The Slasher Film Thread

[Dayna]

I know Jussi and I LOVE Slasher films and here's hoping there are other fans of the genre on here..
Talk about anything to do with The Genre..
I just bought "Backwoods with Haylie Duff" and "Cold Prey"both were just OK..I had heard so many good things about Cold Prey and they even made part 2 but Pun intended it left me cold.. Not much gore at all and the killer's back story was never explained..Backwoods was better but a knock off of Eden Lake meets Timber Falls with some Wrong Turn thrown in but all three of those films were FAR superior~!
Looking forward to the remake of "The Stepfather" Sorority Row" a remake of the 80's slasher "The House On Sorority Row"and "It's Alive" about the killer baby..
Plus dying to see "Wrong Turn 3 Left For Dead'
Some of my favorite retro slashers

Halloween
Black Christmas
Friday the 13th part 2
Suspria
Maniac
Madman
The Burning
Hell Night
Just Before Dawn
Prom Night
The Prowler
Happy BIrthday To Me
The Intruder
The Mutilator
My Bloody Valentine
Mothers Day
The Funhouse
Sleepaway Camp
SO many more..I have every retro slasher that's been put on DVD..

[JussiK]

Ah, Miss Dayna, a great thread!
The bad news is Martyrs director Pascal Laugier has been removed from the Hellraiser remake. Just as we were recovering from the removal of A L'Interieur/Inside guys Bustillo&Maury from the said project. Worse could follow if Antti Annila, the Finnish director of the pretentious historical Tarkovsky "horror" facsimile Sauna actually gets dragged in as threatened. Annila claimed Sauna was never intended as a horror film and that he hates the whole gore genre. And they're possibly leaving the Hellraiser remake into the hands of this kind of bore?!

But then again, neither Martyrs nor Hellraiser were actual slashers, though slashing and ripping were very much in evidence in Martyrs especially. That film in it's original theatrical release form gets my vote for the most vicious horror film ever but still, it's no slasher.

My faves among the slashers...often an addiction may have been partly formed in the cinema due to one's general mood during the screening. That's the explanation I have for my love for Terror Eyes/Night School, about the mild decapitation murders committed by a motorcyclist in kinky black leather. The slayings are far less explicit than the abuse dealed by the similarily attired murderer of Sergio Martino's fab Strip Nude For Your Killer / Nuda per L'Assassino, or in Dallamano's What Have They Done To Your Daughters/ La Polizia Chiede Aiuto, but still, the film has a certain je ne sais quioi-ness to it, and I recall having a blast with it as a 1st year student at the university. Other faves include
The Visiting Hours
My Bloody Valentine (original)
The Prowler
The Slayer
Don't Open Till Christmas
Frightmare (1974, Walker)
Night Warning ( starring the unique Susan Tyrrell )
Killer's Moon ( The premise has escaped lunatics under the impression they are just under powerful sedatives and living out cathartic fantasies, not really raping and murdering a busload of schoolgirls shuttered away in a British manor house)
Halloween (of course)
Black Christmas ( naturally)
Evil Dead Trap 2 ( from Japan )

and just about any Italian giallo film ever made ( IF giallos and slashers can be decioded to be of the same essence?), especially all the early Argentos up until Opera, the Mario Bava protoslashers Blood and Black Lace/Sei Donne per L'Assassino and Bay of Blood/Reazione a Catena, and all the Sergio Martino classics with The Real Queen of International Cinema, Miss Edwige Fenech, who was also brilliant in Giuliano Carnimeo's Why Those Strange Dops of Blood On The Body of Jennifer/Perché quelle strane Cocce Di sanque sull' Corpo di Jennifer.

And the Nouveau gore films out of France of course, very good most of them. And from the US I liked the remake of My Bloody Valentine and the other 3D flick, Scar, say what you will!

[Dayna]

Ah, Miss Dayna, a great thread!
The bad news is Martyrs director Pascal Laugier has been removed from the Hellraiser remake. Just as we were recovering from the removal of A L'Interieur/Inside guys Bustillo&Maury from the said project. Worse could follow if Antti Annila, the Finnish director of the pretentious historical Tarkovsky "horror" facsimile Sauna actually gets dragged in as threatened. Annila claimed Sauna was never intended as a horror film and that he hates the whole gore genre. And they're possibly leaving the Hellraiser remake into the hands of this kind of bore?!

But then again, neither Martyrs nor Hellraiser were actual slashers, though slashing and ripping were very much in evidence in Martyrs especially. That film in it's original theatrical release form gets my vote for the most vicious horror film ever but still, it's no slasher.

