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Slasher Movie
aka: Slasher Film
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Slasher Movie killer in its natural habitat; stalking the Final Girl. serial killers stalking attractive young girls, a combination that allows for buckets of gore and enough flesh to titillate.
The killers, mostly driven by revenge, are Made of Iron, at a minimum, and usually Implacable. Many are explicitly supernatural. All of them can appear and disappear as if by magic, and the corpses of their victims are equally elusive. A slasher killer can whisk away a full grown adult's corpse in seconds, leaving not a single drop of blood behind, or swiftly arrange all its victims in an elaborate tableau, without ever being seen lugging the dead bodies around. The more explicitly supernatural killers will have powers ranging from Super Strength (all the better to pull victims through walls), the ability to appear in dreams and attack the dreamers, or other ghostly abilities.
The victims are usually teenagers or young adults, all usually guilty of some minor vice. Once the audience has had a convincing demonstration of their (usually sexual) misdemeanours, they are spectacularly slaughtered. If there's more than one sin or minority to pick from then the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality comes into play.
Eventually, there will be only one girl left standing, the Final Girl, normally the only "morally pure" member of the main cast. With considerable help from her death battle exemption, she will kill the killer.
Come the next sequel, it will be revealed that the killer was actually Not Quite Dead.
A subset of the Horror genre, although the schlockier examples replace suspense almost entirely with gore. They are often considered B-movies. Early examples of the genre were heavily influenced by the giallo films of Italian directors like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Mario Bava. The genre first became popular in the late '70s and early '80s, with the release of the three most iconic slasher flicks: Halloween 1978, Friday The13th 1980, and A Nightmare On Elm Street 1984. The genre would burn itself out in the late '80s, as the established franchises grew stale and the ripoffs grew more desperate. The slasher genre was revived in the mid-late '90s, when Wes Craven's Scream 1996 satirized the genre and became a hit. Once again, studios sought to cash in on the film's success, releasing their own post-modern, teen-focused slasher flicks. Today, the slasher genre may be entering a third wave, with the remakes of Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, and Friday the 13th all being hits, a remake of Nightmare on Elm Street just arrived, and the backlash against the gore-driven "torture porn" that dominated horror in this decade.
Roger Ebert called these movies "Dead Teenager Movies" due to their focus on teenagers getting killed.
Keep in mind that, while every slasher movie features a serial killer or a spree killer, not every serial killer or spree killer movie is a slasher movie. Also note that a slasher film is quite different from a Psychological Thriller, which tends to emphasize the Sympathy for the Devil part using a Freudian Excuse or two (and possibly a few Pet the Dog moments in the killer's favor), and de-emphasize the Final Girl, often killing off all characters.
Want to write your own slasher flick? We have a handy writer's guide for anybody looking to do just that.
Tropes Applicable to the Genre:
- Adults Are Useless: Parents, teachers, or any kind of authority figure are either blissfully unaware of what's happening or being obstructive and denying it. In the case of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, they're almost villains themselves.
- Asshole Victim: Particularly noteworthy in Halloween and Friday the 13th; averted hard in A Nightmare On Elm Street, where almost every victim is made to be sympathetic.
- Barrier-Busting Blow
- Black Dude Dies First/Bury Your Gays
- Cool Mask: On some of the killers. Usually leads to Dramatic Unmask.
- Creepy Basement: You can always expect at least one death in here.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: At least one death in many of these movies will qualify for this.
- Dark Secret: One of these lies at the core of most of these films, usually as the reason that the killer is on the rampage.
- Deadly Prank: Some slasher movies have one of these as either a way one of the victims is killed or as the catalyst for the entire thing (see Urban Legend for a recent example).
- Death By Genre Savvy: Ran into the ground by lesser filmmakers when Scream 1996 made it popular, and mostly set aside during the age of Torture Porn.
- Death By Pragmatism
- Death by Sex: If you have sex in one of these movies, rest assured that you will die. Horrifically.
- Developing Doomed Characters
- Dont Go In The Woods / Summer Campy: Summer camps and backwoods are a popular setting, owing to Friday the 13th's use of these locales.
- Everyone Is A Suspect: In movies where the killer's identity isn't known.
- Fanservice: One of the reasons why the genre became popular.
- Final Girl: The Trope Maker. The trope was named by Carol J. Clover in her examination of the genre.
- Follow the Leader: These films tend to follow the path shown by the most successful entries.
- Gorn: The name of the game in these movies (although some of the most famous examples, such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 and Halloween 1978, are rather pointedly not very explicit).
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: Although in references to these films rather than in the actual films.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: These films usually take place on holidays and such.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
- Implacable Man: Killers in these movies are rather hard to kill.
