Which horror series does Toucharacade think is best? Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm street, Halloween, or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Jason rulez!!!
Human Centipede. But in all seriousness, you should definitely add The Evil Dead series to the poll...
I don't think Evil Dead really fits the genre, but it is better than all of the films listed. I'm torn between A Nightmare on Elm St. and Friday the 13th. They seem like the most classic cases because they just kept on coming (the films, not Freddy & Jason) throughout the golden era of slasher movies and didn't take themselves too seriously which is what you need if you want to inject an element of fun into the cinema experience. Halloween may be the daddy but it hasn't aged well at all, and Chain Saw Massacre is a bit too gritty and buried in it's cult status to qualify.
yeah, i voted for Halloween just cause it freaked me way out compared to Jason back in the day. but yeah its not aged well in the aspect of sequels. its pretty much a dead pony.. Jason can live for every.. elm street, i think its same boat as Halloween.
Halloween I and II are classics, no doubt about that. They created great suspense without having to necessarily be gory. But I had to vote for Nightmare on Elm St. While the series became a joke, the first movie managed to be both creepy and scary in a way the others didn't. Jason and Michael were good as stolid and implacable killing machines (although Jason wasn't even in the first F13) but that's all they really were, and at least until they started playing that whole ridiculous immortal demon angle, they felt human, if psychopathic and remorseless humans. But Freddy, at least for the first couple of movies, attacked your dreams and you could never be certain if any given scene was dream or reality. Plus, the effects were pretty cool and freaky for the time, it got that whole surreal nightmare thing down pretty good. TCM was really only scary for its batshit crazy psycho characters, and was otherwise just a one-off captive type scenario like Saw or Hostel. Probably scary hell when it first game out in 1974, but a bit tame by comparison these days. The remake didn't really do much for me, either.
Ok, how's about Pumpkin Head then? By the by, what exactly qualifies a horror movie as a 'slasher' movie? I understand the horror element and obviously the slasher type violence, suspense, etc but does it have to deal with human-esque attackers or... It's just that there are so many sub-genres of everything consumable or otherwise these days that it gets kind of difficult for me to tell the difference.
Yeah I think it's mainly restricted to humans. A killer hunting down victims and making the last few seconds of their life as grotesque as possible. If it were alien or animal it'd be more sci-fi horror or something. There's bound to be an exception somewhere though.
well, when ever someone thinks of the term "slasher," that person most likely is thinking of one of these four films. I'll release a cult classics movie poll soon.
It's hard to give set rules for the Slasher genre, as there is so much differentiation between such classic examples of it. But to give you an idea, Psycho is considered the mother of all Slasher films, and the Golden Age of Slasher films runs from the late 70's up till the mid-late 80's. The films generally involve a stalking killer, who murders a series of victims, generally with a 'slashing' type signature weapon (Chainsaw, blade, axe, scythe). The films, especially during the Golden Age, are known for their explicit gore, however the gore is definitely not a prerequisite. Anyway, Nightmare on Elm St. definitely has my vote, for me it's such a classic Slasher flick, and has just the right amount of horror to make you a little scared as you fall asleep the night after watching it. Plus, it introduced supernatural elements to the Slasher genre, which IMO, made Friday 13th far more interesting.
Jason Vs. Freddy! Freddy (speaking to Jason): "Why won't you die?!" Answer: dude, because he's already dead. He was dead 10 movies ago. Remember that Jason Vorhese wasn't in the original Friday the 13th. Little known fact, these days. "Kill her, mommy! Kill her!" Also, I would vote for Doctor Giggles, if I could. Guess I'm just disturbed in that way.
Isn't it a widely-known fact after Scream made such a big deal (and rather effective opening scene) over it? It seems to me like the number one horror movie fact that everybody knows yet everybody repeats to try and sound knowledgeable. Speaking of Scream... surprisingly good yet often forgotten slasher right there. You hear lots of people complaining about the "dumb teens" aspect of it, but Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street aren't any different.
Completely agree, I really enjoyed the first two Scream movies. Can't say the same for the 3rd as I haven't seen it yet, and the upcoming 4th installment just doesn't seem worth watching really. I guess we should be thankful it's a sequel and not another goddamn re-boot though.
I don't know if you would really consider it slasher? But Hellraiser was awesome in the day! How could you not love Pinhead?
Yeah Hellraiser was another great horror franchise of the late 80's, but probably not a slasher, as there's no stalking element to the murders and no signature cutting weapon involved. Still, I'd say it's nearly there, being made around the right time and catering to the same audience as slasher films. Oh, and they're re-booting the franchise too, no surprise really. Clive Barker is on to produce, but I'm still worried. It's going to be an Origins story, set before the first original film.