My faves among the slashers...often an addiction may have been partly formed in the cinema due to one's general mood during the screening. That's the explanation I have for my love for Terror Eyes/Night School, about the mild decapitation murders committed by a motorcyclist in kinky black leather. The slayings are far less explicit than the abuse dealed by the similarily attired murderer of Sergio Martino's fab Strip Nude For Your Killer / Nuda per L'Assassino, or in Dallamano's What Have They Done To Your Daughters/ La Polizia Chiede Aiuto, but still, the film has a certain je ne sais quioi-ness to it, and I recall having a blast with it as a 1st year student at the university. Other faves include
The Visiting Hours
My Bloody Valentine (original)
The Prowler
The Slayer
Don't Open Till Christmas
Frightmare (1974, Walker)
Night Warning ( starring the unique Susan Tyrrell )
Killer's Moon ( The premise has escaped lunatics under the impression they are just under powerful sedatives and living out cathartic fantasies, not really raping and murdering a busload of schoolgirls shuttered away in a British manor house)
Halloween (of course)
Black Christmas ( naturally)
Evil Dead Trap 2 ( from Japan )

and just about any Italian giallo film ever made ( IF giallos and slashers can be decioded to be of the same essence?), especially all the early Argentos up until Opera, the Mario Bava protoslashers Blood and Black Lace/Sei Donne per L'Assassino and Bay of Blood/Reazione a Catena, and all the Sergio Martino classics with The Real Queen of International Cinema, Miss Edwige Fenech, who was also brilliant in Giuliano Carnimeo's Why Those Strange Dops of Blood On The Body of Jennifer/Perché quelle strane Cocce Di sanque sull' Corpo di Jennifer.

And the Nouveau gore films out of France of course, very good most of them. And from the US I liked the remake of My Bloody Valentine and the other 3D flick, Scar, say what you will!

Great info and great films~!!
I wonder if u know if The new slasher coming out entitled"Jennifer's Body" staring the beautiful but attitude ridden Megan Foxx is a remake of the film u mentioned above .. I also loved "Stage Fright" the killer with that wore the Owl head from a costume he found back stage..
I also loved Visiting Hours..Michael ironside was a great villian in that film.
I liked the Hellraiser franchise but it wasn't one of my fav's.. a remake would be something I would sefinately watch but not something I couldn't live without.Especially since said above is now not involved..I saw the rated version of "Martyrs" but loved it .. in the uncut did they show her being skinned? they didn't in the R version..

[JussiK]

No, you don't get to see the girl skinned, they just wrap her into the table and she begins to scream. The next thing you see of her is the result.
Still, the US R-rated version of Martyrs is very toned down - please Miss D get your hands ( the nails painted Blood Red no doubt) into the unrated original, at any cost. All of the attack/delirium scenes of the first hour of the film are shortened in the US version, and completely missing is THE one segment that made 2 members of the audience at the Sitges horror fest screening faint, to actually drop on the floor. That unflinching atrocity is the most difficult thing to watch I've ever seen in a narrative film meant for general distribution. When Martyrs came out here, I went right back to another screening the next day, just to observe the audience reactions during that sequence. Teenage boys turning their heads away is disbelief, people audibly beginning to sob. There was not one nervous burst of tittering you usually get when a multiplex crowd is faced with a sudden extreme scene of outrage.

No, the new Jennifer thing is a zombie comedy, nothing to do with the wickedly stylish Italian film involving models, playboys and scheming lesbians targeted by a maniac in a luxury high rise. The film is available on dvd as The Case Of The Bloody Iris.

Oh yes, Stage Fright is such a beautiful film. From Soavi, other must-sees are, well, everything he ever did, especially The Sect/La Setta, The Church/La Chiesa and Dellamorte Dellamore ( beware of the US cut called Graveyard Man), starring Rupert Everett. The newest film Arrivederci Amore Ciao is also hauntingly gorgeous, mixing crime, giallo and warped psychodrama elements.

How about BORDERLAND, then, the recent US entry in genre? That never played in theatres here which is a shame, but I snatched up the dvd as soon as it came out. This film is a beauty with all the ingredients in the right places, including actual nailbiting suspense, not just gross-out setpieces. The narrative flows, the acting is good and technically, it's flawless and pretty gorgeous to look at. Also, the overall mood is very serious which is of course a welcome diversion, no? And to think the film is based on real events in Mexico...gulp!

