Slasher Movies
The slasher is horror's simplest formula: an unstoppable killer, a group of young people, and a body count. These are the best of them, from the 1970s originals to the revival of the last decade, when filmmakers started bending the formula into comedies, time loops, period pieces and even a romance.
The useful choice is tone. If you want it straight and scary, the originals still work: Halloween, Black Christmas and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are tense and surprisingly low on blood. If you want a laugh with the kills, Scream, Freaky, Happy Death Day and Heart Eyes know exactly what they're doing. And if you've seen all the obvious ones, X, Pearl and In a Violent Nature are doing something genuinely new with an old shape.
Modern slashers are much gorier than the originals, and the notes flag which ones go furthest. We've left out the Terrifier films, which are extreme enough to be a separate decision. The PG-13 options for younger teenagers are Happy Death Day and The Final Girls. For more, see Horror Movies for Halloween Night, Horror Comedies and Classic Horror Movies.
Halloween
Movie · 1978Start here, because everything else on this page is either copying it or arguing with it. Michael Myers has no motive, no quips and barely a face, and the film keeps him lurking at the edge of the frame. Patient by today's standards, and almost bloodless.
Scream
Movie · 1996The film that revived the slasher in the 1990s by letting its teenagers know the rules: don't have sex, don't drink, never say "I'll be right back." Wes Craven, who also made A Nightmare on Elm Street, sends up the genre and still delivers a proper whodunit.
X
Movie · 2022Ti West's slasher set in 1979: a crew shooting a cheap porn film on a Texas farm discovers that the elderly couple who own it have appetites of their own. Grimy and patient in the Texas Chain Saw tradition, with Mia Goth in two roles. Explicit sex and nudity first, then a lot of blood.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Movie · 1984Freddy Krueger gave the slasher a personality: burned face, striped sweater, a glove of blades, and a sense of humor that grew with every sequel. The first film is the scary one, before the jokes took over. Heather Langenkamp's Nancy sets traps rather than waiting to be rescued.
Halloween (2018)
Movie · 2018Forty years on, Laurie Strode is a grandmother who has spent her life preparing for Michael Myers to come back. It ignores every sequel and picks up straight from the 1978 film, with Jamie Lee Curtis returning and John Carpenter co-writing the score. The two follow-ups are much weaker; this one stands alone.
Black Christmas
Movie · 1974Four years before Halloween, a Canadian film about a sorority house emptying out for the holidays, obscene phone calls, and a killer hiding in the attic. Bob Clark, who later made A Christmas Story, keeps the killer almost entirely unseen. Often called the first true slasher. Skip both remakes.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Movie · 1974The slasher's other founding father: a hulking killer in a mask of human skin, swinging a chainsaw in broad daylight. Where Halloween is cool and controlled, this is chaos. It feels sweaty and dangerous in a way that none of the many sequels and remakes has managed.
Scream (2022)
Movie · 2022Twenty-five years after the original, a new Ghostface goes after a new group of teenagers, and the old survivors come back. It mocks the idea of the "requel" while being one, and it's smart about it. Jenna Ortega takes the opening phone call. Noticeably more brutal than the 1996 film.
Friday the 13th
Movie · 1980Counselors reopen a lakeside summer camp with a dark past, and get picked off one by one in the woods. Thinner than Halloween, and it knows it, but Tom Savini's makeup effects made the kills the star. Kevin Bacon is in it. The hockey mask doesn't show up until the third film.
Happy Death Day
Movie · 2017The way into slashers for people who don't like slashers: the story resets every time its heroine dies, so each murder becomes a clue rather than a full stop. Most kills happen just off screen. The sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, leans further into science fiction.
Fear Street Part One: 1994
Movie · 2021The first of three connected films about a cursed town, released a week apart in 2021, so the whole story is there to finish. It's based on R.L. Stine's books but far bloodier, with a bread-slicer scene people still bring up. A grown-up slasher, despite the Goosebumps author's name.
Candyman
Movie · 1992A graduate student researching urban legends in Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project finds one that's true. Tony Todd's hook-handed Candyman is seductive as well as frightening, and Philip Glass's score makes the whole thing feel like a tragedy. A 2021 sequel, co-written by Jordan Peele, picks up the story.
Pearl
Movie · 2022The prequel to X, set on the same Texas farm in 1918, and a stranger film: a young woman dreams of escaping into the movies, shot like a Technicolor musical gone rotten. Mia Goth co-wrote it, and her long monologue near the end is the reason to watch. Fewer kills, more dread.
Freaky
Movie · 2020A teenage girl and a middle-aged serial killer swap bodies, so Vince Vaughn gets to play a shy high schooler while Kathryn Newton stalks the hallways. From the director of Happy Death Day, but rated R, and the kills are gory and inventive. Funny first, slasher second.
Thanksgiving
Movie · 2023Eli Roth turned a fake trailer from 2007's Grindhouse into a real film: a year after a deadly Black Friday stampede, a killer in a Pilgrim mask stalks a Massachusetts town. Gleefully gory and played as a dark joke about holiday shopping. Save it for November, if you can wait.
You're Next
Movie · 2011A wealthy family's anniversary dinner is interrupted by crossbow bolts through the window and killers in animal masks. Then one of the guests turns out to know exactly what to do. A home-invasion slasher with a mean sense of humor, and Sharni Vinson's survivor is the best reason to see it.
The Final Girls
Movie · 2015A teenager still grieving her mother, a former scream queen, gets pulled into the cheesy 1980s camp slasher her mom starred in, and meets her again as the character. Rated PG-13 and more touching than you'd expect: the jokes about slasher clichés sit on top of a real mother-daughter story.
Totally Killer
Movie · 2023When a killer from the 1980s resurfaces and murders her mother, a teenager travels back to 1987 to stop the original spree. Back to the Future with a body count, and most of the comedy is about how strange the '80s look from now. Light and fun rather than scary.
Heart Eyes
Movie · 2025A masked killer who targets couples every Valentine's Day, and two coworkers who aren't a couple but keep getting mistaken for one. It's a real romantic comedy and a real slasher, with banter and gore in about equal measure. A good compromise when only one of you likes horror.
In a Violent Nature
Movie · 2024A slasher told almost entirely from behind the killer, as he trudges through the Ontario woods with almost no music on the soundtrack. Long, quiet stretches of walking are broken by kills among the most graphic in the genre. Divisive, original, and not for squeamish viewers.
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.