96 Fun Facts About Slasher Movies

Bob Clark, director of the 1974 sorority-house slasher, made which 1983 family comedy?

A Christmas Story came nine years after Bob Clark's slasher Black Christmas, and he could only get it made once his raunchy hit Porky's had given him the clout.

Who wrote, directed and composed the score for Halloween (1978), the film that kicked off the slasher's golden age?

John Carpenter co-wrote the script with producer Debra Hill and, with no room in the budget for a composer, wrote and recorded the whole score himself in three days.

What do critics call the lone woman left standing to face the killer, a term coined by scholar Carol J. Clover?

Final girl, usually the most chaste and watchful of the group, while her friends are picked off for their sins. Clover's 1992 book Men, Women, and Chain Saws made the term standard.

In Friday the 13th (1980), what nickname do the locals give the supposedly jinxed Camp Crystal Lake?

Camp Blood is what Crazy Ralph calls it when he warns a newcomer that she will never come back; the script itself was first titled A Long Night at Camp Blood.

Which future star made his big-screen debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), as a teenager sucked into his own bed?

Johnny Depp, then a musician with no acting credits, got the part after the director's teenage daughter picked him out; his death scene, a geyser of fake blood, was shot in a rotating room.

Which well-known star plays Casey Becker, killed minutes into Scream (1996)?

Drew Barrymore was signed to play the lead, Sidney, but asked for the small part of Casey instead, the girl home alone who answers the phone in the first scene.

Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was partly inspired by which real murderer?

Ed Gein, the Wisconsin killer arrested in 1957 whose farmhouse held masks and furniture made of human skin; Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel borrowed the skin-wearing idea, while the plot itself is invented.

Sidney Prescott and her friends are stalked by a costumed killer in which fictional California town?

Woodsboro was filmed around Santa Rosa, California, where the school board refused to let Scream (1996) shoot at its high school; the end credits offer the board 'no thanks whatsoever'.

Alfred Hitchcock shot Psycho (1960) in black and white partly so which sequence would not look too gory?

The shower murder of Marion Crane: Hitchcock thought its blood would look too gory in colour, and filming in monochrome with his TV crew kept the budget near $800,000 after Paramount refused his usual one.

Bernard Herrmann's shrieking score for Psycho (1960) was written for what kind of ensemble?

Strings only: Herrmann wanted a 'black-and-white' sound to match the photography, and his players take their mutes off only for the film's most famous shrieks.

In the British proto-slasher Peeping Tom (1960), killer Mark Lewis hides a blade in what?

A leg of his camera tripod conceals the spike; Mark Lewis films each victim as she dies, and a mirror on the rig makes her watch her own death, an early meditation on the audience's voyeurism.

Peeping Tom (1960) was so savaged by critics that it nearly ended the British career of which director?

Michael Powell had made The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death; the film that wrecked his standing was later reappraised as a masterpiece, with Martin Scorsese among its champions.

In the original Friday the 13th (1980), who turns out to be the killer?

Pamela Voorhees, the camp cook, is avenging her son Jason's drowning at the camp in 1957; Jason himself does not pick up a weapon until Part 2.

In which Friday the 13th film does Jason first put on his hockey mask?

Part III (1982): Jason hid under a burlap sack in Part 2, then takes the goalie mask from prankster Shelly in the third film, and it has been his trademark ever since.

Jason X (2001) wakes Jason Voorhees from cryogenic freezing aboard what?

A spaceship in the year 2455: students on a field trip to an abandoned Earth carry the frozen Jason aboard the Grendel, where a nanite rebuild turns him into the cyborg fans call Uber Jason.

Sleepaway Camp (1983) is notorious for its final-shot twist revealing what about camper Angela?

She is really her brother Peter: the real Angela died in the boating accident that opens the film, and the surviving boy was raised as a girl by his Aunt Martha, revealed in the final freeze-frame.

The killer in My Bloody Valentine (1981) stalks the town of Valentine Bluffs dressed as what?

A miner in a gas mask, the guise of legendary killer Harry Warden; censors demanded cuts to every death scene, and the gore stayed unseen until a 2009 release put some of it back.

Chucky's name Charles Lee Ray draws on Manson, James Earl Ray and which third killer?

Lee Harvey Oswald supplies the middle name of Charles Lee Ray, the killer whose soul ends up in the doll; Don Mancini's first script had no killer at all, only a doll brought to life by a boy's rage.

Who has voiced Chucky since the original Child's Play (1988)?

