Retro Slashers

The Legend: A traveling business man meets a beautiful blond in a night club and invites her to his room for an evening of carnal delights. When the man awakes the next morning he discovers his overnight companion has vanished but left a message, “Welcome to the Wonderful World of Aids”, written in lipstick on the [...]

Written by David Boyle. As a horror fan I’m grateful for the long line of films that have drawn me to the most unyielding sectors of reality— and my imagination.  Every time I go to see a scary movie, I find myself reliving the exact moment when I first felt a cold surge of fear [...]

Thanks to a fine series of articles right here on Retro Slashers, the notion of “proto-slashers” – the films that paved the way for the slasher movie boom – has become a familiar one. And, thanks to Dave Stewart’s reviews, hopefully, you’ll have come across a few early-period gems you might otherwise have missed. Now [...]

The Legend: The woods in Upstate New York belong to Cropsey, a madman with a passion for butchering young campers. Why Cropsey kills is unclear. Some say he was a cruel handyman disfigured by campers who fought back during one of Cropsey’s alcohol fueled rages. Others say Cropsey was a judge who lived with his [...]

As Scream‘s token nerd Randy revealed, there are rules to surviving a horror movie. Although he would cover sex and drugs, there is another important point that he would neglect to mention… never, ever play a practical joke! With very few exceptions (Friday the 13th Part 2’s Ted being the most obvious example), this is [...]

For anyone who has ever been pushed around (and haven’t we all at one point), Slaughter High is a revenge seeker’s wet dream. Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is probably the nerdiest nerd this side of Kenny Hampson (Terror Train). But he’s kind of lovable in that totally annoying way most dorks are. In the first scenes [...]

Exactly twenty-five April 1sts have passed since the release of Fred Walton’s classic “fun” slasher, April Fool’s Day, and the chances of a 25th Anniversary Special Edition DVD are looking increasingly slim. In lieu of a commentary track, then, here’s a time-coded trivia guide to one of the quirkiest horror movies of the 80s… Major [...]

Holy guacamoley, we really outdid ourselves this year with the April fool’s day prank, which consisted of two co-ordinated efforts for a winning result. Our complete and total rule is best exemplified in the comments on Blood Test, where longtime reader Tuzo wrote “I used to [love] the April Fool’s day jokes on this site, [...]

Slasher fanatics everywhere, rejoice – new boutique DVD company Hoa-X is releasing Deacon Natterling’s unseen 1980 Canadian slasher Blood Test on April 1. It’s final exam time at Hillcrest College, and someone is killing the students one-by-one using the most bizarre methods imaginable. It seems the victims were all part of a treehouse club when [...]

Critics may scoff and most film fans may turn their noses up at them, but the slasher genre is the perfect training ground for a young, wannabe filmmaker. With an almost non-existent budget, a simple premise, aided by a likeable cast and some inventive special effects, can result in a modest performance at the box [...]