[Dayna]

I LOVE Borderland..I have all the 8 Films To Die For..But Borderland was awesome as was
Frontier(s)Actually one of my favorites..I liked Lake Dead too but it got alot of criticism..This years batch was pretty good, Autopsy being my favorite..Dying Breed was not bad and I thought From Within was like the OC or Beverly Hills 90210 tries to make a horror film"I HATED IT"although the end was clever...and it got high praise:icon_eek:
I also really liked The Butterfly Effect 3,It got bad reviews too..

My fav's from the last 3 years of Horror fest are
Frontier(s)
Borderland
Tooth and Nail-the end was so satisfying
Dark Ride
Autopsy
Penny Dreadful
Butterfly Effect 3
Lake Dead
Wicked Little things
Slaughter-not gory but a very believable story and satisfying

[needlefingers]

My "gore fest" needs tend to run towards the low budget, bad acting end of the genre.

So I like things like Basket Case and Splatter Farm (a very sick film).

Just last week, I caught The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. It stars Renee Zellwegger and Matthew McConaughey in what is obviously their first feature roles.

While it looked like it had a budget, they skimped on the blood. Still, Matthew stole the picture, and my heart.

While I'm here, does anyone remember a picture where, I believe, 5 people get lost in a town, and are pampered and then murdered?

One scene had a woman on a picnic, and the guy, supposedly, cuts her thumb off by mistake. He takes her to the town doctor and the doctor says her arm is going to have to come off. So he gets an ax and chops it off.

Which reminds me of a family favorite. Strait-Jacket with Joan Crawford.

:icon_twisted:

[Dayna]

My "gore fest" needs tend to run towards the low budget, bad acting end of the genre.

So I like things like Basket Case and Splatter Farm (a very sick film).

Just last week, I caught The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. It stars Renee Zellwegger and Matthew McConaughey in what is obviously their first feature roles.

While it looked like it had a budget, they skimped on the blood. Still, Matthew stole the picture, and my heart.

While I'm here, does anyone remember a picture where, I believe, 5 people get lost in a town, and are pampered and then murdered?

One scene had a woman on a picnic, and the guy, supposedly, cuts her thumb off by mistake. He takes her to the town doctor and the doctor says her arm is going to have to come off. So he gets an ax and chops it off.

Which reminds me of a family favorite. Strait-Jacket with Joan Crawford.

:icon_twisted:

That would be The 1964 Hershal Gordon Lewis gore classic 2000 maniacs..all about The South rising again and killing yankees.lol..They did a remake of it in 2006 called 2001 maniacs with Robert Englund..It was pretty good, and very gory..I like Basket Case.I like Xtra cheese with some of my films..hehe
I Love Straight Jacket as well as Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte ~! I Loved it when they wanted Joan to be her younger character how they put SO much vasaline and cheese cloth over the camera u could hardly see her.lol
I have all the TC Massacre' films.but then again I have every Slasher and slasher-esque film that's avaliable to me on DvD

[JussiK]

HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE is a class act for sure, oozing with atmosphere, you can smell the dust in that mansion. Don't you get a sudden craving for those 60's b&w shockers from time to time, stuff like HUSH, STRAIGHTJACKET and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING? Talking of which, let us not forget a grand old man of the genre, Roy Boulton's TWISTED NERVE, out on dvd. This caused some controversy upon it's late 60's realese as the film implied that mongoloid children would all grow up to be homicidal maniacs. Great axe murders, retards stabbing people, people having nice cups of tea while exhanging meaningful looks etc. But the one British film that I'm dying to get on dvd almost as much as Ken Russell's THE DEVILS and the UNCUT version of Michael Winner's DIRTY WEEKEND is THE PENTHOUSE. I recall seeing this in a cinema as a child - there was one place in my town that let anyone with enough money for a ticket in, regardless of age - and it disturbed me a lot, shaping me into the individual I'm today.

8 to DIE FOR...I liked the one about the woman who went to Russia to discover what happened to her mother, whatsitcalled, THE ABANDONED? Creepy old dark house stuff, bring it on.

Talking of Russia, please read Jasper Kent's TWELVE. This is no mawkish Twilight/Kelley Armstrong/Anne Rice-style obnoxious teeny vampire romance but a full-blooded horror story, set in 1811 when Napoleon's army made it's way towards Moscow. To defend their city, Russian military experts hire a mysterious clan of assassins, that turn out to be The Wurdalak, vampires.

Back to films. Julie Delpy's THE COUNTESS is opening here next week, I'll be checking it out asap (right after the madonna concert my wife is forcing me to attend with her and two other nice bourgeois couples - how can I face my dj friends if they see me there? But then again why are they there themselves? I just know I'm going to hate it all, the 80.000 people pushing and shoving and lining up to the toilets and sporting naff maddy t-shirts ). THE COUNTESS is the Erzebeth Bathory story, told also in Hammer's COUNTESS DRACULA and one of the episodes of Borowczyk's IMMORAL TALES.