Brad Dourif also appears on screen as Charles Lee Ray, the dying killer who uses a voodoo spell to send his soul into a Good Guy doll in the first film's opening minutes.

Which minimalist composer wrote the score for Candyman (1992)?

Philip Glass, better known for operas and concert works, said in 2014 that this slasher score had become a classic, so he still got cheques from it every year.

Candyman (1992) is set largely in which Chicago public housing project?

Cabrini-Green was a real Chicago project, and part of the film was shot there; by the time the 2021 sequel went back, its towers had been torn down and the area was gentrifying.

Who has voiced Ghostface on the phone in every Scream film?

Roger L. Jackson was hired to perform the calls live to the cast and was due to be dubbed over later, but the director liked his voice so much that it stayed.

The Ghostface mask began as a Halloween novelty mask sold by which company?

Fun World sold it as 'The Peanut-Eyed Ghost' in its Fantastic Faces novelty line; producer Marianne Maddalena found one in a house while location scouting, and the studio licensed the design from the company.

What colours are the stripes on Freddy Krueger's sweater?

The director reportedly picked the pair after reading that red and green are the hardest colours for the human eye to see side by side.

Michael Myers' mask in Halloween (1978) was a two-dollar shop-bought mask of which actor, painted white?

William Shatner: the crew bought a Captain Kirk mask for about two dollars, painted it white, widened the eye holes and reworked the hair until it no longer looked like him.

Which comedy actor co-wrote Halloween (2018) with director David Gordon Green?

Danny McBride wrote it with David Gordon Green and Jeff Fradley, and their script throws out every earlier sequel to pick up forty years after the 1978 original.

Art the Clown of the Terrifier films has been played since the 2016 feature by which actor?

David Howard Thornton took over the silent role for Terrifier (2016) after Mike Giannelli, who played Art in the early shorts and All Hallows' Eve (2013), left acting; creator Damien Leone directs the films.

In the 2017 time-loop slasher starring Jessica Rothe, Tree Gelbman keeps being murdered on which day?

Her birthday, the joke in the title Happy Death Day: each time the killer in the baby mask gets her, Tree wakes up on the same morning and has to solve her own murder.

The home invaders in You're Next (2011) wear masks of which three animals?

Lamb, fox and tiger masks hide the hired attackers, who have not reckoned on one dinner guest having grown up in a survivalist compound.

The Cabin in the Woods, shot in 2009, was delayed until 2012 by trouble at which studio?

MGM's 2010 bankruptcy shelved the finished film; Lionsgate bought it and released it in April 2012, by which time co-star Chris Hemsworth had already become Thor.

In The Slumber Party Massacre (1982), the escaped killer wields what?

A power drill, wielded by escaped killer Russ Thorn; the screenplay was written as a parody of slasher conventions, but director Amy Holden Jones shot it straight, which is why the film is funnier than most of the genre.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) was written by which feminist novelist?

Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle, wrote it as a parody called Sleepless Nights; Amy Holden Jones shot a few scenes over a weekend for $1,000, and Roger Corman agreed to pay for the rest.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) had its ads pulled because its killer dressed as whom?

Santa Claus: TV spots of an axe-wielding Santa ran in the daytime and frightened children, so parents protested, and TriStar dropped the ads and then pulled the film from many cinemas within two weeks.

The score of The Burning (1981) was composed by the keyboardist of which progressive rock band?

Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman scored this early Weinstein brothers production; they named their company Miramax after their parents, Miriam and Max.

Who directed the 2003 crossover Freddy vs. Jason?

Ronny Yu wanted a taller, slower Jason to loom over Robert Englund, so the part went to stuntman Ken Kirzinger; it was Englund's last film as Freddy.

Two kills in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) copy scenes from which 1971 Mario Bava film?

A Bay of Blood (also released as Twitch of the Death Nerve) supplied the machete to the face and the couple speared together mid-embrace; Bava's film is often called the blueprint for the body-count movie.

The Fear Street film trilogy (2021), set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, adapts teen horror books by which author?

R. L. Stine began the Fear Street books in 1989 for readers a little older than his Goosebumps fans; the three films were shot back to back and released a week apart in July 2021.

Which four-time Jason actor plays Victor Crowley in Hatchet (2006)?

Kane Hodder played Jason in four films running, then lost the part for Freddy vs. Jason; Hatchet gave him a slasher of his own in the swamp-dwelling Victor Crowley.

Which 1963 Herschell Gordon Lewis drive-in hit is often called the first splatter film?

Blood Feast has a Miami caterer butchering women for an Egyptian feast; made for about $24,500, it took in millions at drive-ins, so Lewis kept the gore coming for years.

