Bump*

Bump*

Hey @mariojacobs

Both the movies don't meet the required criteria. 

@rubyfruit76 Thanks for the suggestions, added them. Even I haven't watched them, I created this list for sort of a watchlist and thought this would make a good poll meanwhile. 

The broad definition is “A slasher film is a subgenre of horror filmsinvolving a killer murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed tools”.

I don’t know about the sequels, but Final Destination has no killer, nor bladed tools. The rest of the points you mention can be found in most teen horror films, slasher or not.

I second Pencho. I formerly knew slasher movies also only as movies with killers that use blades. I think that is the definition. I also second his list. I know three of them and remember they're pretty good slasher movies. Especially Maniac and Identity. A perfect getaway is also a good one.

I would also have to disagree about Final Destination being a slasher flick, on account of technicality, but I can definitely see why it might be categorized as such by a library, a store or a service, because the flow of the story is such that as if it was constructed from a slasher script and simply modified to remove the killer and broaden the range of the styles of deaths of characters. Perhaps similar (not identical) reasoning would explain why 28 Days Later... is often thought of as a zombie flick even though there are no undead creatures (the kind who can only be ceased by at least adequate damage to their central nervous systems) in it.

Also, I don't believe that a slasher flicks are required to follow a format necessarily like Friday the 13th (Voorhees), Halloween (Michael Myers) or Child's Play (criminal inhabiting the body of a doll of a mass-produced model, or just a doll with faulty AI). At least, some of the movies made about Jack the Ripper are essentially slasher flicks. In fact I have one in mind, From Hell, but that of course leads me to Sleepy Hollow, both set at the end of centuries prior to the twentieth and focus on the detective investigating the murders. So, some interesting variations can exist.

Wow, so these are some interesting discussions, I second Pencho that it gives the feel of a "slasher flick" if it involves slashing. But yeah it may have some abstract meaning when it comes to slashers in terms of the atmosphere it creates. 

So anyways thanks for the recommendations, Pencho.

Added Maniac, Natevvagten, and Identity. 

Removed Final Destination and Friday the 13th. 

You are going to hate me, but I wouldn't remove of all movies Friday 13th.

The franchise has 12 films, Jason Voorhees is the king

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_(franchise)#Films

Yeah, that's a lot of movies, I'll look into which of these movies will meet the required criteria. Thanks, @mariojacobs. 

The horror movie sector has a wide range. There are surely a few hundret slasher movies, which provide hand made effects, because CGI was affordable for horror movies in a good quality after the milenium change. And even after that, hand made blood effects still win, optically. So if you put 'Friday the 13th' from the list, you would delete a major candidate. It is a whole big franchise which was supported financially by the tickets of a huge fan base. My suggestion is to keep the first part, which is the grandmother of the series and let it stay for the whole franchise. You could mention it in the options description, the text in the option.  I would handle it that way, but I won't insist of that. It's just for your consideration.

I also understand your rule about the rating higher than 6.5. It's ok for me, when you don't put Friday the 13th on the list. It's a quality mark and suggesters have to obey it, but also might discuss it. When I know that there might be good suggestions, but I don't want to lower my limit, I do exceptions in the suggestions:-part of my poll suggestion on the poll board threat. I formulate it like: "... except there are options which represent an irreplaceable genre of ... (e.g. ... slasher movies. ...).

This is also just fyc, I'm not insisting. ;)

Btw:

Is 'Kill Bill' still a crime movie, or is it already a slasher movie? ;) It has also swords. So I guess slashing around is not the only criterion for a slasher movie, or is it?

Kill Bill is not a horror type of "slasher", so it is not a slasher flick. I'm interested in feedback regarding From Hell and Sleepy Hollow, both starring Johnny Depp, if anybody would be so fascinated or so kind. They are horror movies, and the each assailant uses a sharp weapon, but they are also both slightly adherent to crime genre themes but in a way different from, say, Psycho. Most "slasher" flicks are predicated upon theme of protagonists and supporting characters trying to fend for themselves without the assistance of law enforcement, the army, the press or service reinforcements of some kind. Commonly the police (or reinforcements thereof) are not seen until the end of the movie after the murderer has been defeated.

jeorj, It was a rhetorical question. I know that 'Kill Bill' isn't a slasher. I think that 'From Hell' is a high quality crime movie with slasher elements. It's a very interesting hybrid, somehow. I think it would fit for a slasher movie list, but it is so high in it's narrative structure, that I wonder if it still fits into the category. Most slasher movies don't have grey zones. There is an absolutely bad person, a "psychopath", even better a "sociopath". He has no emotions, not even a inner system of values. And on the other side is a victim, mostly women or kids, which are unable to defend, or even teenagers in their 25s who are unable to defend theirselves - or at least do it in the last moment, because it needs a catharsis at the end, no matter how dumb it seems. In 'From Hell' that doesn't happen. Even the bad guy is not a primitive, sociopathic, unhuman human animal. He is officially a well accepted higher member of society, thereby cooking up the fairytale of the illuminates lodge. It is brilliant, but just a fictional story on a real background, which happened. It's a "hidden" slasher, some wouldn't see a slasher in it. It is a slasher on a higher ground of narrating. ;)

That, but even due to additional nuance of theme, Terminator 2: Judgment Day would not be an expected member of the slasher genre, perhaps because the genre is understood to be encompassed by the horror genre, of which The Terminator films are hardly apart, despite having many frightening moments. The conversation has been very interesting.

