A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer or a group of killers stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set slasher films apart from other horror subgenres, such as monster movies, splatter films, supernatural and psychological horror films.
Friday the 13th is a 1980 American independent slasher film produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, written by Victor Miller, and starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, and Kevin Bacon. The plot follows a group of teenage camp counselors who are murdered one by one by an unknown killer while they are attempting to reopen an abandoned summer camp with a tragic past.
Santa's Slay is a 2005 Christmas black comedy slasher film written and directed by David Steiman, a former assistant to Brett Ratner; Ratner served as a producer. After a millennium of spreading Christmas joy due to losing a bet with an angel, Santa Claus reverts to his demonic self and gives the gift of evil and fear. The film stars Bill Goldberg, Douglas Smith, Emilie de Ravin, Robert Culp, Saul Rubinek, Dave Thomas, Rebecca Gayheart, Chris Kattan, and Fran Drescher.
Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon. The story follows a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a killer during the Christmas season.
The final girl or survivor girl is a trope in horror films. It refers to the last girl(s) or woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, notable examples being Psycho, Voices of Desire, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Terrifier 2. The term "final girl" was coined by Carol J. Clover in her article "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film" (1987). Clover suggested that in these films, the viewer began by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experienced a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.
Silent Night, Deadly Night is a 1984 American slasher film directed by Charles E. Sellier, Jr., and starring Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, and Linnea Quigley. The story concerns a young man named Billy Chapman, who suffers from post-traumatic stress over witnessing his parents' murder on Christmas Eve by a man disguised as Santa Claus and his subsequent upbringing in an abusive Catholic orphanage. In adulthood, the Christmas holiday leads him into a psychological breakdown, and he emerges as a spree killer donning a Santa suit.
The Hook, or the Hookman, is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car.
Black X-Mas is a 2006 slasher film written and directed by Glen Morgan, and starring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert, Kristen Cloke, and Andrea Martin. The film takes place several days before Christmas and tells the story of a group of sorority sisters who are stalked and murdered in their house during a winter storm. It is a loose remake and reimagining of the 1974 film of the same name. A co-production of Canada and the United States, the film was produced by Morgan and James Wong through their production company Hard Eight Pictures, along with 2929 Productions, Adelstein-Parouse Productions and Hoban Segal Productions. It is the second film in the Black Christmas series.
To All a Goodnight is a 1980 American slasher film directed by David Hess in his directorial debut, and starring Jennifer Runyon and Forrest Swanson. Its plot follows a group of female finishing school students and their boyfriends being murdered during a Christmas party by a psychopath dressed as Santa Claus.
"Unholy Night" is the eighth episode of the second season of the FX anthology television series American Horror Story. The episode, written by executive producer James Wong and directed by Michael Lehmann, originally aired on December 5, 2012.
Home for the Holidays is a 1972 American made-for-television slasher film directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, produced by Aaron Spelling and starring Sally Field, Eleanor Parker, Julie Harris, Jessica Walter, and Walter Brennan which premiered on ABC on November 28, 1972. The plot focuses on a wealthy father on his deathbed who invites his four daughters home for Christmas and tells them he suspects his second wife of poisoning him. Shortly after, the girls learn that their stepmother was accused of killing her first husband, and they begin to fall prey to a killer dressed in a yellow rain slicker.
Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with its producer Debra Hill. It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P. J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. Set mostly in the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield, the film follows mental patient Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister one Halloween night during his childhood; he escapes 15 years later and returns to Haddonfield, where he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis pursues him.
Killer Party is a 1986 Canadian supernatural slasher film directed by William Fruet, and starring Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Elaine Wilkes, Joanna Johnson, Sherry Willis-Burch, and Paul Bartel. It follows a trio of female sorority pledges who unleash a demonic force after participating in an initiation ritual in an abandoned house on their university's campus.
The representation of gender in horror films, particularly depictions of women, has been the subject of critical commentary.
Silent Night is a 2012 slasher film directed by Steven C. Miller and starring Malcolm McDowell, Jaime King, Donal Logue, Ellen Wong, and Brendan Fehr. It is a remake of Charles E. Sellier Jr.'s 1984 film Silent Night, Deadly Night and the sixth installment in the Silent Night, Deadly Night film series. The film was given a limited theatrical release on November 30, 2012, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 4, 2012.
Slasher is a horror anthology television series created by Aaron Martin. It premiered on Chiller on March 4, 2016, and on Super Channel on April 1, 2016. The licensing rights for the second season were acquired by Netflix in January 2017. The second season was released on October 17, 2017. On August 8, 2018, the series was renewed for a third season, which premiered on May 23, 2019. An eight-episode fourth season was ordered for Shudder, premiering on August 12, 2021. On February 10, 2022, the series was renewed for a fifth season, which premiered on April 6, 2023.
3615 code Père Noël is a 1989 French action-horror film written and directed by René Manzor. It is noted for its similarities to the 1990 American film Home Alone, the makers of which Manzor once threatened with legal action on the grounds of plagiarism, alleging that they had "remade my movie."
Silent Night, Deadly Night is an American Christmas horror film series, consisting of six films. The first film in the series, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), originally titled Slay Ride, tells the story of Billy, a young man who experiences a psychotic break and goes on a murder spree dressed as Santa Claus. The film received theatrical distribution from TriStar Pictures, but was pulled from theaters in November 1984 after a series of protests against the film.
Billy Chapman is a fictional character in the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise. Created by writers Paul Caimi and Michael Hickey, the character serves as the protagonist and antivillain of the first film, Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), and is featured in flashbacks in the sequel, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987).
Billy is a fictional character from the Black Christmas film series, first appearing in Black Christmas (1974) as a deranged murderer who taunts and kills a group of college students during the Christmas season. Created by Timothy Bond and A. Roy Moore, the character was partly inspired by the urban legend "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs", as well as a series of real murders in Montreal during the 1943 holiday season.