[needlefingers]

Thanks Dayna, for the title 2000 Maniacs. When I was looking at the trailer on youtube, there were so many other movies that came up in the search that reminded me of my youth at the drive-in's, especially the Airport Drive-In by The Copa.

Spider Baby is another fave of mine.

YouTube - SPIDER BABY - Promotional Clip

[Dayna]

HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE is a class act for sure, oozing with atmosphere, you can smell the dust in that mansion. Don't you get a sudden craving for those 60's b&w shockers from time to time, stuff like HUSH, STRAIGHTJACKET and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING? Talking of which, let us not forget a grand old man of the genre, Roy Boulton's TWISTED NERVE, out on dvd. This caused some controversy upon it's late 60's realese as the film implied that mongoloid children would all grow up to be homicidal maniacs. Great axe murders, retards stabbing people, people having nice cups of tea while exhanging meaningful looks etc. But the one British film that I'm dying to get on dvd almost as much as Ken Russell's THE DEVILS and the UNCUT version of Michael Winner's DIRTY WEEKEND is THE PENTHOUSE. I recall seeing this in a cinema as a child - there was one place in my town that let anyone with enough money for a ticket in, regardless of age - and it disturbed me a lot, shaping me into the individual I'm today.

8 to DIE FOR...I liked the one about the woman who went to Russia to discover what happened to her mother, whatsitcalled, THE ABANDONED? Creepy old dark house stuff, bring it on.

Talking of Russia, please read Jasper Kent's TWELVE. This is no mawkish Twilight/Kelley Armstrong/Anne Rice-style obnoxious teeny vampire romance but a full-blooded horror story, set in 1811 when Napoleon's army made it's way towards Moscow. To defend their city, Russian military experts hire a mysterious clan of assassins, that turn out to be The Wurdalak, vampires.

Back to films. Julie Delpy's THE COUNTESS is opening here next week, I'll be checking it out asap (right after the madonna concert my wife is forcing me to attend with her and two other nice bourgeois couples - how can I face my dj friends if they see me there? But then again why are they there themselves? I just know I'm going to hate it all, the 80.000 people pushing and shoving and lining up to the toilets and sporting naff maddy t-shirts ). THE COUNTESS is the Erzebeth Bathory story, told also in Hammer's COUNTESS DRACULA and one of the episodes of Borowczyk's IMMORAL TALES.

I totally forgot 'The Abandoned"..That had the best use of Dopplegangers I have seen in a movie ever..
YES I love the old B&W thrillers..OMG..I have to find Twisted Nerve it sounds fabulous..Of course we all love "The Bad Seed" I was in shock when I saw that as a child..
lol..have fun at the Madge Concert..:icon_lol:

Needlefingers..Spider Baby is a wonderful cult classic..LOVE IT~!!
and OMG.. The Copa and an old Drive in.. what more could anyone ever want????????????

[JussiK]

Talking of retards used in films in a distasteful manner, check out the dvd of the truly outré Hong Kong slasher RED TO KILL, a big budget outrage made during the late 80's golden period of anything-goes category 3 shockers. More extreme than THE UNTOLD STORY or THE EBOLA SYNDROME, this also makes for an excellent gift item. hand it over at the next wedding and see that the dvd is placed to it's rightful place in front of all the boringly obvious Lalique vases and bottles of Dom P.

Ah, THE BAD SEED, I could watch it over and over again!

Jose Mojica Marins has a new film out - and after Brazil, it's getting a theatrical realese in the UK! Lucky Bastards! The film EMBODIMENT OF EVIL was also screened in Canada:
Ubisoft Presents Fantasia 2009 | News & Articles

[Nano]

Jussi! The film festival I work for in Buenos Aires screened EMBODIMENT OF EVIL last April and I had the honor of introducing the man himself in one of the screenings. The man still has it and this one must be his biggest produced movie ever.

Of course being Mojica it's a film with more macabre incantations than real slashers... but very moody and of course at times very funny. Mojica told the audience that his character Zé do Caixão had been used by Brazilian mothers to scare their children in the past, as in "drink all the soup or I call Zé do Caixão!" Can you imagine? :icon_mrgreen:

[JussiK]

Oh jesus, you met Mr Marins, in the flesh! Must have been quite something. I'm a huge fan of his films and dying to catch the new one at some fest to see it on a real screen, before it hits the dvd market. He is a true auteur and a genuine surrealist, and it was good to see his latest get a respectful review in the leading film magazine in the world, Films And Filming.