If horror movies are to be believed, getting snuffed by a masked killer is just as much a teenage rite of passage as losing one’s virginity or receiving a college acceptance letter in the mail. Since the late 70s, adolescents in grades 8 – 12 have been getting offed (usually after getting off) in record numbers on the silver screen, birthing a whole subgenre of “dead teenager” cinema. But which entries into this disreputable cavalcade of carnage are worthy of being deemed “essential”? Here are nine must watch installments you need to seek out in the high school slasher subsection of your (more than likely streaming) video store…
Halloween [1978] (d. John Carpenter, w. John Carpenter & Debra Hill)
The granddaddy of the slasher (or – at least – the American slasher, considering Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas), Carpenter’s classic is still a marvel of artistic ingenuity. Dean Cundey’s stunning photography nails the security of Midwest suburb, Haddonfield, Illinois, while Carpenter captures the essence of the American high schooler student via Jamie Lee Curtis, PJ Soles and Nancy Kyes’ sexually adventurous trio. Yet what makes Halloween a true success is its confrontational spin on the coming-of-age tale, with young men and women encountering pure, unadulterated death for the first time in their lives. While it’s certainly fun to giggle at Donald Pleasence’s hysterical Dr. Loomis – the movie’s ranting, white whale-hunting hero – most of the chills are achieved by making us realize that we all have to face mortality once it invades our otherwise “safe” existence. The Reaper will come for you in the most unexpected way, and Halloween presents him as a literal life-snatcher, donning a Shatner mask and murdering his way through a pile of innocents. Still the prototype for every dead teenager film that would follow, Carpenter’s masterwork packs a punch nearly forty years on because it goes beyond being a mere body count movie, and presents its evil as elemental and inexorable.
The Redeemer: Son of Satan [1978] (d. Constantine S. Gochis, w. William Vernick)
The Redeemer is an oddity that gives you yet another reason to fear your high school reunion. A group of classmates are called back to their alma mater, only to find that it’s a trap set by a rather judgmental punisher, hoping to cleanse these somewhat obnoxious grown folks of sin they accumulated throughout their formidable years. Grimy and nasty, those expecting the widescreen class of Carpenter are going to be sorely disappointed, as Constantine Gochis’ slasher is lumbering, yet never lacking in disturbing ambiance. Most interesting is the killer’s repeated changes in costume (his clown garb is rather ghoulish), which seems to have been lifted wholesale for the Jamie Lee Curtis/David Copperfield snoozer, Terror Train. Gochis’ slasher sat on the shelf for two years – having been shot in ’76 and released in ’78 – but that doesn’t stop it from feeling oddly influential on not only Train, but also a few others on this list. Though Halloween birthed the American “dead teenager” movie, this capitalization on its success no doubt helped usher in a legion of imitators that would take over the screens of drive-ins and dives during the 80s.
Prom Night [1980] (d. Paul Lynch, w. William Gray)
Paul Lynch’s Canadian Halloween riff is slathered in maple syrup, while deficient in creativity. However, that doesn’t stop the disco-laden rip from being pretty entertaining in its own right. Leslie Nielsen gets to play outside of the usual ZAZ arena he’s most comfortable in, and the finale is scored to an insane disco theme song that’s really nothing more than a wild cash-in on a current musical trend. However, Prom Night helped cement a subgenre trope, as the central motivation for the killer revolves around a prank gone awry, leaving one spurned soul to seek blood vengeance. This is Canuxploitation of the highest order, never really rising above delivering the basic stalk and slash goods (Lynch doesn’t even bother to give the killer a proper getup). All in all, Prom Night is a rather rote slasher that’s probably only really necessary for genre completists.
The Prowler [1981] (d. Joseph Zito, w. Glenn Leopold, Neal F. Barbera, Eric Lewald, Mark Edward Edens, Michael Edens & Sarah Higgins)
Director Joe Zito would most notably helm what is arguably the very best Friday the 13th sequel (The Final Chapter), as well as become something of an in-house action go-to for some of Cannon Films’ more gonzo output (Invasion USA being the apex of the notorious studio’s VHS delights). But before he solidified his name as a cult legend, Zito directed a trio of grisly, low-budget slaughter fests in Abduction, Blood Rage, and this Tom Savini-aided bit of nastiness. The Prowler tackles both post-war malaise and Graduation Day haze, as a soldier returns home to wipe out a group of recently exiting seniors at their recently resurrected dance. The pitchfork spearings and genuine cruelty of each kill harkens back to Savini’s days as a war photographer, as he pumps a sizable amount of karo syrup through fake gashes and puncture wounds. But The Prowler most feels like a dry run for Zito’s defining Friday installment, as he nails the Vaseline-on-the-lens POV shots and delivers a masked killer that is truly intimidating.
