Original Slasher Movies Ranked
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! In honor of it being the spookiest time of the year. I wanted to do my first ever horror related ranking. So today I’m going to be ranking the big three slasher movies Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. As a point of reference I watched all three of these movies for the first time within the month of October. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
3. Friday the 13th (1980): I don’t think this is a movie that won me over, and it wasn’t one that I found to be good. Neither was this movie bad, it was just mediocre. With Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street they both had something that stood out. With Halloween it was the direction, with A Nightmare on Elm Street it was Freddy Kruger. With this movie, nothing stood out to me. Everything was fine, the characters were fine. The kills were fine. In general, this movie just felt generic. It tried to have good direction by Sean S. Cunningham, but it wasn’t memorable. And the big twist of the movie, it didn’t do much for me. Most likely because it got spoiled for me so that big woah moment and woah factor wasn't there for me. I’m struggling a bit to find some things to say. I know this is a classic of the genre, and maybe I wasn’t in the right mind set or not focused enough when I watched this movie. But if I was ever to rank the Friday the 13th franchise, I’d imagine this will be in the bottom half of the list. Oh yeah and it’s fun to see a young pre-stardom Kevin Bacon as a character in this movie.
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): Of these three movies, this is the one that I thought had the most interesting concept to it. Halloween and Friday the 13th had simple concepts of slashers killing people in either a town or a lake. But this one explores the idea of what if you were attacked in your dreams, what would you do? Could you survive it? And the movie plays that out very well and in such a great way. Wes Craven knows how to direct movies like this, he’s a world class horror director and he brings that to the screen. The third act is directed so well and builds this sense of tension and you aren’t sure what is going to happen next. Freddy Kruger is this interesting character that they give a backstory to, and I liked that. They fleshed out him as a character. Some small thing here, the music for it wasn’t very good. Especially in the third act of the movie it feels like a random guy just hitting keys on a piano, and they just put that into the movie. Also, there is some spotty acting in this movie. A few knick picks aside, this is a great start to this franchise. And a great movie. Period.
1. Halloween (1978): The best thing about this movie was the direction by John Carpenter, of these three movies it’s easily the best directed in my mind. He does a great job of building tension in certain scenes and I was on the edge of my seat wondering and waiting to see what was going to happen next. Even scenes where you have Laurie walking down the street and Michael Myers is standing there builds this sense of danger. But you also have the opening scene which is great where you have somebody walking around a house, and you know something bad is going to happen. That person kills somebody, later to be revealed that it is a child. It’s creepy, but so greatly done. Also, the music for this movie is very well done. That simple main title theme is great but it’s something that you remember and you enjoy listening to it. But it’s not just that music that works, all of the music is very well done. If I had to find a negative, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Jamie Lee Curtis is a young actress, this was first ever movie. And her acting isn’t the best, not bad by any means. But she’s been better in other places. Overall, this is a great movie that I enjoyed more than I thought I would.
There you have it, my ranking of the 3 big slasher movies. Which one is your favorite? Also, next October I do plan on ranking the 13 Halloween movies after Halloween Ends. And will probably do other horror rankings all through-out 2022. Thanks for reading!
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