Historical Genre Research

Horror/Slasher Genre

The Slasher genre is a sub genre of the horror genre and it tends to involved a mentally deranged male stalking and eventually killing a sequence of women, this is normally with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Slasher films can be very graphic and this is why they have high age ratings.

The 1970's was the time period where slasher films were born. This was because it was a time where movie directors where experimenting with different movie scenarios. The first film to fall under the Slasher genre was Black Christmas. Black Christmas was released in 1974 and it was directed by Bob Clark. Many characteristics of a slasher film were present in this movie e.g: a mysterious stalker, innocent group of female victims and a point of view shot showing the stalkers perspective.

Halloween by John Carpenter is also said to be one of the first slasher films made. Halloween is very similar to Black Christmas in the sense that you have a mentally deranged killing machine. In Halloween, the identity of the slasher isn't revealed. Halloween was one of the first slasher films in which the killer was almost an indestructible force.


There have been many popular movies in the Slasher genre. E.g: Silent Night (1974), Savage Weekend (1976), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Friday the 13th (1980). These films have been important for the genre because they have helped to shape what the conventions are.