Post-war Germany's 'Krimi' films, a slasher influence, adapted the crime novels of which British writer?

Edgar Wallace had been dead for nearly thirty years when West Germany's Rialto Film began turning his thrillers into a long run of hits, with Klaus Kinski as a regular villain.

Italy's stylish murder-mystery thrillers that heavily influenced slashers are known by what name?

Giallo, Italian for 'yellow', after the yellow covers of Mondadori's pulp crime paperbacks; Mario Bava and Dario Argento put black-gloved killers and stylish set-piece murders on screen a decade before Halloween.

Black Christmas (1974) used which gimmick that foreshadowed later slashers?

The killer calling from inside the house: police trace the obscene calls to the sorority's own phone line, a shock taken from the urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs.

Who wrote the screenplay for Scream (1996)?

Kevin Williamson was a struggling unknown when he wrote it; the hit made his name, and within two years he had created the teen drama Dawson's Creek.

Which critic gave away the ending of Friday the 13th (1980) in print to keep audiences away?

Gene Siskel also printed the address of the chairman of Paramount's parent company so that readers could complain; the film went on to take nearly $60 million worldwide.

In which 1980 William Lustig film did Vincent Canby find the star's acting 'like watching someone else throw up'?

Maniac, co-written by and starring Joe Spinell as scalp-collecting killer Frank Zito, with gore effects by Tom Savini; Lustig released it unrated to sidestep the MPAA.

Prom Night, Terror Train and The Fog, all released in 1980, earned Jamie Lee Curtis what two-word title?

Scream queen, a title she then walked away from with comedies such as Trading Places (1983) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988); Prom Night alone grossed nearly $15 million in North America.

The Hills Have Eyes (1977) modernised the legend of which cannibal clan leader?

Sawney Bean, the legendary Scottish cannibal whose clan preyed on travellers; the film moves the tale to the Nevada desert to show a stranded suburban family turning just as savage.

The street names of Haddonfield in Halloween (1978) came from the director's hometown in which state?

Haddonfield itself came from co-writer Debra Hill's New Jersey hometown, while the streets were lifted from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Who played Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael Myers' pursuing psychiatrist, in the 1978 original?

Donald Pleasence took the part after Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee turned it down; Lee later called refusing it the biggest mistake of his career, and Pleasence played Loomis in four more sequels.

Who played the masked Michael Myers, billed as 'The Shape', in the 1978 original?

Nick Castle earned $25 a day under the mask and went on to direct The Last Starfighter; Tony Moran played the briefly unmasked Michael at the film's end.

Which Halloween sequel drops Michael Myers entirely for a plot about Silver Shamrock masks?

Halloween III: Season of the Witch was meant to turn the series into an anthology with a new story each time; its masks hide chips of Stonehenge, set to kill children during a TV commercial.

Which future star made his big-screen debut as Laurie Strode's teenage son in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)?

Josh Hartnett plays John, whose mother Laurie is hiding as headmistress Keri Tate; within three years he was starring in Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down.

Halloween II (1981) introduced what twist about Laurie Strode's connection to Michael Myers?

She is his younger sister, adopted by the Strodes as a small child; the twist steered the sequels for decades until the 2018 film dropped it from the story altogether.

Which future star played Jack, killed by an arrow through the throat, in the 1980 Crystal Lake film?

Kevin Bacon was a soap-opera actor when he was cast; four years after dying in a bunk at the camp, he danced his way to stardom in Footloose.

Which actress took a role in Friday the 13th (1980) reportedly only to pay for a new car?

Betsy Palmer, a long-time panelist on I've Got a Secret, thought the script was dreadful but needed the car; her character's severed head turns up again in Part 2.

The 1980 Crystal Lake original was shot at a working summer camp run by which organisation?

The Boy Scouts: Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in Hardwick, New Jersey, a Boy Scouts of America camp, carried on as a working scout camp after filming and has hosted ticketed fan tours.

In The New Blood (1988), Jason is freed from Crystal Lake by Tina, a teen with what power?

Telekinesis: Tina wishes her drowned father back from the lake and wakes Jason instead, in a film conceived as Jason versus Carrie.

Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) was filmed mainly in which city?

Vancouver stood in for the cruise ship and most of the city; little of the $5 million production reached Times Square, and a poster of Jason slashing the I Love New York logo was pulled after the tourism board complained.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) grew out of news reports about refugees who did what?

Died in their sleep: the Los Angeles Times reported on Southeast Asian refugees who had nightmares, fought to stay awake and then never woke, and a killer who strikes in dreams grew from there.