- Improvised Weapon
- Job Title: Some of the more gimmicky movies have a killer of a profession that will provide thematic kills and quips.
- Just Here for Godzilla: A lot fans honestly watch to see the killer doing his thing and really don't care much about the actual story.
- Mask Power
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Slashers tend to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Even if the killer is an explicitly normal human, his seemingly superhuman speed, strength, and stamina will rarely be given an explanation.
- Menacing Stroll
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Male deaths are usually sudden and without struggle; it's incredibly rare to have a chase scene with a male character being chased. And in 99% of slasher movies, being male is practically a death certificate, because no matter how Too Dumb to Live the Final Girl is, she will live despite being a complete moron (examples are Friday The13th Part III, The Strangers, Mother's Day (2011)).
- Monster Misogyny: The other side of the coin. While men can and do die in these movies, the favorite victims of many slasher killers are women.
- My Car Hates Me; If you're running from the killer, expect your car to let you down at the worst possible time.
- Not Quite Dead: If a slasher movie goes into sequels, chances are this applies to the killer.
- Off with His Head!
- Offscreen Teleportation
- Paint the Town Red
- Popularity Polynomial: The slasher genre was dead in the water by the end of The Eighties, before it was resurrected by Scream 1996.
- Reactionary Fantasy: Many '80s slasher movies, underneath all the R-rated bloodshed and raunchiness, had a very socially conservative view of teenage culture, usually expressed by ensuring that those teenagers into drinking, partying, doing drugs, rock music, etc. — basically, those who "rebelled" in any way against society — were the ones who got killed. The Final Girl was nearly always the Token Wholesome virgin. Later films, however, tended to subvert, parody and/or deconstruct these aspects more often than they played them straight.
- Red Shirt: Yes, even in these. Before the main cast gets it, several minor (and usually unnamed) characters will get it early on.
- Reduced Killer Difficulty
- The Reveal: Usually coupled with the unmasking.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Most of the killers of these movies are on a vendetta of some sort.
- The Savage South: Slashers tend to take place in the southern regions. Ex: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
- The Scourge Of God: Many slasher killers target the "bad" people among the cast while generally leaving the "good" ones alone for the most part.
- Shaggy Dog Story/Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The surviving protagonists generally don't get any reward for their trials. Oftentimes, their victories over the killers are completely undone in Sequel Hooks, even if the given movie doesn't have a planned sequel yet.
- Silent Antagonist: Most of the killers rarely talk, if ever.
- Slashers Prefer Blondes: Blonde girls in slasher films tend to get offed a lot, usually with more elaborate deaths. The Final Girl is almost always brunette, in contrast to the blonde. Though of course there are exceptions.
- Small Reference Pools: Judging by the number of parodies that feature the Hockey Mask And A Chainsaw trope, it's as if Friday the 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were the only slasher flicks ever made.
- Stealth Hi/Bye
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Final Girls of previous movies who sign on for sequels are especially at risk of dying, usually very early on in the movie. The Final Girl of the original Friday the 13th was famously the very first victim of Jason Voorhees.
- Too Dumb to Live: Some victims just might not be particularly Genre Savvy, but the first victim is usually in a class of his/her own.
- Villain-Based Franchise: Especially popular with slashers.
- The Villain Makes the Plot: Most of the films have the killer as the center of the story.
- Weapon of Choice: Most slashers have at least one, blades and and axes being the most usual choice.
- Wild Teen Party: One of the most common set ups.
Slasher Films with TV Tropes Articles:
Homages, Parodies, Other Stuff Regarding the Genre:
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Anime and Manga
Comics
Film
- Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre, a porno-slasher notable for sharing its set with Hatchet. Amusingly, the villain's origin is mish-mash of Freddy, Michael and Jason's respective backstories.
- Cry_Wolf is worthy of mention here for being a "faux-slasher". Only two people die in the entire movie. I'm not saying who. And neither of them really dies in a particularly brutal fashion as has become accustom to the genre.
- The comedy film Psycho Beach Party is a homage to the old slasher movies and beach movies from the 60s.
- Scary Movie parodies the genre, mostly Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Its sequels venture into other genres.
- Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The Thirteenth, which also heavily parodied Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- Stan Helsing features various Captain Ersatzes of various horror icons, including from Slasher movies.
- Student Bodies, which predates Scream and Scary Movie by more than a decade.
- Tucker And Dale Vs Evil parodies the 'degenerate hillbilly' variation on this genre by flipping it; the two main characters are a pair of sweet-natured but not very bright hillbillies who, through a bunch of misunderstandings, are mistaken for psycho killers by a group of college students camping in the woods. Very Gory Hilarity Ensues.
