The films

WATCHdeep cut

Delirium

A Vietnam veteran, a vigilante group and a plot that gives up. Not the Lamberto Bava one.

WATCHobscure

Don't Go in the Woods

Shot in Utah for 100,000 dollars with a score that never stops. Beloved by a small and stubborn group.

WATCHobscure

Sissy

An Australian wellness influencer at a hen weekend. Much sharper and much nastier than the premise suggests.

WATCHobscure

Mardi Gras Massacre

An Aztec-obsessed killer in New Orleans. A Blood Feast remake in all but name, and slower.

obscure

Revenge of the Bogey Man

Roughly 40 percent flashback to the first film. A sequel assembled rather than made.

WATCHobscure

The Slayer

A painter's nightmares kill people on an off-season island. Genuinely atmospheric and badly underrated.

WATCHobscure

Unhinged

Three women, a mansion, rain, and a twist. Shot in Oregon and stranger than its reputation.

WATCHobscure

Terror Eyes

A motorcycle killer in Boston with a kukri. Rachel Ward's debut and a real giallo influence.

WATCHcult

Evilspeak

Clint Howard, a military academy, a computer and a lot of pigs. Better than it has any right to be.

WATCHcult

Madhouse

A deaf teacher, a disfigured twin and a rottweiler. Shot in Savannah and better made than most of the list.

WATCHcult

Visiting Hours

Michael Ironside stalking a hospital. A real cast, a real budget, and no business being on the list.

cult

Pranks

A dorm over Christmas break and a plot that runs out. Notable mainly for an early Daphne Zuniga.

WATCHcult

The Blackening

A group of Black friends at a cabin play a racist board game that traps them, and the whole film is the joke that the Black character always dies first.

WATCHcult

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain

The distributor went to prison over this one. The only DPP case that put a man behind bars.

WATCHcult

Nightmare Maker

Susan Tyrrell as the aunt, giving a performance far too committed for the film around it.

WATCHcult

The Toolbox Murders

The first fifteen minutes are notorious. The remaining seventy are a different and much duller film.

WATCHcult

Absurd

D'Amato remaking his own Anthropophagous as a Halloween knock-off. Grim and dull in equal measure.

WATCHcult

In a Violent Nature

A slasher shot entirely from behind the killer, at walking pace, with no score. A formal experiment that works.

WATCHcult

Pieces

A chainsaw killer on a Boston campus, made by Spaniards, and it is gloriously incoherent.

WATCHcult

The Boogey Man

A haunted mirror and a Halloween score Ulli Lommel could not afford to license properly.

WATCHcult

Bloody Moon

Jess Franco doing a slasher for German money. Contains the stone-saw scene and little else.

WATCHknown

Blood Feast

The first gore film. Shot in four days for 24,500 dollars and it looks it, which is half the appeal.

WATCHknown

Sleepless

Argento's late return to the giallo, with Max von Sydow as a retired detective and a genuine nursery-rhyme killer.

WATCHknown

Stage Fright

A killer in a giant owl mask trapped in a theatre with a dance troupe. Michele Soavi's debut and the best late giallo.

WATCHknown

Anthropophagous: The Beast

Famous for two shots and unwatchable between them. George Eastman wrote himself the title role.

WATCHknown

Theatre of Blood

Vincent Price as a hammy actor murdering the critics who denied him an award, each death staged from Shakespeare.

WATCHknown

The Funhouse

Hooper on a real budget with Rick Baker's monster. Nowhere near nasty enough to be on this list.

WATCHknown

The Loved Ones

An Australian teenager says no to a girl for the school dance, and she holds her own dance instead.

WATCHknown

Death Trap

Hooper's follow-up to Chain Saw, shot entirely on a sound stage lit in red. A hotel, a scythe and a crocodile.

WATCHknown

Strange Darling

Told out of order in six chapters, shot on 35mm by Giovanni Ribisi. The structure is the whole trick.

WATCHknown

Torso

The giallo at its most slasher-like, and the last act is a genuine masterclass in silent suspense.

WATCHknown

Maniac

Joe Spinell wrote himself the lead and Tom Savini blew his own head off on camera.

known

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Vincent Price murders the surgeons who let his wife die, each death based on the plagues of Egypt. A gorgeous, deranged art deco comedy.

WATCHknown

Woman of the Hour

Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, about the serial killer who appeared on The Dating Game mid-spree.

WATCHknown

Basket Case

A young man carries his surgically-separated deformed twin in a wicker basket, and they are taking revenge.

WATCHknown

Sleepaway Camp

A cheap, badly acted summer camp slasher with an ending that has been argued about for forty years.