Slashers That Don't Suck

Best sequal in the history of slasher sequals? I think so. Made in the beginning of the bodycount era this one has everything one could wish for and then some: it is rarely that a movie of this kind gets such a stylish treatment. It could be because director Rick Rosenthal was hired by Carpenter to make something stylish and scary; it could be that Carpenter was disappointed by Rosenthal's pedestrian art-film and gave it an extra injection - the result is classic!

Dick Warlock's Michael is creepy the way he walks around in a murderous trance - not quite human as in the first film, and nowhere near as Jason-like as in the rest of the series. I would go as far as saying that Warlock created Michael as we know him today, and he took him with him when he went up in flames at the end of this film. Case closed. To me H2 is simply HALLOWEEN.

The old prank-gone-wrong concept gets a royal treatment in this one. The guy subjected to the prank has appearently (accidentaly) killed someone before and left emotionally scared by the incident. So when his peers trick him into attempting sex with a rotting corpse (his peers being medical students) the childhood trauma re-emerges, leaving him institutionalized. 3 years later his classmates decide to throw a New Year's party onboard a train. Guess who decides to join in?

Now if you consider when this film was made and why, it's somehow puzzling that the killings aren't more graphic, many even take place off-screen! But don't let this discourage you - the 80's factor is high and so are the production values. The performances, the charatcers, the script - this movie is solid. Canadians really know how to make 'em.

This is typical good-old American...eh, Canadian fun. Taking place in a small mining community gives the genre an ever-needed injection of realism, and unlike other slashers it deals with real people and their heartaches rather than nude teenagers lined up for slaughter. The tagline really nails it - there's more than one way to lose your heart!

Many fanboys argue that this is not a slahser film, I don't know why. The only valid reason I've heard so far is that "it's not a slasher, it's a lot more than that". Be that as it may, but it's still a blueprint for a slasher film - in fact the only thing lacking is a vengeful motive by the antagonist(s), which actually works for its advantage because when that Chainsaw dude jumps out of the bushes you won't know what hit you!

This movie packs some of the finest deaths later featured in the early Friday the 13th-franchise -- only this bodycount flick came out about a decade before!

A nihilistic gem about a bunch of obnoctious people around a lake bumping eachother off. Beutiful cinematography as always in a Bava film, colorful settings and a fine musical score by
Stelvio Cipriani.

Construction worker at day, stalker at night. To satisfy his sadistic urges the killer has a rather original weapon of choice - a flame thrower. He takes 'em to a steel-walled cellar, ties them up and sets them on fire. This is one gloomy flick... and I mean that in a good way.