Retro Slashers

The production for Michael A. Simpson’s back-to-back Sleepaway Camp sequels, Unhappy Campers and Teenage Wasteland, would take place over a six-week period at Lakewood Studios in Atlanta and Camp Younts near Waco in Georgia, although the last day of filming would see the crew relocate to downtown Atlanta for the opening sequence of Sleepaway Camp [...]

Remakes by their very definition are derivative. No matter how much a filmmaker injects new themes and ideas into a movie, the very fact that it is a recycled concept means that there will be various plot points and set pieces that resemble its predecessor, much like with a sequel. But it is how that [...]

My Bloody Valentine was released on February 13, 1981, just as the slasher sub-genre was gaining substantial momentum. Halloween had started the trend proper, and Friday the 13th had solidified it as a moneymaker. Every studio wanted a slasher flick on its release schedule, and special interest groups were beginning to protest them everywhere.

Get your geek on with the aid of Retro Slashers’ time-coded trivia track – the perfect accompaniment to your next viewing of the original My Bloody Valentine. Spoilers ahead, obviously, and please make sure you’re watching the extended cut or the times won’t match up!

‘Should we then ban the News at Ten?’ asked an article in The Times as the furore surrounding the video nasties increased to ridiculous proportions. It was an interesting point; if the parliament and tabloids were so concerned about upsetting or corrupting the public with scenes of sex or violence, there was nothing as shocking [...]

***WARNING*** HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD*** If you’ve never seen My Bloody Valentine then you might want to skip this post.  If you’ve seen My Bloody Valentine more times than you can count (like me), then this post will offer up a way to view the film in a very different light.  If you decide to re-watch [...]

Whilst they no doubt launched her career and horror fans may still consider them amongst the best work that she has done, when Jamie Lee Curtis first entered the movie industry with a string of low budget slasher films critics were less-than-enthusiastic about her performances, whilst Curtis herself expressed frustration at having to play the [...]

Tom Savini seemed to have had an obsession earlier in his career with destroying heads. First, the scalp of a zombie was removed by a helicopter propeller in Dawn of the Dead, then Betsy Palmer was decapitated at the end of Friday the 13th, whilst Farley Granger would meet his demise at the end of [...]

The 1980s was a dark time for artistic freedom, with both music and movies being heavily censored by those that simply did not understand and were out of touch with what younger audiences found entertaining. Whilst musicians in the United States became targets of Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center (ranging from Judas [...]

Although A Nightmare on Elm Street would become one of the most popular horror franchises of all time, even as production on the first movie came to an end during the summer of 1984, none of the principals involved had given any thought to the possibility of a sequel. Writer-director Wes Craven had forfeited his [...]