5 Great Slashers That Should Not Be Missed
When we think of slasher movies the first titles that likely come to mind are Friday the 13th and Halloween. While the most well-known among them have spawned a seemingly endless array of sequels and remakes, there is a slew of lesser seen slasher films that have not gained the same level of popularity or financial success but still deserve to be recognized. For many horror fans these films are just as important to the sub-genre as their more mainstream and commercially successful cousins. Some could be considered minor classics while others may not be so great, but still make for a fun watch. Let’s have a look at five such films:
The Mutilator (1984) aka Fall Break
If you can get past the terrible 80s sitcom-sounding title theme, The Mutilator manages to be a quite effective and mean-spirited slaughterfest. Directed by Buddy Cooper, the film centers around a group of pals who decide to spend the weekend at an empty beach house belonging to their friend Ed. Unbeknownst to our cast, the deserted vacation spot is not exactly uninhabited and we are soon treated to to a series of violent and gory murders courtesy of a psychopath wielding a giant fish hook(!).
As is typical in the slasher sub-genre, The Mutilator opens with a tragic accident set in the past which lays the groundwork for the film’s present day events. There are no big surprises here with regard to the killer’s identity or motivation, but the film does succeed as an entertaining and gruesome entry in the 1980s slasher cycle. The characters are one-dimensional and somewhat goofy, and the score sounds as though it would better suited in the intro to Who’s the Boss?, but we get some creative kills, cool FX, and a decent enough story to keep us interested.
The Mutilator is currently available on Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Pack from Arrow Video.
Maniac (1980)
William Lustig’s film is more of a character study than a straight up slasher flick. In Maniac, Lustig allows the audience to identify more with the killer than his victims, telling the story largely from the perspective of its antagonist Frank Zito (Joe Spinell). There is still plenty of stalk & slash action here, featuring gruesome FX by Tom Savini (still love that exploding head) as well as some frightening imagery in the form of several dream sequences/hallucinations experienced by the film’s (anti) hero. Caroline Munro also stars as a photographer who succumbs to Frank’s charm before discovering that he may not be the “picture” of mental well-being.
Maniac is currently available on Blu-ray and DVD from Blue Underground. (**Note: A re-issue featuring a new 4k scan from the original 16mm negative is in the works and is currently scheduled for a December 2018 Blu-ray release.)
Nightmare (1981) aka Nightmares in a Damaged Brain
Like Maniac, Romano Scavolini’s Nightmare chooses to focus primarily on the psychosis of the film’s main villain (as opposed to some random characters behaving badly, thus getting themselves offed by a faceless killer). The film revolves around a mental patient named George Tatum (Baird Stafford) who is confined to an institution and is undergoing experimental drug treatments to suppress his nightmares and hallucinations. Before long George gets out and is soon off his meds thanks to a mishap by his doctor. Our friend Mr. Tatum travels from New York City to Florida, leaving a trail of bodies behind him while experiencing recurring dreams of a murder he witnessed as a child.
What separates Nightmare from some of its slasher brethren is that there is no prologue here showing a prior event which leads to the killer’s violent actions. In a way this film works backwards, beginning in the present day and saving the setup for much later in the proceedings. Along the way we get glimpses if why George is unbalanced but it doesn’t really come together until the very bloody final act.
Nightmare delivers a generous helping of sleaze and gore thanks to FX artist Ed French (allegedly supervised by Tom Savini).
Intruder (1989) aka Night Crew
Director Scott Spiegel turns a supermarket into a slaughterhouse in this 1989 slasher starring The Evil Dead‘s Sam and Ted Raimi. The plot of Intruder is fairly basic. A team of grocery store employees learns that their place of work has been sold by the owners, thereby ending their jobs in the very near future. Furthermore, one of the female workers, Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) is being stalked by a possessive ex-boyfriend who has recently completed a prison sentence for killing a man in a bar fight. Soon the members of the night crew begin to get picked off one by one during their shift in some of the most gruesome and creative ways imaginable. Among some of the murder weapons employed here are a meathook, garbage crusher, bandsaw, and even a spike stick.
Intruder benefits from a mostly likeable cast of characters and some very unique shots by Spiegel, which are not dissimilar to those used by Sam Raimi in The Evil Dead (notice the use of reflections and shadows in particular). It should be noted that Scott Spiegel also served as a writer for Raimi’s Evil Dead II. However, the real highlight of Intruder is some early gore FX work created by the newly formed KNB, whose members also worked as FX artists on Evil Dead II and assistants to Tom Savini on George Romero’s Day of the Dead in the years prior. Although Intruder‘s death scenes are extremely violent, the film stops short of disturbing its viewers due to the fact that it never takes itself too seriously, offering up a dose of humor whenever the opportunity presents itself. In addition to appearances by the brothers Raimi, fans of the Evil Dead movies will want to look for Dan Hicks and a brief cameo by Bruce Campbell.
Intruder is available on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack from Synapse Films.
Blood Rage (1987) aka Slasher aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods
“That isn’t cranberry sauce, Artie…” Continuing the trend of holiday-themed slasher movies that started with the likes of Black Christmas, Halloween, and My Bloody Valentine, director John Grissmer took a stab at the sub-genre with 1987’s Blood Rage. It was only a matter of time before Thanksgiving became the preferred setting for seasonal slaying, and Blood Rage delivers the goods with respect to conventional narrative staples and the kind of on-screen carnage one would expect by this point in the cycle.
The film centers around a pair of identical twins, Terry and Todd, one of whom has been residing in an insane asylum since a murder at a drive-in theatre which took place when he was a boy. In the opening scene, we see the young twins in the back of a station wagon while their mother is busy making out in the front seat. The brothers exit the car and one of them inexplicably kills a man with an axe to the face while his girlfriend runs away naked into the woods. After committing the violent act, he passes his stunned twin brother the murder weapon and proceeds to smear blood on brother’s hands and face, thereby leading to the confinement of the innocent sibling. From here the story is fairly predictable. Ten years have passed and news spreads that the institutionalized Todd has escaped from his holdings. Meanwhile, his brother Terry has been living with Mom and does not seem pleased when he finds out she is newly engaged to her boyfriend. Soon more murders begin to occur and everyone is convinced that Todd is responsible.
The story of Blood Rage might be a classic tale of mistaken identity, but it is served up with copious amounts of guts & grue (courtesy of makeup FX artist Ed French), some of which could be cranberry sauce. Mark Soper does a pretty good job portraying both Terry and Todd, while Louise Lasser (Frankenhooker), as Mom, isn’t given much to do besides sit around making drunken phone calls and gorging herself with Thanksgiving leftovers while sprawled out on the kitchen floor in front of an open refrigerator. Blood Rage works well within the conventions of the slasher sub-genre, and we even get an early cameo featuring Ted Raimi as a condom salesman. What more could you want?
Blood Rage is currently available on Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.
So there you have it. Five films that may have flown under the radar for some of the more casual slasher fans among us. If you’ve seen them maybe it’s time for a revisit, or maybe even a re-revisit as each of the above titles would make a great viewing for the coming Halloween season. Thanks to some really cool home video releases in recent years, these once hard to find cult rarities have been granted new life and are now easily accessible to a new generation of horror fans.