A Nightmare on Elm Street's success earned New Line Cinema what nickname?

The House that Freddy Built: New Line had mostly distributed other people's films until A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) turned it into a studio, one that went on to make The Lord of the Rings.

Which heavy metal band recorded the theme song for Dream Warriors (1987)?

Dokken's video has Freddy menacing Patricia Arquette's Kristen until the band's playing drives him off; then he wakes in his own bed, and the whole thing was his nightmare.

In Candyman (1992), saying his name five times while looking into what will summon him?

A mirror: graduate student Helen Lyle tries it half as a joke while researching urban legends, and the ghost she set out to debunk takes her at her word.

Who replaced Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in the 2010 remake?

Jackie Earle Haley, an Oscar nominee for Little Children, took the role; the remake made Freddy a child molester, the darker idea that the 1984 film had softened to a child killer.

Under what working title was the 1996 Ghostface screenplay written and sold to Dimension Films?

Scary Movie: written in three days, it set off a bidding war; Dimension changed the title late in production and, four years later, released a slasher parody under the old one.

A TV documentary on which serial killer spurred the writing of Scream (1996)?

Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, murdered five students in Florida in 1990; after the documentary the writer spotted an open window, armed himself with a knife and rang a friend.

Scream 2 (1997) moves Sidney to which fictional Ohio campus?

Windsor College was played by Agnes Scott College near Atlanta and by UCLA; the killing starts at a preview of Stab, the film within the film about Sidney's ordeal.

Which filmmaking collective directed Scream (2022), the first Scream film made without Wes Craven?

Radio Silence, the trio of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and producer Chad Villella, came to Scream after Ready or Not (2019); the film ends with a dedication to Wes Craven, who died in 2015.

A pay dispute kept which star out of Scream VI (2023), the only Scream film she has missed?

Neve Campbell turned down an offer she said did not reflect her value to the franchise; Sidney Prescott is said to be safely away from the New York killings, and the film was shot in Montreal.

Who narrated the 1974 Chain Saw film's opening crawl, reportedly being paid in marijuana?

John Larroquette, later of Night Court, read the crawl for his friend Tobe Hooper and said his only payment was a bit of marijuana; he returned to narrate the 2003 remake and 2022's Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)?

Gunnar Hansen, born in Reykjavik and raised partly in Texas, watched pupils at a special-needs school to prepare, and admitted cutting Marilyn Burns's finger for real when the fake blood failed.

Which Easy Rider actor tops the cast of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)?

Dennis Hopper plays Lieutenant 'Lefty' Enright, a vengeful Texas lawman who arms himself with chainsaws; the sequel turned the family into black comedy and gave them the surname Sawyer.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995) stars which two future A-listers?

Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey were near-unknowns when it premiered at South by Southwest in 1995; Columbia TriStar shelved it, then gave it a small release in 1997 after Jerry Maguire and A Time to Kill made them stars.

The 2022 Leatherface legacy sequel, set fifty years after the original, debuted on which service?

Netflix, which picked it up from Legendary and streamed it in February 2022; shot in Bulgaria, it brings back survivor Sally Hardesty, now a Texas Ranger, to face Leatherface in the ghost town of Harlow.

Who played Marion Crane, who steals $40,000 in Psycho (1960)?

Janet Leigh was the film's star, yet her character never leaves the motel alive; eighteen years later her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis led Halloween, and the two appear together in Halloween H20.

Psycho (1960) was sold to audiences under what unusual theatre policy, enforced at Hitchcock's insistence?

No late admission: Hitchcock's reason was that the film's star is killed so early that latecomers would miss her altogether.

Who played Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant's near shot-for-shot 1998 remake?

Vince Vaughn played Norman opposite Anne Heche's Marion Crane; Van Sant shot in colour but copied Hitchcock's camera moves, reused Joseph Stefano's script and had Danny Elfman rearrange Bernard Herrmann's score in stereo.

Bates Motel (2013–17) starred Vera Farmiga and which actor as young Norman?

Freddie Highmore, the boy from Finding Neverland grown up, played Norman for five seasons; the A&E prequel relocated the motel from Fairvale, California to White Pine Bay, Oregon.

Chucky was nearly called 'Buddy' until the name risked a lawsuit from which toymaker?

Hasbro's My Buddy doll, launched in 1985, was the obvious target: director Tom Holland said it shaped Chucky's look, and writer Don Mancini was also thinking of the 1983 Cabbage Patch Kids riots.

Which actress has played Chucky's bride Tiffany since Bride of Chucky (1998)?

