Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978 to 1986: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986

by Adam Rockoff

John Carpenter's Halloween, released on October 25, 1978, marked the beginning of the horror film's most colorful, controversial, and successful offshoot--the slasher film. Loved by fans and reviled by critics for its iconic psychopaths, gory special effects, brainless teenagers in peril, and more than a bit of soft-core sex, the slasher film secured its legacy as a cultural phenomenon and continues to be popular today. This work traces the evolution of the slasher film from 1978 when it was a fledgling genre, through the early 1980s when it was one of the most profitable and prolific genres in Hollywood, on to its decline in popularity around 1986. An introduction provides a brief history of the Grand Guignol, the pre-cinema forerunner of the slasher film, films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and cinematic trends that gave rise to the slasher film. Also explained are the slasher film's characteristics, conventions, and cinematic devices, such as the "final girl," the omnipotent killer, the relationship between sex and death, the significant date or setting, and the point-of-view of the killer. The chapters that follow are devoted to the years 1978 through 1986 and analyze significant films from each year. The Toolbox Murders, When a Stranger Calls, the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, The Slumber Party Massacre, Psycho II, and April Fool's Day are among those analyzed. The late 90s resurrection of slasher films, as seen in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, is also explored, as well as the future direction of slasher films.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Horror, Media Tie In, Pop Culture, History, Adult

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 31, 2002

Reviews

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Prologue, in which a younger version of our heroine is introduced: I was around 10 years old and sound asleep in my bedroom when I was introduced to the slasher film. My mom, who had just seen Halloween on HBO somewhere, came home and woke me up to tell me about it. I sat on the edge of my bed, riveted to the story of the unstoppable Michael Myers chasing Jamie Lee Curtis through assorted suburban streets and bedrooms. At that moment, an obsession was born.

As I begged to go see a succession of increasingly crappier slasher fare (Sleepaway Camp, Curtains, Humongous, Friday the 13th movies out the blowhole, and the inevitable Halloween II, followed by the bizarrely Myers-less Halloween III), I'm sure my mom regretted not just letting me sleep that fateful evening many times over.

__________________________________

If you want an analysis of the greater psycho-sexual implications of the slasher film as it relates to the feminist milieu of the time period, this ain't it. But if you want a thorough history of it complete with sketches of minor genre classics you may have missed, then this isn't bad. Rockoff traces the slasher film from its progenitors (Peeping Tom; Psycho, of course) through their zenith in the late 70's and early 80's, their decline, and finally their triumphant return in the late 90's. At the time the book was written, Jason X--the one where he kills horny teenagers in space--was still in production.

I found this book looking for a read-alike of Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror or Reel Terror: The Scary, Bloody, Gory, Hundred-Year History of Classic Horror Films, two books on the history of the horror genre that I'd enjoyed. I was somewhat familiar with the story of Halloween from these books and other sources, but I still enjoyed what I did learn in the chapter here dedicated to it. I also enjoyed reading about the making of films from My Bloody Valentine to Maniac. The story of the making of Terror Train was particularly fascinating. The movie was a technical nightmare for director Roger Spottiswode, as it was filmed in real train cars that could not be modified for the cameras because they were borrowed from a museum. The success of the film and its claustrophobic atmosphere owes a debt to its cinematographer, John Alcott, who had just finished working on The Shining with Stanley Kubrick and was eager to just shoot a film that didn't move at a glacial production pace.

As others have mentioned, there are sections that drag a bit when they turn into a laundry list of, "Here's this other movie, it sucked." More troubling were the sections of the book that contained errors. This particular paragraph made me scoff out loud:

The biggest news of the year was Ridley Scott's Alien........Sigourney Weaver stars as Ripley, the unspoken leader of the Nostromo, an intergalactic vessel which has been overrun by the titular creatures, themselves a nightmarish combination of H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft. The now famous scene in which an alien spawn bursts from the chest of crew member William Hurt was groundbreaking for its time.

First, the original film had one titular creature, hence the name. The creature was actually designed by H.R. Giger, something which isn't at all clear from Rockoff's text. And finally and most egregiously, it's John Hurt, not William Hurt! For the love.....

However, I found that most other errors that I spotted were corrected or clarified by footnotes. For instance, Rockoff refers to Escape from Los Angeles as a remake of Escape From New York (it's not, it's a highly mediocre sequel), but explains in the footnote it's technically a sequel but really more of a remake as far as he is concerned. I'm not sure why he uses the footnotes to rectify what would otherwise just be inaccuracies, but they at least assured me the book wasn't full of mistakes.

