Retro Slashers

Anyone here remember White Sister? Well, I hope so because they were the band featured in the clever movie-within-a-music-video-within-a-movie at the beginning of Killer Party. That’s one band I always thought was created for a film. I mean, they just look too much of their time, you know? But I was wrong. This band was [...]

Let’s face it, as far as slashers go the 90s was a big fat dud. It’s not like the late 80s were always something to write home about but at least there were some good attempts and honestly, the direct to video market, which was just beginning to take off, offered some potential to the [...]

It would be really easy to sit here and talk about the things in Night Screams that went wrong. So much of it isn’t very good technically. But it was 1987 and slashers were drifting away from the theater and were popping up more and more as direct-to-video efforts. It was an interesting time in [...]

For a late entry into the slasher genre, Night Visitor doesn’t do a bad job of twisting a little convention to create an entertaining, if mostly bloodless movie. Derek Rydall plays Billy, a spunky boy-who-cried-wolf type who likes to tell tall tales to just about anybody who will listen. This has made him the nemesis [...]

“Look what you did to me!” OK, that quote comes late into the film, but it’s a doozy. Phantom of the Mall should have been one of those movies that aren’t as entertaining as they ends up being. But this tale of love and revenge is pretty fun, not to mention it captures that little [...]

Marie Antoinette practically made losing your head in vogue and my how it’s lasted through the years! Undoubtedly one of the worst ways to go, our favorite genre films kept rolling (ha!) with the punches, supplying one gratuitous decapitation after another. And how we love them! 1. The Omen (1976) – Without a doubt, the [...]

I’m a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock and roll. Yeah, I like my movies gory and scary. As time passes, I’ve discovered a camp of moviegoers who find gore scary and sometimes prefer the sharp end of a blade to a shot of a bomb under a table, ticking away. Far be [...]

Somebody asked me why I like horror and I wrote the following essay. Now if only I could remember who asked and why! I stumbled across this and thought it relevant to Retro Slashers, so here goes! Enjoy! I have wondered for many years now what it is that draws me to horror films, and [...]

Maybe I’m spreading this thought too thin, because there is psychological motivation in most slashers. Whether it be Jason avenging mommy’s death or the sociopathic stalking of the unstoppable force known as Michael Myers, some kind of inner demon (the non-literal kind) has inhabited the most notorious killers of the slasher genre. And then there [...]

Producer Charles Band and director David Schmoeller may be more famous for their collaboration on the Puppetmaster series, but before Band’s company Full Moon had its finger on the pulse on the B movie industry, this duo created a surrealistic little number known as Tourist Trap. A group of good looking young adults are on [...]