uncover memories of her past, it awakens a psychic connection that puts her friends in danger. As her friends are killed off one by one, she has to try and remember her childhood to solve the mystery. 

What makes it special: Don’t let the name fool you. I love a basic sorority house slasher, but this is not one of those. This movie explores childhood trauma, sibling connections, psychic powers, an escaped killer, and buildings that hold memories.

Slash (2002)

What it’s all about: A rock band travels together to one of their member’s homes when there is a family emergency. The lead singer is ashamed of his background as a farmer, and embarrassed by his family on the farm. When the killings start, the band needs to figure out - is it the creepy farm hand, or someone else? 

What makes it special: This one is coming to you from the deep bargain-bins at your local big-box store in the early 2000s. Between the reigns of video rental stores and streaming, $5 DVDs were how we found the weird stuff. The film is straightforward enough, but it features original songs, and the fact that many horror fans haven’t seen it makes it special.

Pieces (1982)

What it’s all about: Long before Jigsaw was making tapes with instructions, a killer was cutting up college women and making a jigsaw puzzle of their body parts. An actual chainsaw massacre. 

What makes it special: A collaboration between Spain and the US gives this movie a unique flavor. The tone jumps back and forth, and one minute there is an uncomfortable amount of violence, and the next minute you’re laughing at an awkward line delivery, or a person doing martial arts out of nowhere. For a film with the tagline “It’s exactly what you think it is,” it’s actually much weirder.

Stay Alive (2006)

What it’s all about: “If you die in the game, you die for real.” The memorable tagline sums up the film well. A group of friends finds a beta-test version of a video game called Stay Alive. As they play, they notice that players are dying in real life in similar ways to their in-game deaths. They have to investigate and break the curse of Lady Bathory for a chance at survival. 

What makes it special: It’s a somewhat silly premise, but it had to be done, and the gaming culture, fear of tech, and horror trends of the time made 2006 the perfect year for this film. It’s a slasher in that a group of friends is picked off one by one by a force which is hunting them, but it’s unique in that the kills are all supernatural. You see the weapons in-game, but in real life, there are just the bodies. Rated PG-13, there’s not a ton of on-screen violence, but the deaths and sets area creative, based on the main villain’s use of torture to try and preserve her own beauty.

Tourist Trap (1979)

What it’s all about: If you saw House of Wax from 2005, the plot of Tourist Trap will sound familiar. Friends on a road trip stop by a roadside attraction wax museum, with a sinister secret. 

What makes it special: In 1979, the tropes of salshers had barely been established. That means Tourist Trap isn’t trying to adhere to any particular formula, and while I would still call it a slasher, it has elements of mystery and body horror as well. The practical effects throughout and the shocking final shot make this a must-watch.

You Might Be The Killer (2018)

What it’s all about: A camp counselor is terrified when bodies start to pile up around him, and he’s suffering from blackouts. He calls his best fiend, the horror movie buff, who explains that all clues point to…he might be the killer. 

What makes it special: The combo Allyson Hannigan of Buffy fame playing the genre-savvy one and Fran Kranz (who we fell in love with as the stoner in Cabin in the Woods) as the nervous maybe-killer make a powerhouse house meta-horror-comedy pairing. It rewards horror fans for knowing the camper-slasher tropes, and offers something new to the horror-comedy genre.

Curtains (1983)

What it’s all about: Actresses gather at a director’s remote home to audition for a part in his new film. A masked killer starts dropping them one by one, until the big reveal at the end. 

What makes it special: I mentioned a masked killer, but this mask is unlike any other slasher mask. The group is unique, in that it’s all women, some of them older, all gathered in a work capacity. Normally, slashers are groups of young men and women on a pleasure holiday. The situation in Curtains creates the possibility for unique motives and opportunities. The atmosphere is a little slower, and a little darker, than most slashers of the ‘80s.

Hatchet (2006)

What it’s all about: A group of college guys take a vacation to New Orleans, to help one of them get over a recent breakup. They go where they shouldn’t, and take a swamp tour that leads them right into the territory of the legendary killer who supposedly lives in the woods. 

What makes it special: Hatchet takes “kids trespassing and stumbling into a slasher” to a new level. The bayou is an excellent and unique setting for a slasher, with creepy scenery to add to the tension. For the gorehounds (me included), it has some of the nastiest kills I have ever seen in a slasher. Horror loves and horror icons came together to give us the kind of film that fit so perfectly into 2006.

Hell Fest (2018)

What it’s all about: A group of young adults plan an evening of fun at a Halloween-themed amusement park. Scary rides, thrilling shows, and jump scares surround them as they drag their hesitant final girl to “have some fun.” But someone is taking advantage of the show, and under cover in a park costume and mask, begins a killing spree. 

What makes it special: The same year as Blood Fest and a year before Haunt, which have similar setups, Hell Fest does it the best. The friends are lovable and relatable, the kills are scary, the chase scenes are tense. And it’s all set in an event that I would absolutely attend, danger be damned. If you want a Halloween-themed modern slasher to add to your rotation, this is your film.

The Hills Run Red (2009)

What it’s all about: An obsessive horror fan wants nothing more than to find the never-before-seen, lost-to-time horror film by a legendary director. With nothing more to go on than a creepy trailer and a handful of eyewitness accounts, he and his friends set out on a quest to find this film. On the way, they find a lot more than they bargained for. 

What makes it special: On its face, it looks a lot like other slashers - kids go into the woods, and some of them don’t come out. But it combines the nastiness of the 2000s (for us gorehounds) with a meta-layer popularized after Scream (1996). Horror fans are both honored and teased, and our obsession is put on display. How far would any of us go to find lost horror films (uncut versions of The Devils (1971) or Freaks (1932), for example)? This film will keep you asking yourself that question, up until the bloody end.

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