Horror Movie Marathon of the Day: Slashers

Every weekday until the end of October, CraveOnline will present an all-new Horror Movie Marathon to help you avoid showing the same old movies at your Halloween parties. Keep coming back every day for new schedules and party ideas!

Slash ‘Em Up

Slasher movies are one of the most popular horror movie genres. They’re also one of the weirdest. What began as a genre about masked killers murdering likable protagonists rapidly grew into a weirdly pornographic orgy of violence in which the killers became the de facto heroes, offing lame stock stereotypes and enforcing unusually backwards conservative standards of behavior in the process.

So slasher movies entertain kids who drink, smoke pot and have underage sex by killing kids who drink, smoke pot and have underage sex, and by getting them to sympathize with the murderers. How ironic is that?

But whether you love these movies ironically or have an old-fashioned and sincere love of the slasher movie genre, they sure are fun to watch. So let’s plan a Halloween marathon for you and your friends!

Check Out: Horror Movie Marathon of the Day: Werewolves

Killing the Formula

Whether you’ve seen them all or never seen an R-rated movie in your life, you probably know all about the major slasher franchises. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream, Child’s Play, Saw, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even their lesser cousins Leprechaun, Wrong Turn and Puppet Master are iconic, but predictable choices for any horror movie marathon.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The appeal of the slasher movie genre is that it’s predictable, familiar, and fun. So if you want to program a night where you watch all the original classics in those franchises, or watch every single film in one or more them, that’s perfectly good too. But you don’t need our help with that. That’s the obvious route.

So instead, CraveOnline is going to help you program a night of slasher movies that didn’t spawn any (or at least any memorable) sequels, and as a result don’t get nearly as much attention in the popular culture. Don’t be fooled: sequels aren’t necessarily the mark of a great slasher movie. There are tons of great slashers that stand alone, and still stand tall as some of the best in the genre.

Set the Stage

We are NOT recommending that you load up on booze and pot and sleeping bags. We are NOT recommending that you load up on booze and pot and sleeping bags. We are NOT recommending that you load up on booze and pot and sleeping bags.

But if you did, that would be pretty thematically appropriate.

If that’s a little too much, or if you’re underage, you can still have some fun with this. Go old school slumber party. (Okay, you can keep the sleeping bags.) Pajamas and flashlight spook stories and s’mores. Very wholesome. 

It’s also as good a time as any to play Spin the Bottle, Seven Minutes in Heaven and/or Truth or Dare. Playful (but not outright dirty) forays into the realm of the naughty is damned appropriate. It also gets everyone’s guard down so you, the host, can rush in wearing a scary mask and break up the party. Just be sure to whisk it off very quickly so they don’t freak out and stab you. That’s only fun in the movies.

Check Out: Horror Movie Marathon of the Day: Zombies

Get The Right Movies

You can find a lot of decent, sometimes even great horror movies on Instant Streaming. Then again, so can everyone else. If you’re hosting a horror movie marathon, your guests expect you to show them something they haven’t seen before along with a handful of classic standbys.

So go to your local video store – the odds are good it still has a better selection than Netflix – or, if there aren’t any left in your neighborhood (such a shame), track them down online. Most of the movies we’re recommending are great movies that are either so popular they’re pretty cheap by now, or so obscure they are probably priced low since the demand isn’t high. But obscure movies can be the best surprises, and trust us, we’re about to recommend a ton of them.

Put a Schedule Together

The film critics at CraveOnline have a tried-and-true formula for movie marathons. You start with a “Duh” movie (a popular film everyone has seen), partially to get it out of the way and partially because there’s a good chance some of your guests will arrive late and you don’t want them to miss the good stuff. 

Then you get everyone’s attention with the “Unknown Classic,” a film that none of your guests have (probably) seen, so even someone who goes home early will feel like they got something special out of the evening.

Follow that up with some “Background Noise,” i.e. a film that won’t necessarily capture everyone’s attention. That’ll play in the background while everyone socializes. But you’ve got to make sure it has enough good parts that people don’t take their eyes off the TV for too long and forget why they came.

Now the time has come for a “Jumpstarter,” a really lively, crazy film that’ll grab everyone’s attention again. You’ll follow that up with something even weirder, the “Oddball,” to reward the folks who are still going. This will be the strangest film of the evening, maybe a genre-bender or the work of a mad genius, and it will be a great capper for the masses who will probably call it an evening afterwards.

And now that the evening is coming to an end, you’ll want to throw in something stupid. A real “Stinker.” Take the edge off the night’s festivities by talking back to the screen or falling asleep to a film that doesn’t really deserve your attention. It’s the perfect way to end an evening of otherwise great movies.

Then again, you may want to just pick films from one of those categories to test your endurance. How many classics can you get through in one night? How many unsung classics can you discover? How can one weird-ass film top the next? We have multiple suggestions in every category to get you through the night, if that’s the way you want to play it. 

Just remember: don’t overextend yourself. Six movies is probably the maximum number that anyone can handle. Don’t feel bad if people leave early. Just make sure the folks who stay get something special for their trouble. 

Let’s Plan Your Slasher Movie Marathon!

William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.