Slasher movies
A slasher runs on a simple engine. A killer, usually masked and usually silent, works through a group until one of them stops running and turns around. The kills are the structure rather than the incident, and the survivor is the point.
Psycho and Peeping Tom did the groundwork, the second built entirely on the killer's-eye camera that Italian giallo would spend the next decade refining. The form then assembled itself across the 1970s rather than arriving whole: A Bay of Blood made a run of inventive kills the plot, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre supplied the mask and the girl left standing, and Black Christmas added the holiday and a caller nobody ever identifies.
Halloween put those pieces in the order everyone copied, and the 1980s turned that order into a franchise business with Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Scream did not invent the self-aware slasher, since Popcorn and Wes Craven's New Nightmare were both there first, but it made self-awareness the default, and the subgenre has been arguing with that ever since.
Notable slasher movies
If you only ever watch a handful of these, make it these.
New slasher movies
Upcoming slasher movies
A few slasher movies on the way. Dates can still move, especially for the ones furthest down the schedule.
You can find these and every other slasher movie in our database. And if you want to keep track of the ones you have seen and the ones you are saving for later, start a profile and log them as you go.