I came away from this with a few films to watch if I can catch them streaming or on YouTube. At least, maybe I have. As I've grown older, I still love horror but the appeal of films about "demented madmen running around in ski masks hacking up young virgins" has greatly diminished.

[Jacqueline Swampert · Rating 1 out of 5]

i love slasher movies. they're the best! absolutely the best. my top three favorite movies ever are a nightmare on elm street, scream, and the slumber party massacre, so believe me when i say that my opinion of this book has nothing to do with what i think of slasher movies in general.

the reason i've made sure to preface with that is because i can only assume that somehow adam rockoff is going to stumble on this review and criticize me for being some sort of Anti-Slasher Pundit, because this book reeks of defensiveness. i'm sympathetic to people who are slasher fans being a Bit defensive, because i do think these movies get a teeeensy bit of undeserved criticism, but what adam rockoff does here is he loses his critical thinking due to that. misogynistic elements being prevalent? no, you're overanalyzing! slashers wanting to get into the minds of the killers, ever? a ridiculous concept! forget psycho and peeping tom, which he mentions at the beginning of the next chapter. forget halloween, which he has a whole chapter on.

there are some interesting ideas in this book, admittedly. i like how he (very briefly, unfortunately) takes a look at how sensationalized violence is often used as a defining element of slashers, but that doesn't make movies like commando and rambo slashers.

...so that's what i call a compliment sandwich, where i put a compliment between my hatred so i can let it die. i really thought the meat and potatoes of this book, the history, would be pretty interesting, but it just isn't? there's an extreme inconsistency to the way it's paced, which is extremely important in any sort of historical account, and then you get to parts where there's just no connecting thread from paragraph to paragraph. after these long sections where, say, he goes in depth on the entire filmography of a filmmaker, and then suddenly afterwards he moves onto some completely unrelated movie.

i hate rockoff's opinions, too. every time he talks about anything with any sort of personal touch, i just start retching internally. i could probably flip through and stop on any random page, spit, and it'd land on him sneering at a sociological analysis of a film or describing a movie he doesn't like as being entirely without merit. i'll be completely honest and say that i didn't finish this book, and i'm glad i didn't finish it, because i could be looking at a list of slasher movies on letterboxd and then actually watching them and forming my own opinions. all that this book is really worth being used as is a long winded list of films, and it's not like there aren't plenty of more comprehensive ones out there for free.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Halloween, so I've decided to do what everyone should do on Halloween and completely ignore actual horror novels or movies to read academic discussions of horror novels and movies! Just kidding, well, sort of. I am always interested in writing on what a lot of people consider "low" cinema like the slasher film. I've even considered writing an academic dissertation on it myself. Adam Rockoff beat me to it by about sixteen years and also had a documentary made with John Carpenter, Wes Crave, and Rob Zombie--I feel that ship has sailed.

GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER, 1978-1986 is an inaccurate title since it actually covers up to SCREAM 3. Which means it's technically, 1978-2000. Which, honestly, seems like a better title to me but what do I know. Still, I'm not going to criticize the book for having too much content. It starts with the italian giallo films with individuals like Dario Argento and Hitchcock's PSYCHO before moving on to such classics as BLACK CHRISTMAS then HALLOWEEN.

It's not Rockoff's insights into the classics which really bring this book to life, though. Well, at least for me. Instead, I really appreciated the fact he gives an immense amount of care and detail to the really crappy movies which came out during this time. He also reminded me of a bunch of forgotten gems which were still great horror movies. They just didn't have the same kind of breakout success as FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

We get discussions of THE BURNING, GRADUATION DAY, and APRIL FOOL'S DAY. We also get lots of Rockoff's pet peeves like his hatred for Ebert and Siskel's episode discussing why they hate slashers (which served as great publicity in RL). There's a lot of good commentary, both praise and criticism, about films trying to cash in on the then-current craze. Rockoff includes the little known Psycho sequels and its remake, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, and a discussion of how Scream changed everything.

Some of the book hasn't aged well with the frequent references to Harvey Weinstein as a patron of horror movies (as he was). Still, I had a lot of fun reading it. If you love slasher movies, this is a great if somewhat outdated book. I hope Rockoff will update it with the next twenty years of work.

