Slasher mania 🔪, Melissa Barrera shines in 'Your Monster' 👹, A 'Carrie' reinvention 🩸, & more!

I grew up on Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. These horror gateways instilled within me a deep love for knife-wielding maniacs. Truth be told, slashers just do something to me - they get my heart racing and my blood pumping. Whether it's such classics as Peeping Tom and Psycho or modern cuts like Terrifier 2 and Scream VI, slashers offers a visceral, cathartic experience you don't get with most other subgenres. The copious bloodletting exorcises the demons that rattle inside my head, draining every inch of stress and anxiety from my body. Slashers have proven to me to be the necessary release that cures any sickness. Just this week, I've watched Haunt Season and Halloween II (1981) an embarrassing number of times.

With Halloween creeping closer and closer, I thought it would be a perfect time to celebrate slashers - flaws and all! Many of my '80s favorites are riddled with cliches, tropes, and tired conventions, I'm fully aware of this. But there's just something about an unhinged killer stalking youths in the woods. For every throwback slasher I love, there's a modern, genre-flipping entry that takes cues from Scream to entice the audience to think a little bit differently about the genre. From Init!ation (2020) to The Final Girls, contemporary takes on slashers often up end what we've come to know and adore about slashing. Undergoing frequent reinventions, slashers either scare you to death or just simply entertain. There's overlap, naturally, but typically a film falls into one of those categories, with social commentary slathered on top.

I submit to this week's Horrorverse audience a deep dive into some of my favorite slashers, from the little-known indies to the major blockbusters. Grab the stiffest drink (if that's your thing) and raise a toast to slashers!

Issue 021’s Letterboxd list can be found here

Scriptwriter and actor Colin Cunningham teams up with director James Morris for He Never Left, a genre-blurring slasher/thriller that upends expectations. What you think you know is tested, as the audience experiences reveal after reveal in this must-see indie. In our exclusive interview, the two creatives open up about their history with horror, the creative process, and bringing a killer to life on the screen. Watch our video interview here.

He Never Left is in select theaters 11/1 and on Digital 11/5 from DREAD.

The Driller Killer: New York City sleaze, murder, and art

Art requires total sacrifice. Exposing raw nerve endings of misery, regret, shame, and rage often leads to great artwork. But there’s always the inevitable cycle of gloom when an artist fails to generate anything of great interest or intrigue. In Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer, Reno Miller (Ferrara) vainly attempts to craft his next great masterpiece. He squanders his talent on drugs and sex and wallows in the technical craft of painting. He’s proficient with a brush, but that’s not enough to take his work to the next level. With an art dealer breathing down his neck, the only piece he can come up with is a buffalo, splashed with awkward lines and shapes that lack emotion, depth, and real meaning.

The Driller Killer, turning 45 this year, depicts the agonizing process of art creation and how murderous impulses trigger Reno to dig deep and root around in his soul. He’s a visionary whose citywide rampage unlocks a new level of creativity. His blood-soaked new work is unlike anything he’s ever achieved; he’s reinvigorated by cracking skulls, piercing skin, and gushing bodily fluids. Mangled bodies work to convey things he didn’t perceive as possible. His unconventional weapon of choice signifies an aching desire to be heard, seen, and remembered. The drill, in many ways a phallic symbol, serves as his brush, and the bodies of degenerates and sex-crazed deviants are his blank canvases, an endless supply of opportunity.

Ferrara guides the audience through the slimy back alleyways of New York City. Each dark passageway drips with corruption, an irreverent display case of raw humanity at its worst. With the ‘70s rebellious counterculture as the backdrop, the film douses the viewer in ick – much like 1980’s Maniac. Cut from the same cloth, Reno and Joe Spinell torture and mutilate other human beings on impulse. Joe might not seek stimuli for his art, yet he’s not unlike Reno and his artistic thrills. Their work is their murder. With the world closing in and denying them what they believe should be theirs, the two men express their anger through poetic body exhibits on the dank city streets. This outlet of pain liberates them, shattering the chains that rub the skin from their wrists and ankles.

From his artwork to his girlfriend, Reno Miller believes the world owes him something. He navigates every relationship with a chip on his shoulder. When his girlfriend cuts ties and moves out of the apartment, he sets sights on her and her new lover – all he sees is red. He’s driven by animalistic desires, the kind you can’t control but all resides in each of us. Ferrara colors the character with sharp complexity, jagged and blistering. Reno’s compulsions complement his incel behavior and carry comparable characteristics to Michael Rooker’s Henry in the 1986 indie feature Henry: The Portrait of a Serial Killer. As a trio of characters, Reno, Henry, and Joe embody the perversity of the male ego and how, when left unchecked, opens up deadly consequences.

The Driller Killer remains a relic of the post-Halloween era, a sleazy reimagining that utilizes similar genre mechanics for something darker, dirtier, and deviously disturbing. It’s grittier than most other slashers, pre-dating the 1982 peak, yet captures the lo-fi charm of the slasher boom in every conceivable way. Peeling back its contextual layers, it’s a mindless splatter flick that gets the juices flowing and offers a damn good time. What more could you want?!

The late 90s gave us some great slasher films, including this week's highlight film, Urban Legend, which was directed by Jamie Blanks. For this list, we chose a number of films that operate(d) in the same vein - Killer with a mask, easy prey, gruesome kills.

Slash away, friends. Check out the list on Letterboxd.

Christopher Landon's new film, DROP, about a woman who receives threatening messages via Airdrop, gets sent to theaters on April 11, 2025. Check out the first poster here.

The Strangers: Chapter 2 account dropped a teaser trailer, but no official date (yet). Check it out here.

One of this year’s best films, The Substance, oozes onto Mubi on October 31st.

There’s one week left! The 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days Challenge is back! The event runs from August 1st through October 31st, allowing participants to watch (at least) 100 horror films during this time (and all must be a first-time watch!). Read the guidelines here.

This November, the Soho Horror Film Festival returns for its 7th anniversary, bringing fearless film lovers their next favorite scary movie, year on year. From November 22nd-24th, the festival will head underground to the Whirled Cinema, Brixton for a 3 day in-person extravaganza. Then, in their continued efforts to remain as inclusive and accessible as possible, the festival will maintain its vanguard of online accessible screenings, running from the November 28th - December 1st with a unique program of films and events to both the in-person and virtual festivals. More info at sohohorrorfest.com.