Halloween season has finally arrived, and as we dive back into the wonderful world of horror ComingSoon.net is reflecting on the slasher genre! We’re asking our readers to vote on who they believe is the best of the bunch, with everyone from the wisecracking Freddy Krueger to the silent Michael Myers to the dancing Patrick Bateman and many more! Be sure to place your vote in our poll below, and let us know of any other favorites omitted from the poll in the comments below!
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With the slasher genre generally being cited as having started in the 1960s with films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, we’d be remiss not to reflect on the terrors that were Norman Bates and Mark Lewis, even if they didn’t deliver as many bloody thrills as their competitors. As time progressed and the exploitation genre started making a rise, audiences were introduced to the likes of Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper’s chainsaw-wielding Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Phantom Killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown and based on the real killer of the same name, Black Christmas‘ Billy and John Carpenter’s Michael Myers of Halloween.
The slasher genre would then enter what became known as the Golden Age and see the world introduced to the eventually hockey mask-wearing Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th, Harry Warden aka The Miner from My Bloody Valentine and Wes Craven’s Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. While the late ’80s and early ’90s would start to see fatigue hit the genre and struggle to rekindle the early streak of hits, it would still deliver some fan-favorite villains in Terry O’Quinn’s eponymous The Stepfather, Robert Z’Dar’s eponymous Maniac Cop, Don Mancini’s Chucky from Child’s Play and Clive Barker’s eponymous Candyman and Pinhead of Hellraiser.
Going into the late ’90s to the present, better known as the post-modern era, the genre would see a rollercoaster of varying quality entries and debuting new slashers including Kevin Williamson’s Ghostface of Scream and Ben Willis aka The Fisherman of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Rob Zombie’s Firefly Family from House of 1000 Corpses and its sequels, cult favorite Leslie Vernon from mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Adam Green’s Victor Crowley of Hatchet, James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s Jigsaw of the Saw series and Damien Leone and Shawn Moreau’s Art the Clown of Terrifier.