9/10

[Nick Spacek · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book could've been been far-longer, and while i appreciate the fact that it includes a lot more interview material than other books on the subject, it could've included far more films in detail. rockoff either has a lot of material, or a short two-sentence paraphrase of the movies' plots, meaning that it's pretty much feast or famine with coverage.

given the rise of genre publications at the time, and rockoff's own admission that he's approaching this as a fan, it seems ridiculous that more material from the likes of fangoria or starburst doesn't make an appearance to show the reaction of contemporaneous fans, as opposed to mainstream press of the author's own opinions.

hell, it's the inclusion starburst reviews which makes kim newman's nightmare movies less of a one-sided screed than it might have been otherwise. still, it's a valuable resource, and provides some really great behind-the-scenes details i've not seen elsewhere.

[Joseph Hight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-researched look at the 1980s slasher film boom, it chronicles the creative decisions behind Freddy, Jason and the lesser knowns. Great interviews with horror legends, fantastic anecdotes and stuff you just never knew !

[Claire Herting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative and covers more than just the basic mainstream slashers. My only gripe is that we have differing opinions on a few films :)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rockoff is clearly not a trained film scholar but rather a true devotee of horror and his effort to define the slasher film is mostly successful. One could argue Black Christmas was the first slasher film in 1974 but Halloween in 1978 he points out makes it the first greatly successful slasher. His survey of many films, including justifiably the giallos, and a few I haven't seen, is mostly sound. A few egregious narrative errors stand out like his discussion of Scott's nonslasher Alien, (and confusing John Hurt and William Hurt,) and so on. His book did inspire me to go back and rewatch some of the lesser known efforts and therefore less famous, like The Prowler and He Knows You're Alone. GTP's greatest strength is the more detailed origins of the major films like F13 and Carpenter's Halloween.. or the efforts of producer Yablus who was the real mastermind of the film. The writers, actors, makeup artists, and producers show importance in all successes of films.

The second wave of slashers from 1996 until to the 2010s although profitable earnings wise,, reflect that success is not nor it will ever be as good as with the first wave. But one can argue horror has improved creatively AS A WHOLE even if the slasher hasn't at least in terms of money.

[Horror DNA · Rating 5 out of 5]

The slasher film is an offshoot of the horror genre made popular in the wake of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), a low-budget effort that became the most successful independent movie at the time. Studios were eager to copy the windfall and began scooping up countless efforts from aspiring filmmakers everywhere. Primarily a US product, the slasher was also popular in Canada, England and Italy. By the mid-1980s there was a glut of content, including a plethora of sequels, and the formula had grown stale. This book traces the trajectory of the slasher from its origins through its lucrative heyday to its ultimate decline.

Author Adam Rockoff’s Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978 – 1986 begins with a definition of what makes a slasher film by breaking down the key elements into a simple checklist presentation. The Killer, the Weapon of Choice, the Setting and the Final Girl are just a few touchstones of the genre and each is thoroughly explored as to how they fit into making the whole. The overview of this type of movie must include public reaction and Rockoff discusses the film critics’ response. Coinciding with the rise of the slasher was the introduction of the home-video format. Many titles that stalled in theaters flourished on VHS and cable television. This led to the creation of the British Obscene Publications Act, which gave birth to the “Video Nasties” list of forbidden titles too shocking for the public’s eyes.

You can read ZigZag's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[Bryan Cebulski · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's almost no analysis, there's not much info that you couldn't gather from a Wikipedia entry, and Rockoff can't help constantly injecting his own opinions into the narrative. But I kind of still love these pop histories if only because they bring up movies I haven't heard of before and offer categorizations within the genre that I wasn't totally aware of. Absolutely not something I'd reach for for analysis (though it does cite a few good texts in that realm) nor is it a comprehensive history, it fills a niche for me: a timeline of slasher films padded with production info and recommendations.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The full title of Adam Rockoff's investigation into horror is: "Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 1978-1986", yet this isn't entirely accurate. His manuscript goes well past the mid-80's, touching on the 90's revival of the slasher genre with entries on the likes of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend, along with their sequels. But you know what? I'm not going to hold an inaccurate subtitle against him. How could I, when I had so much fun reading this investigation into the history of such a beloved sub-genre of Horror cinema?

