Retro Slashers

You are browsing the archives of 2009 March.

Proto-Slashers: Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slasher movies.
Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Suppose an infamous serial killer had a baby daughter who witnessed her father murder her mother. Years later, the memory of the event buried, the daughter commits a series of murders herself. That’s [...]

One of the most beautiful things about the horror genre is how utterly subjective it is. One man’s Madman is another man’s Prom Night. OK, I love both of those movies, but you get my point, see? I have spent years analyzing what it is about certain slashers that chill me to the bone. Even [...]

INTERVIEW: Christian Sellers

How did you first develop a taste for acting and what was your first introduction into the industry?

Note: This interview was conducted for RS in 2005
Films become legendary for different reasons. Some are plagued with problems; others manage to transcend the art form and become something else entirely. Then there is the rarest beast indeed, the movie that no one knows anything about. You know it exists, you’ve seen it. You even [...]

Time for us to delve deeper into the mysterious world of mysterious slasher mysteries, with two classic cases from the Vaults of the Unknown. Last time, readers were kind enough to share their opinions and extra information concerning the conundrums featured, and I encourage you to do so again if you think you know something [...]

One of the names most associated with the slasher genre is not director or even an actor, but a makeup artist. Tom Savini became synonymous with gory splatter effects in the early 1980’s after his groundbreaking work on the likes of Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 [...]

With Halloween 2 set for release later this year, Retro Slashers looks back on the life and career of the man responsible for the original classic,
JOHN CARPENTER.

Back in the late 1970’s Tobe Hooper was set to direct a film titled The Mutilator, a simple tale concerning either the adventures of a zombie slasher or an escaped mongoloid, depending on which Hollywood Urban Legend you read.  Hooper only lasted a day behind the camera and was replaced by Bud Cardos.  The script [...]

I’ve been wanting to do a little tribute to The Prey, one of the more underrated slashers, but as you may have noticed (or not!), I’m only on RS sporadically (something I truly regret), which means Prey week is looking like it might not happen. So instead, I thought I’d do my posts in piecemeal.
Today, [...]

Rue Morgue’s Best Fiction Book of 2008, SHOCK FESTIVAL, is getting a DVD adaptation (of sorts). Fangoria recently posted an insightful Interview With Author Stephen Romano which outlines plans for the disc.

The second LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT movie (third, if you rightly count THE VIRGIN SPRING as the first) is now in theaters across the ol’ USA. Worldwide release dates vary (I sure won’t be getting here it down under in anytime soon).

Proto-Slashers: Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slasher movies.

During my reckless teenage years I developed an addiction to Jess Franco flicks. My favorite Franco flick, other than those made with Klaus Kinski, is Bloody Moon. Severin recently released Bloody Moon on dvd so now I’m finally able to see Jess Franco’s only slasher uncut. And boy does the blood flow [...]

Life is full of tantalizing mysteries… How did they build the Pyramids? What are UFOs? Is there an afterlife? And how did Lipstick Jungle get a second season? Okay, some of those are perhaps not quite so tantalizing, but I’m ignoring them all anyway in order to concentrate on some of horror history’s most intriguing [...]

Last month you heard about Code Red DVD releasing a lost retro slasher so rare, it isn’t even on the IMDB under any title we know of - that would be NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER. Now the company are back with a slam dunk of an update.