The slasher genre is a fan favorite. Since their inception in the last years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, slasher movies have continued to thrill and scare audiences, often becoming some of horror’s most famous representatives. Films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scream have changed the face of horror, pushing new boundaries and redefining its limits.
Not every slasher can be a winner; as with every other genre, some entries are disappointing, and some are outright bad. Fans on Reddit have strong opinions about which are the worst slashers of all time, and considering the genre produces a constant influx of projects, there’s no shortage of terrible examples.
10 ‘Don’t Go in the Woods’ (2010)
Vincent D’Onofrio directs the 2010 slasher musical Don’t Go in the Woods. Starring mostly unknown actors, the film follows a band who travel to the woods seeking inspiration. However, they soon become the target of a mysterious killer.
A since-deleted Reddit account calls Don’t Go in the Woods”one of the worst films of all time.” They criticize the “bad kills, sh*t acting, worse singing, terrible killer,” with many Redditors echoing their sentiments. Despite not being particularly well known, Don’t Go in the Woodshas an infamous reputation among slasher fans, and it seems it’s well warranted.
9 ‘Prom Night’ (2008)
The original Prom Night wasn’t great, but it was good enough to cement Jamie Lee Curtis as a horror icon. However, despite the talent involved, the 2008 remake starring Brittany Snow was worse. It follows a young girl terrorized on her prom night by the deranged teacher who killed her family.
Redditor gf120581 calls Prom Night “the most generic horror movie ever” and expresses confusion at the decent casting of Snow and Idris Elba. Meanwhile, the user Daze_confuse claims the film is “personally accountable for Brittany Snow not having a more mainstream career.” Prom Night is indeed mediocre and forgettable, which is arguably worse than being outright bad, especially in the horror genre.
8 ‘The Last Slumber Party’ (1988)
The 1988 cheap slasher The Last Slumber Party is among the most obscure efforts from the slasher boom of the 1980s. The plot centers on three high school girls celebrating the last day of school with a slumber party. However, their fun turns into a fight for survival when an escaped mental patient crashes the celebration.
Redditor Raider17 tells a curious story about how they wrote a review calling it “the worst slasher movie ever,” prompting a response from the director telling them “(that) hadn’t seen a lot of slasher films.” However, the user stuck by their opinion, which should be proof enough of how much of a misfire The Last Slumber Party is.
7 ‘I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2006)
The I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise was never great, but the first two movies had a certain so-bad-it’s-good quality that made them bearable. The same cannot be said for 2006’s I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, which features no original cast members and instead acts as a stand-alone sequel.
Fans of Reddit are quite ruthless to this movie, with KevinR1990 calling it “everything (they’d) come to hate about later 90s/early 00s teen horror long-past that style’s sell-by-date.” It’s hard to disagree with this comment: the film is a lazy, cheap excuse for a slasher, taking advantage of its predecessor’s superior reputation to offer nothing but the bare minimum.
6 ‘Bloody Murder’ (2000)
Slashers share a common DNA and feature several common tropes, including elaborate kills and iconic, terrifying masked killers. However, some slashers are outright rip-offs of more successful films, like Bloody Murder, which follows a group of camp counselors targetted by a masked killer.
Bloody Murder has an awful reputation among slasher fans. Reddit user AbyssPrism claims “it makes Sleepaway Camp 3 seem like an Oscar winner,” while franlcie discards it as “Friday the 13th meets Scream… shot on video.” Some appreciate it as a so-bad-it’s-good trainwreck, but most agree it’s just a lazy rip-off of better slashers.
5 ‘The Open House’ (2018)
2018’s The Open House stars Dylan Mynette as a teenage boy who, along with his mother, is terrorized by a masked killer. The film is among the rare slashers where the villain wins, leaving audiences with an unpleasant and enduring feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration.
Fans on Reddit are against The Open House and are unafraid to say so. The user WonderkidRy calls it “so bad and boring that it’s hard to tell” it’s a slasher. Netflix has several stinkers, especially considering how many movies it releases annually, but The Open House certainly ranks among its all-time worst efforts.
4 ‘Scream’ (1981)
Wes Craven’s 1996 masterpiece isn’t the only slasher named Scream. 1981’s Scream follows a group of hikers stopping at a Western ghost town where they become targets of an unseen killer taking them off.
Unlike the 1996 film, 1981’s Scream has an infamously bad reputation. Redditor Losman94 calls it “slow and terribly acted with a villain you never see,” while Annaliseplasko outright calls it “stupid.” Few people actually remember Scream, but those who do agree it’s among the worst slasher movies ever made.
3 ‘Ax ‘Em’ (1992)
There are bad movies, and then there’s stuff like Ax ‘Em. The 1998 slasher follows a group of friends whose weekend retreat in a secluded cabin gets interrupted by the arrival of a deranged killer targeting them one by one.
Ax ‘Em has a reputation for being one of the all-time worst slasher films without any entertainment value, and fans on Reddit agree. A now-deleted account calls it “the absolute worst and cheapest film (they’ve) ever seen,” going so far as to say it is “worth seeing to get a full understanding of how terrible it is.” Ax ‘Em is not particularly well known, but those who have seen it all agree: this movie is monumentally terrible.
2 ‘Halloween: Resurrection’ (2002)
Jamie Lee Curtis is synonymous with Halloween. She has appeared in several films of the beloved and long-running franchise, including the rebooted trilogy. Her well-received return in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later preceded that critically-panned Halloween: Resurrection, where her untimely death drew the ire of fans and critics.
While it certainly has its defenders, Resurrection often ranks among the worst Halloween films. Reddit user RInger2875 calls it “the worst Halloween movie” and claims it made them “viscerally angry.” “At least Busta Rhymes looks like he’s having fun,” counters user UpliftinglyStrong, offering something of a silver lining.
1 ‘Halloween Ends’ (2022)
No recent slasher film has been as controversial as 2022’s Halloween Ends. Although branded as the highly-awaited ending to the rebooted trilogy, Halloween Ends is more about Corey Cunningham, the film’s divisive new villain, than the final fight between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers.
Halloween Ends polarized viewers, with many fans decrying it as a disservice to what was supposed to be Laurie’s story. Some fans outright hate it, like the user bl1ndvision, who claims they prefer “bad B-movie slashers” to Halloween Ends, and the user BigfootsLeftShoe, who says the film “has a place reserved in bad movie hell.” However, some, like the user skilledgiallocop, maintain the movie “worked decently as a slasher,” just not as a Halloweensequel. Considering how divided the audience is, it looks like Halloween Ends’ reputation won’t improve any time soon.