Rockoff's first chapter is, honestly, the most important of the book, for it sets the stage and explains the 'hows' and 'whys' that differentiate a "Slasher" from any other type of horror experience. This is important because, while many types of movies (especially Italian giallo productions) may incorporate some elements of the Slasher, this no more makes them 'Slasher Films' than the incorporation of a supernatural/paranormal entity makes a movie 'Horror'. Twilight, despite incorporating vampires and werewolves into its narrative, is only a horror film if you get dragged into watching it against your will.

Slashers, according to Rockoff, are born of their own particular mixture of specific elements: a specific killer, setting, weapon of choice, Final Girl, a camera which follows the subjective point of view of the killer, a prologue which establishes some past precedent for the present-day carnage, and a director with an unwavering desire to linger on the carnage. It isn't necessarily important for every element listed to appear in the film, and he provides many examples of movies which subvert story and audience expectations on one or more of these points, but the more of them which appear, the more likely you are to have veered into Slasher territory.

As you may have guessed from the first date in the subtitle, along with the cover image, John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece Halloween is Rockoff's choice as the prototypical Ur-Slasher. That isn't to say there weren't movies going back years or decades earlier that fit the mold, including Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from 1974, but while Gunnar Hansen embodies all the necessary traits of the 'slasher villain' in his portrayal of Leatherface, Halloween is the modern-day trope codifier. Before Halloween, the horror industry was in something of a slump, with producers uninterested in financing them and distributors uninterested in pushing them to theaters. Outside of the grindhouse or art house circuit, there was no money in horror films. Even well-known studios like Hammer and Amicus found themselves cast adrift as the tides of the time turned them from projectionists' darlings to personae non grata of the cinema.

Halloween changed all that overnight. As one of the most successful independent films of all time, Halloween demonstrated not only were audiences interested in seeing pictures where people were butchered by a slow-moving, silent antagonist, but they were willing to pay considerable sums of money to do so. In the 90's, video game publishers threw cash at anything even hinting it might be the next Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Quake. In the 70's and 80's, movie studios threw money at any project they could deem the next Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street.

* * * * *

Rockoff goes beyond the typical movie book with Gone to Pieces. This is not a catalog of features like The Official Splatter Movie Guide or Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, which offer up basic information like release dates, actors, and director info along with capsulized reviews and the occasional bit of promotion artwork or screenshot. Rockoff's chapters are deep dives into specific time periods and specific films produced and released within those time periods, starting with the Grand Guignol period of French theater and moving up to the "they're talking about doing a 'Jason in Space' movie" era in his final chapter.

In between, we're treated not just to spoiler-laden summaries of the pictures in question, but also behind-the-scenes looks at their development, bolstered by direct quotations from the directors, producers, actors, and special effects people. These are delivered in an entertaining, conversational style by Rockoff, who clearly loves the subject matter and relishes the chance to tell us all about it. If you're expecting the dry, academic tone of Men, Women, and Chain Saws, I'm happy to report you'll find none of it here. That isn't to dismiss the important purpose served by the Carol J. Clovers of the world -- Rockoff, in fact, often refers to academic critics and their critiques in his chapters -- but he's more interested in an external anatomy lesson as opposed to a full-fledged dissection of his subject matter. And let's face it: it's a lot more fun to admire the human form of a model in art class than it is to dig through the innards of a corpse on the autopsy table (even if the subject matter of Gone to Pieces may make one assume otherwise). There are also copious black-and-white photos throughout, mostly taken from press kits and other advertising materials, which Rockoff uses to illustrate particular scenes, characters, and movies. These are high quality, often taking up half the page or more, and tend to focus on the dramatic as opposed to the staid.

* * * * *

I'd dearly love to say there's nothing wrong with Gone to Pieces but, alas, I can't. For as much as Adam Rockoff knows his stuff, there are far too many mistakes in the text for me to offer up a perfect score.

Many of the mistakes are of the grammar and/or punctuation variety, and whoever edited this should be sat in front of The House on the Edge of the Park with his eyelids glued open in penance. But in too many cases, the mistakes are Rockoff's alone, and while I can overlook the occasional mis-step and inaccuracy, there are some basic errors that even a rank novice fan of horror films from this era would not be making. Confusing William Hurt for John Hurt, or claiming the titular creature from Alien was a combination of H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft when, in actuality, it was all Giger's designs, are just two of the "Are you kidding me?" moments I stumbled across while reading, but the one that really stuck in my craw came in the final chapter, where Rockoff writes of a certain scene in Scream:

After their high school principal, Mr. Himbry (Henry Winkler), is brutally murdered in school, the apparently unfazed teens decide to throw a huge party at Stu's (Matthew Lillard).

