7 Slasher Movies You Can Watch Right Now

While we did get a new Fear Street film this year in the form of Prom Queen, nothing will be able to top the three weeks in 2021 when we were graced with back-to-back installments of the trilogy based on R.L. Stine’s popular teen horror books. (Yes, I’m counting these as one entry on this list. Sue me.) Directed by Leigh Janiak, each film features one segment of a connected narrative stretching from 1994 all the way back to 1666 and the origins of the mysterious Shadyside curse. 

Inspired not only by Stine’s book series, but by films like Friday the 13th, the Fear Street trilogy still feels fresh four years later, committing wholeheartedly to its brutal kills even as it incorporates more supernatural elements as it moves along. If you’re looking for a cozy night in with a bag of Halloween candy, or you’re brand-new to slashers, this trilogy is right up your alley.

If, like me, you grew up on the Lindsay Lohan remake of Freaky Friday, but always thought it could be a little grittier, then scream queen Kathryn Newton has just the fix for you. Before she starred in Lisa Frankenstein and Abigail, the twenty-eight year old horror star led the cast of Freaky, a body-swap slasher that sees her trade identities with Vince Vaughn’s Blissfield Butcher, forced to track him down while navigating the body of a middle-aged serial killer. 

Taking direct inspiration from Freaky Friday itself, director Christopher Landon seamlessly combines the high school movie with the classic slasher, borrowing ideas from films like Scream and his previous project Happy Death Day to create something brand-new. For those who don’t quite want to commit to some of the bloodier films on this list, Freaky is a great intro to horror-comedy, while never sacrificing the gnarly nature of its kills for a laugh.

The Strangers broke my brain as a thirteen-year-old girl who was forced to watch it at a sleepover with her middle school friends, but it’s The Strangers: Prey at Night that really solidified my love for those characters, terrifying though they might be. Starring Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman, the long-gestated sequel is less psychological thriller and more straight slasher, following a family vacationing at a secluded mobile home park, only to be attacked by the titular killers with no way out. 

While the first film is certainly better and more beloved — even so much as to inspire the recent reboot trilogy — Prey at Night follows the slasher archetype much more closely, with an expanded list of kills and a much larger location. Arriving ten years after the original, Prey at Night serves almost as a satire on slashers, changing its tune to something less nerve-wracking and more neon-tinged, though that might just be my fondness for Pullman’s kill scene. (You’ll never hear “Total Eclipse of the Heart” the same way ever again.)

Similarly to The Strangers: Prey at Night, Slumber Party Massacre II isn’t more acclaimed than its predecessor, but it definitely is more fun. Following closely on the heels of the original, this lengthy-titled slasher was written and directed by Deborah Brock and produced by the late, great Roger Corman, and stars Crystal Bernard as the younger sister of one of the Driller Killer’s first victims. After developing a psychosexual bond with the slasher himself, she finds herself caught in hallucinations that slowly bleed through to the real world, watching her friends die gruesomely one by one. 

With an upgraded Driller Killer, dressed like a punk rock Elvis and wields a power drill guitar as his weapon, Slumber Party Massacre II ups the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, with all the sleaze of the best kind of ‘80s horror. It’s the perfect pick for a Halloween party, with plenty of great tunes and even more gruesome kills to entertain your guests.

If you’re looking for the origins of the slasher film, look no further. 1974’s Black Christmas is often referred to as one of the earliest films to feature a slasher, even inspiring John Carpenter’s Halloween four years later. Starring Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder as sorority sisters trapped in their campus housing alongside a mysterious, murderous stranger, the holiday horror would go on to define an entire generation of slashers, Christmas-themed or not.

While the film was rebooted twice, both in 2006 and in 2019 by Blumhouse, the original remains a cornerstone of horror cinema, with some of the most bone-chilling kills in horror history, all committed by a slasher who never once reveals his face. (That body in the rocking chair still haunts me to this day. Oof.)

With a new reboot hitting theaters in December — described as the “Hallmark movie from hell” by our own Brandon Wainerdi —  now is the perfect time to revisit this campy holiday horror, which follows on the heels of Black Christmas, but takes a bit more of a literal approach to the holiday mayhem trope. Originally released in 1984, Silent Night, Deadly Night stars Robert Brian Wilson as Billy Chapman, a traumatized young man who takes his anger out on others while dressed in a Santa suit. 

Like Black Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night has also been remade several times, but the original remains a classic both as a Halloween staple and a gorier choice for Christmas. Hey, if Home Alone’s nearly-deadly antics count as a Christmas movie, then so does Billy’s murderous rampage!

The most recent of the films on this list, Clown in a Cornfield took Shudder by storm when it arrived this summer, injecting the flat plains of the midwest with a new breed of terror. Based on the novel of the same name by Adam Cesare, the film from director Eli Craig features not just one slasher, but many, as a group of young high school students are terrorized by a group of killers dressed as the town’s mascot, the sinister smiling clown Frendo. 

For those of us that remember the killer clown craze of 2016, Clown in a Cornfield will send chills down your spine — and not just because of its creative kills. Without spoiling it, the undercurrent running through the film is decidedly sinister, with just the right amount of camp craziness to make for an ideal movie night.