Retro Slashers

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I’m the kind of horror fan who goes the extra mile to find something I haven’t seen yet. I love the obscure, the rare and the unreleased. To say I collect horror films would be putting it lightly. More accurately speaking, I stop at NOTHING to get what I’m after. Money, travel and uncertainty can’t [...]

Joe Spinell cannot die. Yet he has been dead for almost fourteen years. The sweaty, pock-marked Maniac is a beloved figure in retro slasher history, but he did several movies that were essentially variations of the same figure. We’ve been blessed with Spinell popping up every few years in another long lost lumbering, muttering role.

We’re “soft launching” a Retro Slashers DVD label with lost sequel Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, released in finished form for the first time ever next week after 20 years of uphill battle. The spine serial number is RS001 – and as a test case we’re piggybacking on this project which initiated over at companion [...]

With the recent news of Scorpion Releasing’s slasher titles on tap for DVD – Humongous, House on Sorority Row, Final Exam, The Carpenter, The Incubus and American Nightmares as well as other genre titles – Retro Slashers conducted a brief q&a with company president Walter Olsen (yes, brother of Bill Olsen who runs Code Red [...]

An early SOV series that bridges the cinematic gap between Snuff and Hostel. Gary Cohen, a video store owner back during the Mom & Pop glory days, noticed the glut of terrible horror movies flooding shelves on a weekly basis and decided to make his own cheap fright flick. So Cohen rounded up friends, actors [...]

In 1983 David A. Prior wrote and directed Sledgehammer. After languishing for a year, it found a distributor but slasher fans had a hard time finding copies at local mom & pop video stores. Fortunately, Sledgehammer has been saved from obscurity with a new DVD release from Intervision Picture Corp and Severin Films. The movie [...]

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 [...]

Here we go again, another gem that’s been lambasted by critics armchair and professional alike: BCI Eclipse have dug up Robert Hammer’s 1980 sleaze-o-rama Don’t Answer The Phone and given it an uncut release. I do like my slashers but serial killers employing strangulation instead of the good ol’ butcher’s knife struck me as too [...]

Movie: Liberal nudity, blood drenched murder shots and a menagerie of quirky characters contribute to this 1987 parcel of fun. It’s what made Cheerleader Camp the Cinemax staple that primarily exposed it to its many praisers. But the standout element is the central character of Alison Wentworth (Betsy Russell). Alison is not only frigid but [...]

Guest Reviewer: Steven Lewis