Happy Birthday to Me [1981] (d. J. Lee Thompson, w. John CW Saxton, Peter Jobin & Timothy Bond)
J. Lee Thompson had one of the stranger careers in Hollywood history, helming everything from Cape Fear, The Guns of Navarone and the final two Planet of the Apes pictures (Conquest and Battle). He followed those genre staples with one of the oddest slasher pictures of all time, capped with the most bizarre climax in perhaps all of slasher history. Happy Birthday to Me is maxed out Canuck brutality, as faces are skewered and bodies are cleaved with reckless abandon. Thompson brings a sophisticated vibe to the proceedings, keeping his workmanlike approach intact and delivering a rather classically composed romp. The movie went through numerous rewrites and re-workings, dating back before both Friday the 13th and Prom Night (both of whose success caused Happy Birthday to Me to be rushed into production). The results are something of a hodgepodge, but Thompson keeps the blood flowing and knows a thing or two about creating a deft layer of atmosphere. Possibly the most underrated entry on this list.
Slumber Party Massacre [1982] (d. Amy Holden Jones, w. Rita Mae Brown)
Written and directed by women (and initially intended as a parody of slasher films), Slumber Party Massacre is an oddly feminist take on the usual high school horror fare. Where most movies relegate its final girls to being helpless waifs, ready to be picked off one by one, Amy Holden Jones recasts the usual jock roles reserved for males with young, athletic women; each fighting off an impotent, power-drill wielding maniac. The phallic symbolism is overwhelming, as this jean jacket-donning freak is looking to “penetrate” any woman he can with his massive bit. Flying by in barely eighty minutes, Jones’ grotesquely funny murder play is candy colored and aesthetically brighter than most of its drab predecessors, while still delivering the massacre movie goods.
Slaughter High [1986] (d. & w. George Dugdale, Mark Ezra & Peter Mackenzie Litten)
The high school reunion continues to be a deadly playground for psychos, as yet another vengeful, bullied teen with an axe to grind locks his former classmates in the halls of their old stomping grounds and lets loose with the violence. Slaughter High is a Dick Randall produced affair (gore hound aficionados will recognize the name from Spanish splatter schlocker, Pieces), and comes with all the Z-grade trimmings. Only where Pieces is incredible for its WTF ineptitude, Slaughter High is perhaps one of the most mean-spirited pieces of body count filmmaking ever to grace the horror shelves at your local dive video store. Pieced together by three different writers and directors, Slaughter High features a gaggle of ferocious kills, including a literal acid bath and one disembowelment via lawnmower. Capped with an ending that blatantly rips off Bill Lustig’s (much better) Maniac, Slaughter High is a trashy freak out that hits the right spot when it comes to blood, guts, and utter strangeness.
Scream [1996] (d. Wes Craven, w. Kevin Williamson)
Wes Craven redefined the slasher in 1984 with A Nightmare on Elm Street, adding a nifty supernatural spin on the usual dead teenager fare. In 1996, after the slasher boom had come and gone (and horror was experiencing a seriously dull patch), Craven rejiggered the formula again, referencing it as he began to pile a new set of nubile teens to the ceiling. Scream would both reinvigorate and somewhat ruin the subgenre completely, as after its video store geek (Jamie Kennedy) rattled of the “rules” of slasher films, it seemed every movie that followed in its wake had to have some sort of “meta” element. It would take years for the slasher movie to shake of the in-jokey modus operandi, but that doesn’t mean Scream wasn’t an absolute blast when it first came out, offering up its own Janet Leigh in Drew Barrymore. While the sequels were never worth a shit (and the recent TV spin-off is a whole lot worse), Craven’s triumphant reclamation of the genre he continuously proved himself to the king of is still, nearly twenty years on, one hell of a good time at the movies.
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane [2006] (d. Jonathan Levine, w. Jacob Forman)
Jonathan Levine and Jacob Forman’s Texas-based slasher is both an adherence to tropes while also subverting them simultaneously. Blunt, brutal, and utilizing the barren landscape to its fullest potential, Levine proved himself to be quite the visual prodigy, melding old school horror with a Southern Gothic flair for the macabre. There are shades of Tobe Hooper as well as Sean S. Cunningham, as the titular goddess (Amber Heard) and her friends are picked off, one by one, on a remote ranch. Like most of the best horror movies, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a product of Hellish DIY gusto, never once letting up until its final gruesome twist (which will have you thinking twice about ever bullying anyone in your whole life). Capturing the carnality of being a teenager in heat with the most authentic eye since Brian De Palma lensed Carrie, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a modern horror classic.
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Jacob Knight is an Austin, Texas based film writer who moonlights as a clerk at Vulcan Video, one of the last great independent video stores in the US. You can find find him on Twitter @JacobQKnight.
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