Best Modern Slasher Horror Movies

Summary

• The slasher genre has seen a recent revival after being oversaturated in the past.
• Modern horror slashers explore new perspectives, including killers, Gen Z reactions, and queer storylines.
• Recent movies like Terrifier, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Totally Killer bring fresh blood to the genre.

In the slasher genre, unknowing pubescent teens play a game of cat and mouse with a masked or unmasked killer. Typically, these movies have a high body count due to the terrible choices each teen makes — and that’s what makes it so fun.

Since the boom in the ’80s, the slasher genre has been on a slow decline. Due to how popular the genre became, it was slowly oversaturated with cheap movies looking to cash in on the trend. But in recent years, slashers have received a new breath of life and are slowly being resurrected. Here are just some modern horror slashers that show that the genre is totally back and ready for fresh blood.

9

Terrifier Series

• Released: October 2016
• Directed By: Damien Leone
• Where To Watch: Tubi, Peacock, Amazon Prime, Pluto TV

Directed by Damien Leone, the Terrifier movies are arguably some of the most popular in the genre. They perfectly encapsulate what a modern slasher movie looks like.

After Leone’s original movie, All Hallows’ Eve (2013), introduced us to Art, he decided to put the terrifying clown in the spotlight with the first Terrifier (2016) movie. In the first film, Art stalks and tries to kill three women on Halloween night. Due to how grotesque the movie is and how silly Art the Clown acts, it quickly garnered media attention.

8

Bodies Bodies Bodies

• Released: March 2022
• Directed By: Halina Reijn
• Where To Watch: Tubi

Modern horror movies mean dealing with modern questions. How would the self-centered, social-media-obsessed teens and young adults of Gen Z react in a life-threatening situation? Bodies Bodies Bodies has the answer: pure and absolute chaos.

With a star-studded cast including Pete Davidson and Rachel Sennott, Bodies Bodies Bodies sees a group of 20-something-year-olds get stuck in a remote mansion during a hurricane. To pass time, the group decides to play a game that quickly goes horribly wrong. Now, they’re forced to uncover if somebody among them isn’t who they say they are. It’s a hilarious movie that flips the slasher genre into the 20th century, perfect for a generation that’s chronically online.

7

In A Violent Nature

• Released: May 2024
• Directed By: Chris Nash
• Where To Watch: AMC+

Have you ever wanted to watch a horror movie from the killer’s perspective? With In A Violent Nature, now you finally can. Shot primarily from a first-person perspective, the film follows the vengeful spirit of Johnny as he is resurrected after a group of teens takes a locket from a collapsed fire tower in the woods. Now Johnny is set on getting back what was stolen from him, as well as his vengeance from 60 years ago.

It’s reminiscent of the slashers of old, specifically the Friday The 13th series, as this movie also has a camp setting. But setting the main perspective from the killer’s is a brand-new idea for the genre and makes for a great watch through.

6

Fear Street Series

• Released: July 2021
• Directed By: Leigh Janiak
• Where To Watch: Netflix

R.L. Stine is among one of the horror greats. For many, his novels were the stepping stones into the genre. While many know Stine for his Goosebumps books, it was actually the Fear Street series that helped him get his start.

Although the movies are a brand-new take on the series, they perfectly capture the spirit of the novels. The first movie follows a teen and her friends forced to take on an evil force that’s hung over their town for centuries. It hits the same beats as a typical slasher movie, but the iconic killers are what make the movie. There are three movies in the series so far, all featuring different characters and a whole new list of killers.

5

Totally Killer

• Released: September 2023
• Directed By: Nahnatchka Khan
• Where To Watch: Amazon Prime

Sometimes, you have to just take things old school and go back to the good old days. In Totally Killer, you get to relive the glory days of the ’80s — just with some masked serial killers running around.

35 years after the brutal murders of three teens, a masked killer returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. After 17-year-old Jamie comes face-to-face with the maniac, she somehow finds herself back in 1987. As she navigates her way through the unfamiliar time, Jamie teams up with her teenage mother to take down the killer to prevent those murders from ever happening. It has some great callbacks to the decade that started the slasher genre and is a great original concept.

4

MaXXXine

• Released: July 2024
• Directed By: Ti West
• Where To Watch: Max

Ti West’s X trilogy took the internet by storm. After the release of X (2022) and Pearl (2022), fans eagerly awaited the final installment of Maxine Minx’s story and in 2024, we finally got the epic conclusion we were waiting for.

While the original movies aren’t categorized as a slasher, the third movie fully embraces its slasher roots. It’s set in 1980s Hollywood and Maxine Minx has finally gotten her big break on the big screen. But soon, Los Angeles is targeted by a masked man who leaves a trail of star-studded starlets in his bloody path. Mix soon realizes that it’s not so easy to leave her past behind. Not only is it a great conclusion to the series, but it also helps bring slashers back to their roots.

3

They/Them

• Released: July 2022
• Directed By: John Logan
• Where To Watch: Peacock

Horror has always seen queer storylines featured more prominently than any other genre. It has been used to express queer identities, both explicitly and through subtext. But with They/Them, there’s very little subtext to sift through.

The movie has the typical summer camp setting that we’re used to in the genre, but this time the story features a cast of openly out queer characters. After being forced to go to an LGBTQ+ conversion camp, a group of teens endure various unsettling psychological techniques while being stalked by a mysterious masked killer. While it’s great that the movie features queer characters, there are some things the movie gets wrong. Nonetheless, it’s a new take on slashers that we should celebrate.

2

Thanksgiving

• Released: November 2023
• Directed By: Eli Roth
• Where To Watch: Netflix

Although Halloween is the best time for horror movies, other holiday themed horror movies have seen big releases. From Christmas to New Years, there’s typically a horror movie to accompany a holiday. But there was a gap for one holiday that legendary director Eli Roth decided to fill.

Back in 2007, Roth created a fictional trailer for his movie Grindhouse. In the trailer, the horror movie follows a serial killer who targets a small town in Massachusetts on Thanksgiving, all while dressed as a pilgrim and wearing a John Carver mask. Years later, he finally got the chance to make his movie. The wait was well worth it and there are some hilarious bits with even more memorable kills.

1

It’s A Wonderful Knife

• Released: November 2023
• Directed By: Tyler MacIntyre
• Where To Watch: Hulu

Following the trend of holiday-themed horror movies, It’s A Wonderful Knife is a playful twist on the classic Christmas story. There are horror icons like Justin Long and Katherine Isabelle in the movie and it has a great masked killer with an even better character design.

After she saves her town from a psychotic killer on Christmas Eve, Winnie Carruther’s life takes a quick turn for the worst. She wishes she was never born and finds herself magically transported to a nightmarish parallel universe where the killer was never stopped. Now, she must find a way to get back to her own reality while also stopping the killer for a second time.