Jennifer Tilly, whom creator Don Mancini wanted after seeing Bound and Bullets Over Broadway, voices the doll and plays the human Tiffany; she also plays a version of herself in Seed of Chucky and the TV series.

Who voices the high-tech Buddi doll Chucky in the 2019 Child's Play remake?

Mark Hamill, the voice of the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, voiced the doll; the remake ditches voodoo for a sabotaged AI doll from the Kaslan Corporation, and Aubrey Plaza plays Andy's mother Karen.

The Chucky TV series (2021–24) is set in which New Jersey city?

Hackensack: Bride of Chucky had already sent the dolls there to dig up Charles Lee Ray's buried body, and in the series teenager Jake Wheeler buys the doll at a yard sale for an art project.

Clive Barker's story The Forbidden, the basis for Candyman (1992), was set in which British city?

Liverpool: Barker's tale, set on a run-down council estate in his home city, was about class in British housing; director Bernard Rose moved it to a Chicago project to tackle race in America.

Who played the hook-handed killer in both Candyman (1992) and Candyman (2021)?

Tony Todd's Candyman was an artist lynched for loving a white woman: the mob sawed off his hand and set bees on him, which is why he comes back with a hook and a swarm.

Black Christmas (1974) was briefly released in the US under what alternative title?

Silent Night, Evil Night: Warner Bros. reportedly feared the original title would be taken for a blaxploitation film, then dropped the new name and reissued the film as Black Christmas.

Who plays Jess Bradford, the lead of Black Christmas (1974)?

Olivia Hussey, Zeffirelli's Juliet in 1968, reportedly signed on after a psychic told her she would make a lucrative film in Canada.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) adapts a 1973 young-adult novel by which author?

Lois Duncan's suspense novel turns on a hit-and-run, not a slasher; she disliked the film that made it one, coming less than a decade after her own daughter's murder.

Urban Legend (1998) stages its folklore-themed murders at which fictional New England school?

Pendleton University, a fictional New England campus; the parka-clad killer microwaves a dog, hides in a back seat and hangs a victim from a tree, and Robert Englund plays folklore professor William Wexler.

Which illusionist plays the magician hired to entertain the costume party in Terror Train (1980)?

David Copperfield plays the party's hired magician, Ken; the killer keeps swapping costumes with victims aboard the New Year's Eve excursion train, and singer Vanity appears under the name D.D. Winters.

The Burning (1981) was the debut of Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens and which Seinfeld star?

Jason Alexander plays camper Dave; the story credit is shared by Harvey Weinstein and his gofer Brad Grey, who went on to run Paramount Pictures.

Which two-time Oscar winner made his screen debut in the 1980 slasher He Knows You're Alone?

Tom Hanks, in his first film, plays psychology student Elliot; his character was scripted to die, but the filmmakers liked him so much they never shot the death scene.

Which future star debuted in Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) as a girl murdered at her First Communion?

Brooke Shields, about ten, plays Karen Spages, strangled before her First Communion; the Paterson, New Jersey film was reissued in 1981 as Holy Terror to cash in on her fame and later fell into the public domain.

In The Strangers (2008), what reason does Dollface give when asked why they are doing this?

'Because you were home': Dollface's answer to Kristen's 'Why are you doing this?' is the film's chilling thesis; Bryan Bertino drew on the Manson family's Tate murders and on strangers knocking at doors in his own childhood neighbourhood.

MaXXXine (2024) unfolds in 1985 Los Angeles against the backdrop of which real murder spree?

The Night Stalker murders: Richard Ramirez's 1985 killings fill the news while Mia Goth's Maxine, the lone survivor of X, auditions for a horror sequel and a leather-gloved stalker watches her; it out-grossed the trilogy's earlier films.

Eli Roth's Thanksgiving (2023) grew out of a fake trailer made for which 2007 film?

Grindhouse ran Eli Roth's fake Thanksgiving trailer between its two features; sixteen years later the real film arrived, its killer in a John Carver mask avenging a deadly Black Friday riot.

Which 1981 slasher parody flashes a running death tally on screen?

Student Bodies keeps a running on-screen body count; its killer, the Breather, wields weapons like a paperclip and an eggplant, and the ending reveals everything was a fever dream, a nod to The Wizard of Oz.

Intruder (1989) stages its night-shift slashings inside what kind of business?

A supermarket after closing time: director Scott Spiegel drew on his own job at Michigan's Walnut Lake Market, Sam Raimi plays a supporting role and Bruce Campbell cameos in the final scene.