Retro Slashers

Much has been made on the treatment of females and the representation of sexuality within the horror genre. Critics have constantly overanalysed a genre whose primary function is to entertain, often stating that the slasher film represents male’s fear of feminism and that the gruesome acts of violence that these type of films focus on [...]

Ten years before collaborating on the successful cult classic Puppet Master, director David Schmoeller and producer Charles Band created Tourist Trap, a bizarre lost-in-the-wilderness thriller that sees a group of young friends falling foul of a devilish museum of mannequins.

2009 celebrates thirty years since the release of Zombi 2, the movie that would not only cause controversy around the world but would also launch its creator to both great acclaim and notoriety. But there was more to Lucio Fulci than just excessive gore at the hands of the living dead, for the Italian filmmaker had [...]

There are very few trilogies that end with their strongest story, so it often comes as a disappointment when the third and final film of any series is released.

As the slasher boom came to an end, with most major studios bowing out of the genre and leaving just the independent filmmakers to milk the concept dry, a struggling director by the name of Wes Craven had penned a script full of original ideas and inventive deaths,

Whilst throughout the seventies special makeup effects artists such as Stan Winston and Rick Baker had become renowned for their work, their achievements were still often eclipsed by the recognition that the directors and actors would receive.

With only student films to his name, USC graduate John Carpenter had achieved minor acclaim with his exploitation thriller Assault on Precinct 13. For his next project, a producer had approached him about writing and directing a movie about ‘a babysitter being stalked by the boogeyman.’

The slasher film took its inspiration from various sources, such as real life serial killers and literature, but one of its most obvious influences was the giallo, the Italian crime genre that was first bought to prominence in the 1960′s with the works of Mario Bava.

It could be argued that before Friday the 13th there was no slasher genre. The concept had been explored in everything from Black Christmas to Halloween, but the explosion of the low budget slice ‘n’ dice flicks that flooded the drive-ins in the early eighties were more a product of the success of Friday

Romano Scavolini’s Nightmare was one of the most notorious of all the slasher films to emerge in the eighties. Distributed in the United Kingdom under the more infamous moniker Nightmare in a Damaged Brain