To celebrate the release of Joyride, we asked some of our favorite horror authors and historians about their favorite slasher: Why do you love it, and why should someone check it out?
Here’s what they had to say. Is YOUR favorite slasher on here? Or is there one you’ve yet to watch?
Adam Cesare on Graduation Day (1981)
GRADUATION DAY (1981)
Director - Herb Freed
Writers - Anne Marisse, Herb Freed, David Baughn
ADAM CESARE @adamcesare
Clown in a Cornfield, Influencer, Video Night
Herb Freed’s Graduation Day is the perfect slasher, in a lot of ways. A less charitable reading might call it a “prototypical slasher” but… agree to disagree. To me it’s perfect.
The vintage, 1981, is early enough that the rules of the genre were still pleasantly in flux, late enough that it still feels like it’s playing by some established dictums. The setting and milieu—high school, with an emphasis on sports—is specific enough it feels unique, but broad enough that stays relatable and doesn’t feel like a gimmick slasher. And no matter how silly and “big” some of the kills and setpieces get, the mystery still plays by the rules, and our final girl’s investigation of that mystery bakes in the themes/double-meaning evoked by the title: by the final scenes, it really is a graduation day.
Also someone gets killed with a football.
Check out Adam’s books HERE
Robert Freese on Terror Train (1980)
TERROR TRAIN (1980)
Director - Roger Spottiswoode
Writers - T.Y. Drake, Daniel Grodnik, Judith Rascoe
ROBERT FREESE @rob_freese
The All-Night Video Guide: Slashers 70's & 80's
A New Year's Eve prank goes awry after Kenny Hampson thinks he's crawling into bed with sexy Alana, only to find a dismembered corpse frat jerk Doc stole from the morgue for the prank. A couple of years later, Sigma Phi throws one last seasonal soiree: a drunken costume party on a chartered train. By the time Alana realizes the killer is slaughtering her friends, it's too late for most of the people responsible for the prank that landed Kenny in the Canadian Institute for the Terminally Twitchy.
Terror Train was the first slasher movie I saw. My little brain buzzed, keeping up with the characters, the costume switches, and trying to figure out who the killer could be since Kenny was obviously still locked away in the asylum. I'd never seen anything like it before. The moment Alana let her guard down after pushing the killer off the train, and he's seen slithering across the window outside, my blood ran cold. When Jamie Lee Curtis let loose her perfect, ear-shattering scream during the climactic cat-and-mouse, I was hooked. Then my 11-year-old mind shattered when the killer was revealed. It was exciting and seemed somehow forbidden and, I don't know, adult? I've watched Terror Train numerous times over the decades, and I still love every frame of it.
Check out The All-Night Video Guide: Slashers 70's & 80's HERE
Alejandro Arbona on A Bay of Blood (1971)
A BAY OF BLOOD (1971)
Director - Mario Bava
Writers - Mario Bava, Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni
ALEJANDRO ARBONA @alejandroarbonahomar
Lake Yellowwood Slaughter: The Official Comic Book Adaptation
A Bay of Blood… Chain Reaction… Carnage… Last House on the Left Part II… and the greatest alternate title of all time, Twitch of the Death Nerve… call it what you will, Mario Bava's 1971 giallo thriller L'ecologia del delitto is the proto-slasher, along with one or two other Italian forebears like Sergio Martino's 1973 Torso (I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale). Bay of Blood is the title that stuck, commonly cited omitting the "A," and it left its gruesome mark on slashers and other gialli alike, while also being completely one of a kind across both genres. Bava had already pioneered the giallo genre in 1963 with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (La ragazza che sapeva troppo), then he revolutionized it on himself a year later with Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l'assessino), and he blew it up all over again here.
Unlike your usual giallo or slasher, there is no one killer to be unmasked, but rather everyone killing everyone for 84 minutes straight, from the very first scene until the very last one. This was the movie that relocated giallo from its luxe city apartments and countryside manors into the slasher flick's woods, and it gave us the escalating body count that everyone at the time hated, from critics to audiences to Christopher Lee himself, until the slasher arms race kicked off within the decade. But for its plainest influence, look no further than 1981's Friday the 13th: Part 2, which didn't just rip off (or, okay, "homage," heaven knows I've done it myself) one of Bay of Blood's most iconic kills, but two in a row, and in back-to-back scenes no less: a guy catches a blade with his face immediately before two lovers are run through with a spear that pierces the bed beneath them. I'm not knocking these imitations, just the opposite; I appreciate the slasher movie's tacit acknowledgement of its single greatest inspiration.
Check out Lake Yellowwood Slaughter HERE
Austin Hinderliter & Caleb J. Pecue of Terrorcore on The Initiation (1984)
THE INITIATION (1984)
Directors - Larry Stewart, Peter Crane
Writer - Charles Pratt Jr.