Very interesting discussions, I honestly got to know a bit of the theme without watching the movies. 

It's because slashers are made to satisfy a very simple thing: In earlier times of humankind there was always a subconcious fear to die by dangerous animals or evil rival tribes. In the recent zivilized times we subjugated our natural foes and climbed the top of the food chain. But primal fears are still engraved in our brain. There they work subconcious.

Now when you look at slashers ... they make use of these primal fears which are engraved in our atavistic subconcious memories. So there has only to be a bad slasher guy, which has to be killed in the end of the movie - and then the sun shines bright again. I heard that once in an interview with a psychologist 20 years ago. I still remember that, because it was the best explanation about the fascination of horror movies I ever heard. It sounded logical to me.

It doesn't need a complex story in slashers , that even can be contra-productive for people who seek the thrill, because it would be very sobering to realise that the truth about deranged people who kill other people is banal and boring. The extremely dramatised slashers mostly always paint a "human monster", which absolutely should be killed at the moment by chance. So the atavistic ecstasy floods the brain, when the bad guy gets his part.

Movies like 'From Hell' are much more fine and have an interesting story, which stands in the foreground. Movies like 'Saw' are interesting inovative hybrids in the horror genre. But once seen, the cat is out of the bag. ;)

Btw.:

That discussion led me to an idea about killers:

Maybe that's interesting for some buddies, too. :)

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls500432228/

That was really well put @Breumaster, and now that's a well-researched list you got there. 

On a broader topic, much of what defines the horror genre is scary musical scores and unpleasant non-musical sounds or unusual chords. I noticed that some horror scores resemble some of Igor Stravinsky's work, especially when a "mental derangement" theme is being conveyed. And then there is of course the signature score from Psycho, which clearly inspired the music for Friday the 13th among countless other frightening pictures. Variations of the hymn Dies Irae are common in the horror genre but not only, and often signals bad news or an ominous thing. Some movies probably could become horror movies simply by altering the music.

I second that. If you remove that eerie music in any of the horror movies, the presence of the ominous being or situation and the factor of fear will be absent to an extent. 

jeorj:

Or The 'Halloween'-scores from Carpenter. There were sometimes 3 tones and the 4th is totally disharmonic. That creates tension, too.

my favorites slasher are almost unknown: the unseen, the funhouse, happy birthday to me, treat or trick, dr giggles, but the most terrifying soundtrack is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6Tm46JA_o&ab_channel=DIRECTSOUNDVINYLDIRECTSOUNDVINYL

tourist trap

Gosh, that cover. On that note, I abhor how so many horror movies sexually objectify and almost dehumanize women, but on the other hand, that is probably how some serial murderers see their victims anyway, as toy dolls to be taken apart and reassembled. In general, the genre is designed to tap into primal thinking: sex and violence; wild beasts and hunting equipment. ("If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead.") Perhaps there can be a draconian "puritan" angle too, like how the monster (or evil spirit) may spare "virgins" of the torment directed at the "wicked", usually horny folks fornicating. That was one of the themes of the Friday the 13th films. I know there are some movies where men are sexually objectified in ways beyond what is typically expected, but it seems to be kind of taboo, especially if involves a certain manner of dismemberment. To clarify, usually when a naked man is slain by the monster or homicidal stalker, in most of these kinds of movies, the man is with a naked woman, almost never skinny dipping alone or simply taking a shower in a guest room at an isolated inn.

@jeorj_euler

Added From Hell (2001), is there any clarification whether Sleepy Hollow (1999) is a slasher or not?

Thanks for the recommendations.  

In Sleepy Hollow, there is an undead being who wields a sword to completely decapitate several residents of an isolated village, absconding with their heads in each case. If this is slasher flick, it is certainly has a different format from the usual. The Headless Horseman is also armed with a hatchet, which he uses in one of the beheadings, but he has no firearm despite working as a mercenary in the years leading up to his death. He does not ever use knives or daggers, and rarely leaves non-fatal wounds. The violence commenced by this revenant of sorts is neither indiscriminate nor opportunistic, also not random. That's doesn't stop the townsfolk from living in fear regardless.

"Development began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures, with Kevin Yagher originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film." 

So apparently Sleepy Hollow was supposed to be a slasher but they reconstructed it to be more of investigating a series of murders kinda movie. It got a more constructed story and plot, indeed a unique movie if it's considered to be a slasher.

I'm gonna add this to the list as of now, not quite convinced but it'll do. Thanks, Jeorj.

@rubyfruit76

Sure thing Ruby, thanks. :) 

If there are no more suggestions, I would consider the list ready to go live. 

Congrats, Cyril. : )

Thanks, guys. :)