- Unmasked Part 25 is an existential British satire of the Friday the 13th series, in which a deformed slasher named Jackson tries to leave his life of meaningless slaughter for his love of a beautiful blind woman. It's somewhat reminiscent of The Toxic Avenger.
Literature
- There are a few "slasher novels" like Slay Bells, Joyride, Deadly Detention and Apeshit.
- Where The Bodies Are Buried and sequels by Kim Newman, are about a series of slasher movies of the same name, whose slasher, Rob Hackwill, has a nasty habit of becoming real.
Live-Action TV
- Boy Meets World did an episode that parodied slasher movies. It involved the main characters getting killed off one by one by masked killer while trapped in detention after school (it was All Just a Dream, of course). The episode came out during the revitalization of the genre in the late 90s and even guest-starred Jennifer Love Hewitt who had recently starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- The Charmed episode "Chick Flick" had a Monster of the Week who could travel in and out of films; he brought a pair of slasher villains, Bloody Mary and Axe Husband, to life to help him kill the Charmed Ones. And in a later episode Phoebe starts having slasher film-based nightmares in which she is chased around the manor by a lunatic with a Hockey Mask and Chainsaw.
Music
Web Original
Tabletop Games
- Hunter The Vigil has... Slashers, who are people influenced by the supernatural into becoming perfect Serial Killers. They range from Rippers, who have abnormal, but still theoretically possible abilities, to Scourges, who are obviously supernatural. The types are: Avengers & Legends, Brutes & Masks, Charmers & Psychos, Freaks & Mutants, and Geniuses & Maniacs. It is possible, though difficult, to play one as a Type IV or V Anti-Hero, targeting people, or supernatural beings, who deserve it.
Video Games
- Clock Tower, released in 1995, while a game, is very similar to a slasher movie. You've got your near-indestructible slasher villain who murders young women off-screen. A movie in and out of Development Hell is being made.
- The Manhunt games give this vibe, to different degrees. The first involves death-row inmate James Earl Cash being forced to "star" in a Snuff Film, directed by disgraced Hollywood director Lionel Starkweather. You stalk victims from the shadows, but most are violent criminals and deranged lunatics, from neo-Nazi skinheads to Satanist Latino gangsters. Cash is also more moral than most slasher stars, mostly because he saves his family when they're taken hostage by Ramirez and the Wardogs ( and declares It's Personal when Starkweather recaptures them, and has them brutally murdered by The Innocentz), and protects a reporter that has information to bring down Starkweather even though he simply planned to storm Starkweather's mansion One-Man Army-style, and she witnessed him slaughter dozens of police officers (albeit ones on Starkweather's payroll).
- The second game, meanwhile, evokes this genre all over the place: as Daniel Lamb, an Amnesiac Hero that recently escaped from the local asylum with his slightly Ax Crazy best friend or rather, his REALLY AX CRAZY split personality Leo Kasper, you have to find the pieces to your past - and have to go toe-to-toe with the many Hired Guns and Psychos For Hire on the payroll of "The Pickman Project", who want to hunt you down ( preferably alive), so they can protect the secrets of "The Project", and allow the borderline-Know-Nothing Know-It-All Mad Scientist Dr. Pickman to keep poking around with the machine in your head that houses your split personality, to create a series of assassins that can brutally murder targets in the "killer" personality, and be switched to the "normal" personality to prevent them from revealing anything in their subsequent interrogation. Outside of featuring execution techniques that throw away "clean" killing in favor of inflicting as much torturous pain on the helpless victim as possible, and more villains inspired by Torture Porn films (the "Sexual Deviants" level is basically a BDSM-club flavored Hostel, complete with a gang called "the Pervs", who are Combat Sadomasochists dressed up in gimps suits and animal costumes), but features more mentally jarring imagery and storytelling than the original, which accurately captures poor Danny's Sanity Slippage as he's driven to more desperate and grisly violence by Leo, so he can "kill" Danny's personality, and perform a Split Personality Takeover, so he can be "free" to become the most infamous Serial Killer in history,]] culminating with a appropriately trippy Battle in the Center of the Mind. There are two endings, based on based on whether or not you went out of your way to perform "Violent" and "Gruesome" executions - in the default ending Danny "kills" Leo, but once again loses his memory, possibly for good this time. He is given a new identity (presumably by Dr. Whyte, the Good Counterpart to Dr. Pickman), and walks down a sunlit road to his new life as "David Joiner". The Alternate Ending has Leo "kill" Danny, who presumably gets ready to massacre what's left of "The Project", (including Dr. Whyte, who just wanted to help Danny), before going on a Serial Killer rampage.
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