Slashers are awesome, but at times they can be hard to define. I’d personally say a slasher is a group of people or teens being hunted down one by one and being killed by the hands of either a masked killer, deformed killer, or crazy person. There are of course other things, but I don’t want to complicate the list anymore than it already is. I also understand some of you might not really agree with some of these and that is fine. Final Destination is by all intents a purposes a form of slasher film, only with an invisible killer. I thought long and hard about adding that, but couldn’t for one reason or another. Same could be said for the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. I really dug it as well, but they both seem like more survival than slash to me. That being said, here is my top 10 slasher list for the decade of 2000-2009.I tried to make a list of more traditional slashers flicks. I understand like every list it will be flawed…
10: Halloween (2007)
Yeah, let’s get the bitching out of the way early here. I understand a lot of you hate Rob Zombie and you hate that someone remade Halloween. I didn’t like the idea either, but I’ll be damned if I don’t really like a lot of what Rob did here. Yes, the dialogue is pretty awful at times and he seemed to lose the point of what made Halloween what it was to start with, but Halloween on steroids isn’t a total loss either. Let’s not, however, bring up his Halloween 2.
09: Jason X (2002)/Friday the 13th (2009)
Pretty cheap to have a tie here, and again I know this isn’t the most loved of entries into the Friday franchise. I still think they both play well into what a slasher truly is and Jason while not being the original slasher still feels like the Godfather of slashing, regardless if he’s in the horror franchise hell known as space or just going through a bit of his greatest hits that basically was what the remake was. Both still have re-watch value and came along at different times to sort of remind us what this sub-genre really was.
08: Sweatshop (2009)
Sweatshop to me didn’t have a likeable character in the whole movie. That made it much better to watch because you just wanted to see people get killed in gruesome ways and that was pretty much all Sweatshop had to offer. A creative killer that reminded me of the final boss at the end of level one of Double Dragon 2 and some of the best effects you will ever see in a slasher flick from a decade that sadly depended too much on CGI gore.
07: Hatchet (2006)
I don’t love Hatchet like many of you do and I still think it was a Friday the 13th rip-off right down to the Kane Hodder. But calling a spade a spade, wasn’t Friday the 13th just originally a Halloween rip-off? While not my cup of slasher tea, Hatchet, has a whole heck of a lot of fans in the horror community and has managed to become a franchise all it’s own. It isn’t a film I like above the others I’ve already mentioned, but respect has to be give based off how well it has done since it was released in the mid-2000s
06: Cold Prey (2006)
Cold Prey isn’t “old school American horror”, but it is certainly a slasher that brought something new to the table. Mixing a lot of what we loved about slashers in the 80s, Cold Prey, broke any language barrier with the content and violence it showed. I’ve never seen the 3rd one, but the one-two punch managed to become a favorite of mine almost instantly. Speaking of Cold Prey 2…
05: Cold Prey 2 (2008)
Cold Prey 2 managed to do something not many horror sequels have done, top the original. Not only that, but it gave us not one but two worthy final girls, along with an actual good reason why we’re having all this take place in a hospital that isn’t running ramped with people. It is really a shame that Shout Factory hasn’t released this on their Scream Factory line on Blu-ray. They did release it on DVD and that is a disc all slasher fans should seek out.
04: Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet (2009)
“Blood Night” was a smart slasher that I liked a whole lot more than a lot of you. I think if I’m willing to spot you guys a Hatchet on this list you can spot me at least one here. Besides, we do need a slasher that Danielle Harris actually fit in without come across as awkward. Some of you could debate that with her Halloween 2007 appearance, but if you want to see her do her thing in a film that often gets overlooked, this is the slasher to give a day in court to.
03: Laid to Rest (2009)
If we can have like six Wrong Turn movies and seven SAW films, then why do we only have two Laid to Rest films? While even I admit recasting and some other choices caused the sequel “Chromeskull” to drop the ball, Laid to Rest was awesome. The movie is a cat and mouse game that has a slasher flick taking place in between the chase. It is also another film that really got a boost from some awesome gore and it didn’t hurt that the lead was as easy on the eyes as she was as well.
02: My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Did anyone ever expect this remake to be as good as it was? While the 3D version gave me as headache, the movie was much better than I ever figured it would have been. Taking what originally could have been called a second string slasher from the 80s and giving it such a boost that the new version sort of surpasses it in a number of ways. One of which being the good sense this movie had to cast Tom Atkins. It was probably meant to be more gimmick than anything else, but luckily for us all, My Bloody Valentine 3D surpassed all of our expectations.
01: Gutterballs (2008)
Gutterballs is a slasher that feels like it reinvented the slasher wheel in a lot of ways and not just the slasher sub-genre. I feel like this movie packed such an obscene amount of nudity, violence, and filth that it sort of kick-started the whole list of over the top indie horror films that came after and are still coming out mostly through the “underground” today. It was recently announced that director Ryan Nicholson is making a Gutterballs 2. I think that is great because we need a whole Gutterballs franchise. I also think with the quality of this one he has a steep hill to climb. From rape to twists to a cool looking killer, Gutterballs easily was the most memorable slasher to come from that time period.
