Welcome to Slasherwood! At this site, you will discover information about how the Slasher genre started and the movies that inspired and pioneered the genre, such as Thirteen Women, The Spiral Staircase, Peeping Tom, and Psycho. You will also learn how the tropes started, the Golden Age, etc, leading up to the movies we have today such as big blockbusters like Scream, Halloween, and Chucky, while also learning about Giallo Italian Slasher films that inspired the movies that pioneered the genre; in fact, you will also learn how some indie Slasher films, such as Terrifier, made its way into mainstream Horror.
The Slasher film genre is famously known for starting with movies like Peeping Tom, Psycho, and Halloween, which only led to movies like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream. While those movies may have made the genre mainstreamed, it was films like The Spiral Staircase and Thirteen Women that inspired those movies. There were also a string of Italian slasher films, called Giallo Horror that helped shape the genre as well. Those films came during the 1970s, just a few years before Halloween, and helped shape the tropes like the “whodunit” aspect, the black gloved killer, masked killer, killer POV, and is known for their artistic style of blood and gore. Some of the most known Giallo movies are Torso, A Bay of Blood, Deep Red, and Blood and Black Lace;however, of Giallo horror, it was Torso that truly helped shape the genre, especially the “whodunit” aspect.
Peeping Tom started the trope of the killer's POV and the weapon of choice. There was a suggested “final girl”, but it wasn’t necessarily classified. Psycho, however, did give us a final girl, Marione Craine, only for her to be the first to die;nevertheless, her death stood out not only in Horror cinema history, but overall film history. Her death is famously known as “The Shower Scene.” Some other tropes that Psycho helped pioneer the genre were the weapon of choice, killers POV, and the “whodunit” aspect. Psycho and Peeping Tom have remained pioneers of the Slasher genre and have held a spot in pop culture cinema and Horror for decades.
Peeping Tom started the trope of the killer's POV and the weapon of choice. There was a suggested “final girl”, but it wasn’t necessarily classified. Psycho, however, did give us a final girl, Marione Craine, only for her to be the first to die;nevertheless, her death stood out not only in Horror cinema history, but overall film history. Her death is famously known as “The Shower Scene.” Some other tropes that Psycho helped pioneer the genre were the weapon of choice, killers POV, and the “whodunit” aspect. Psycho and Peeping Tom have remained pioneers of the Slasher genre and have held a spot in pop culture cinema and Horror for decades.
The Terror is a 1928 film and is the first all sound Horror movie. There were two versions of the movie, one with and one without sound. However, it is a film from cinema history that is unfortunately lost. It received low ratings by critics and fans for being considered a boring, slow burn, and was deemed unworthy by Hollywood, as they felt it wouldn’t make any sort of profit. This was also during a time where once you saw a movie in the theaters, you wouldn’t be able to watch it again until TVs were invented.
I have always loved Horror, with my first Horror movie being Friday the 13th when I was 8 years old (I believe), then Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street to follow. Although Friday the 13th was my first, my loves transitioned to Scream and Halloween overtime; in fact, my first rated R movie and Horror movie in theaters was Scream 4 in 2011 when I was 14. That movie alone, being able to experience it for the first time on the big screen as my first rated R movie, and Horror movie in theaters, forever changed the way I love Horror and Scream.
Due to my love of Horror, in particular slasher, it made me want to discover and dive deep into the history of the genre, with doing research on how the genre started, what movies inspired what movies, and how we got all the mainstream Horror and slasher icons we have to this day. So if you’re into blood, guts, gore, and watching people getting hacked up, then you’ve come to the right place!
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Halloween
Friday The 13th
Scream
Psycho
Sweeney Todd:Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Cabin In The Woods
Peeping Tom