State of the Slasher

The horror subgenre is having a resurgence

Arguably the most famous (or infamous) subgenre of horror film is the slasher. The success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978 kicked off a horror industry arms race throughout the 1980s as studios churned out slasher after slasher in an attempt to find the next lucrative horror franchise. Movies like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Child’s Play all found tremendous success at the box office with limited budgets, and they became some of the longest running movie franchises in the world.

By the end of the decade, the market had become over saturated with slashers and the subgenre faded out of style. Then along came Wes Craven’s Scream in 1996, and suddenly slashers were back in vogue with films like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend becoming box office hits. The Halloween franchise even got in on the action with Halloween: H20 revitalizing the saga of Michael Myers and the many unfortunate teens in his path.

The subgenre had seemingly died out once more by the end of the 2000s. But much like the many masked killers in the subgenre, the slasher just won’t stay dead. The 2020s have seen a bevy of new slashers in the decade thus far. I’ve already seen four new slashers in 2025, and it’s only May. With so many new additions to the subgenre, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of the different types of slashers permeating the horror scene this decade.

Reboots and Legacy Sequels

A very common trend this decade has been sequels to classic horror films that also seek to reboot the franchise and provide a jumping on point for new audiences. They also tend to just reuse the original title without any additional subtitles for some reason. Much like forty years earlier, this trend started with Halloween (2018) which then produced two sequels: Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022). Films that followed the trend include Candyman (2021), Scream (2022), and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). All of these films are sequels to the original films despite sharing the same title. In the case of all of these except for Scream, they are direct sequels to the original films that ignore all of the continuity established in the other sequels. I thought Halloween and Candyman in particular were both excellent (even if I didn’t care for how things wrapped up with Halloween Ends). I was less enthusiastic about Scream and Scream VI (yes, they went back to the legacy numbering with the sixth one), but they were both well received by fans with a seventh entry coming in 2026. As for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the less said the better. The next franchise to jump on the reboot/sequel train is I Know What You Did Last Summer. A new entry (also titled I Know What You Did Last Summer) is coming out this July.

Public Domain Cash Grabs

This is probably my least favorite trend of the 2020s. A number of classic children’s cartoons, books, and comic strips have entered the public domain in recent years, and that has led to extremely low budget slasher films being made using these characters. Examples include Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), Popeye the Slayer Man (2025), and Screamboat (2025) among many others. The premises of these movies all boil down to, “Wouldn’t it be funny if this famous cartoon character killed people?” More power to you if you enjoy this particular brand of horror, but it isn’t my cup of tea.

Novel Adaptations

Who could have guessed that books aimed at kids and young adults would make for successful slasher material? A couple of films from this category that released this year inspired me to write this piece in the first place: Clown in a Cornfield and Fear Street: Prom Queen. Clown in a Cornfield is an adaptation of the book by the same name from author Adam Cesare. You’ll never guess what it’s about. I have not read the book, but the film from director Eli Craig is a solid little slasher with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The target audience is pretty clearly younger fans, so I’d be curious to hear what they think. The younger crowd at my showing seemed to be having a good time. Fear Street: Prom Queen is the fourth film based on the Fear Street series of books from children’s horror author (and fellow Buckeye) R.L. Stine. The first three from director Leigh Janiak were released on Netflix in 2021, and I really enjoyed them. This latest film in the series from director Matt Palmer (also released on Netflix) was a pretty precipitous drop in quality. The good news is that there are over one hundred Fear Street books still to adapt, so directors will have plenty of opportunities going forward.

Satirical Slashers

We have gotten a ton of slashers in recent years that have poked fun at slasher tropes. Some recent examples include Thanksgiving, Totally Killer, Heart Eyes, and Hell of a Summer. Some of these have worked better than others. Thanksgiving from Eli Roth is a send up of ‘90s slashers like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It balances the humor with the horror very well. Heart Eyes from Josh Ruben is another one I quite enjoyed. It satirizes both slashers and romantic comedies at the same time, and it threads the needle surprisingly well.

New Franchises

Last but not least, we’ve seen a couple of new slasher franchises emerge in recent years. On one end of the spectrum, you have Damien Leone’s Terrifier series. The first film in the series came out in 2016, but it wasn’t until the ‘20s that it blossomed into a full blown franchise with Terrifier 2 (2022) and Terrifier 3 (2024). These very low budget splatter films serve as a showcase for actor David Howard Thornton as deranged killer Art the Clown and Damien Leone’s impressive gore effects. They’re some of the goriest films I’ve ever seen, and they’re aimed at a very specific demographic that is entertained by the almost comedic absurdity of the violence. I happen to fall into that demographic, so it works for me! Unfortunately, not everyone is prepared for that level of violence as there have been multiple instances of people passing out or getting ill in cinemas from watching these movies. On the other end of the spectrum is Ti West’s X trilogy of films. These include X (2022), Pearl (2022), and MaXXXine (2024). All three star Mia Goth in one or two roles. She plays aspiring adult film star Maxine Mink in X and MaXXXine, and she plays the mentally disturbed Pearl in X and Pearl (yes, she plays both the killer and the final girl in X). I love these movies. Each one pays homage to different eras of film. X is a pretty traditional slasher set in the ‘70s and harkens back to movies like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Pearl is set in 1918 and combines the psychological horror of movies like American Psycho with the technicolor aesthetic of films like The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins. MaXXXine is set in the ‘80s and pays homage to classic giallo films like Deep Red as well as exploitation thrillers like Angel. I find the box office success of both of these franchises to be shocking. The Terrifier films have been released unrated to avoid picking up an NC-17 rating, so it’s practically miraculous that they’ve been released in cinemas at all. The only reason Terrifier 2 and Terrifier 3 received theatrical releases was due to the rabid cult following the first film received. The box office success of the X trilogy is similarly unlikely. Ti West had made a name for himself by making indie horror films that went direct to the home market, but he hadn’t made one since The Sacrament in 2013. For him to return to horror filmmaking with a series of financially successful films almost a decade later is pretty shocking.

So after all of that, I feel pretty comfortable declaring that the state of the slasher is strong. As with any genre, there is a wide range of quality from movie to movie. Despite that, these films are having a lot of success. That means we will see plenty more in the future, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.