CALEB PECUE @calebjamespecue
Slaughter High: The Novelization, The Hushed Boys
AUSTIN HINDERLITER @creepycarvesdesign
The Stuffing
The Initiation was released in 1984, yet for reasons we’ll never understand, it did not receive the same recognition as many of its slasher contemporaries released that same year: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and Children of the Corn included. At times, it seems the film about a group of pledges breaking into a shopping mall after hours has been entirely forgotten. “Are you talking about Chopping Mall?” We’ve been asked that question more than once when referring to the film.
While a slasher at its core, The Initiation also explores heavier themes of trauma, psychoanalytic dream analysis, and fractured family relationships. Between the slicing and dicing, things stay equally intense. We root for final girl Kelly Fairchild and her fellow pledges. We feel for them while they endure Prank Night torture from Pledge Master Megan. Still, gorehounds should check out the film for its array of fun and creative deaths. The closed Fairchild Building also ramps up the atmospheric tension with its darkened storefronts and labyrinthine halls, where the killer could be lurking around the next corner.
At Terrorcore Publishing, we love the film so much that we have acquired the novelization rights and will be releasing The Initiation: The Official Novelization in October 2027.
Check out Terrorcore Press and all of the titles they offer HERE
Matt Serafini on My Bloody Valentine (1981)
MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981)
Director - George Mihalka
Writers - Stephen A. Miller, John Beaird
MATT SERAFINI @mattfini
Feeders
My Bloody Valentine (1981) is the best slasher this side of Michael and Jason (go ahead and debate which of their installments you prefer). Here, director George Mihalka conjures one hell of a menacing monster in “Harry Warden,” with the slasher proving to be startling creation. His outfit of hardhat, gas mask and soot-laden overalls is scary and striking. The stalk and slash bit inside the laundromat serves a perfect jump scare and the moment where he’s swinging his pickaxe at each lightbulb as he passes them is as tense and suspenseful as this stuff gets. Mihalka understands the fear of being trapped miles beneath the earth with a madman and milks it for everything it’s worth. And his film further distinguishes itself with a unique victim pool: a bunch of sympathetic, blue collar workers—older than these films often skew. Add to that an atmospheric small town location and you’ve got a bona fide classic on your hands. One that stands proud even without the crystalized nostalgia of a half dozen VHS rentals. Undeniably well-made stuff.
Check out Matt’s books HERE
Armando Munoz on The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (1984)
THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 (1984)
Director - Wes Craven
Writer - Wes Craven
ARMANDO MUNOZ @pervula1
Silent Night, Deadly Night Novelization, My Bloody Valentine Novelization, and Black Christmas Novelization
There’s nothing quite like hanging out with dear friends.
The friend group in Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes Part II is remarkably diverse for the early 1980s. Our final girl Cass has a disability, and yet her blindness is not treated as a handicap. Her other senses are heightened, she outsmarts the mutants, and she initiates sex with her hot bubble-butt boyfriend. A Black couple is included, and neither of them die first. Behind the scenes, two young gay actors were cast in macho, heroic lead roles. And a dog is a fully formed protagonist, with a backstory, emotions, and motivation (a technique I’d employ frequently in my novelizations).
These characters have palpable chemistry and comradery. A team of professional dirt bikers, they are not the cowering victims to which we’re accustomed, facing the threat with reckless bravery. They constantly joke with each other, erupt into laughter, and act like they’re in a sex comedy—Wes Craven channeled through National Lampoon. Even Ruby, the grim-faced cannibal girl from the original film, becomes a strong, citified businesswoman with a radiant smile. Watching The Hills Have Eyes Part II, I feel like I’m visiting cherished friends from my past. Friends who never fail to cheer me up. Friends who remain forever young.
It’s too bad they had to die one by one by one…
Check out Armano’s books HERE
Lowell Greenblatt on Clown in a Cornfield (2020)
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (2020)
Author - Adam Cesare
LOWELL GREENBLATT @lowellschool
Nightmare Autopsis: A Return to Elm Street
Any slasher fan worth their weight in red herrings remembers when they first saw Scream. Aside from reinvigorating cinematic horror, it made us look forward to how future creatives would explore and subvert the expectations within Randy Meeks’s “very simple formula.” However, time and WAY too many imitators prove you can’t stay postmodern forever without growing a little dull. I spent years searching for the next big leap in my favorite subgenre, until I discovered Adam Cesare’s YA-except-for-the-gore novel Clown In a Cornfield. With a title that horrifyingly malleable, I’m glad he used his talent for one of the most entertaining slasher stories I’ve come across.
Blending old school tropes (Revenge stemming from past tragedy! Generational trauma! Pitchforks!) with a 2020s sensibility (Social media! Other stuff I can’t spoil!) and an unforgettable killer in Frendo, the scary clown mascot of a dying town’s corn syrup factory, Cesare weaves a tight yarn that’s as scary as it is satisfying. Even the 2025 film adaptation is solid! Apologies to David Gordon Green and Radio Silence (who conspicuously share a plot point from the book’s sequel in Scream 6), but Clown In a Cornfield is the future of the slasher subgenre.
Check out Nightmare Autopsis: A Return to Elm Street HERE