The party in question may occur after Himbry's murder chronologically, but the teens don't find out about it until the party is already underway. They're throwing the party because school's cancelled until further notice; Stu's parents are out of town; and his house is out in the countryside, making it a convenient place to hold a party away from prying adult eyes. The announcement of Himbry's slaying (and the subsequent discovery of his body) empties the house as many of the kids speed over to the school for a glimpse of the body before the cops take it away. Himbry's death ends the party, it doesn't start it.

Maybe this is nit-picking, but it raises real concern: if Rockoff gets even these basic details of the films in question wrong, it would be easy for the casual reader, less familiar with the genre, to wonder how they could trust him to get anything else right. I don't think such criticism is fair, because Rockoff only makes a few of these errors, but I can't in good conscience pen a review without pointing out the obvious defects.

Despite the gaffes made by its author, Going to Pieces is an enjoyable, easy-to-read excursion through the history of the Slasher genre. Rockoff takes plenty of detours along the way to highlight tons of overlooked and ignored fare, like 1980's He Knows When You're Alone, and in some cases devotes more pages than one might assume to be necessary to explain why they were forgotten or flopped on release -- the write-up on Terror Train's production alone is worth the cost of admission. He spends a lot of time discussing giallos, something important to a work like this considering how much the Slasher borrows from them, and vice-versa. There are even digressions into the "almost, but not quite" Slasher films, like Motel Hell and Mother's Day. He also devotes some pages to discussing remakes and reboots, picking out Gus van Sant's completely unnecessary scene-for-scene re-shoot of Psycho as the poster child for what not to do with a classic property should you wind up with the opportunity to remake it. The various Texas Chain Saw sequels also get raked across the meat hooks for their failure to understand what made the original so brutally effective.

* * * * *

Since the book came out nearly twenty years ago, it would be great to see Rockoff release an updated version covering the territory where Slashers find themselves now: mostly consigned to their own particular brand of hell, with franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street both bombing their respective reboots; remakes of movies like Maniac and The Last House of the Left trying to recapture the horror of the originals; and directors like Rob Zombie and Alexandre Aja bringing their energy takes to the genre with reinterpretations of classics like Halloween and The Hills Have Eyes. And hey, if Kim Newman can update his own Nightmare Movies to the twenty-first century, I don't think it's too much to hope Rockoff will do the same. Maybe 2022 will see a 20th anniversary update that not only adds to the material, but corrects the defects present in the original text. I can only hope that, like any good Slasher villain, Gone to Pieces isn't truly down for the count. After all, if Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees can re-assemble themselves for sequel after sequel, there's no reason Rockoff can't drag his manuscript out of the basement for its triumphant return either.

Four shotgun-blasted craniums out of five.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed a lot of this book, as there were lots of synopses of movies I've never heard of, let alone seen, and likewise am not interested in watching. But there was great information on how slasher movies fit in as a subgenre of horror and exploitation films ; on historical precursors to the slasher genre, going all the way back to the gladiatorial games of the Roman era ; the nitty gritty of how movies get made, wheeling and dealing and all that ; and then the resurgence of the slasher film in the late 90s. The final page of the book notes that Halloween : Homecoming is forthcoming in 2002 (!). I would be curious to read a follow-up volume that followed up the next twenty years (more Halloween movies, more Scream movies, the rise of Saw and Insidious).

[Nathan Hodgson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent guide to the slasher genre, which made me want to re-watch a few films and introduced others I'd never heard of. Rockoff could have been more vocal in his opinions as in it's current state the book reads more like a factual list I could have accessed via trawling Wikipedia. Be warned contains many spoilers.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to pick this one up of course. What is a slasher film, the killer, weapons of choice, the setting, the final girl, the pre-history, Halloween, deadly pranks, Friday 13th, Prom Night, campus killers, prowlers, spaghetti slashers, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream... you'll get many fine movie stills, notes, alternative titles and a bibliography. Great work on slashers. Highly recommended!

[Roberto Lagos Figueroa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Correcto libro sobre las peliculas de horror de tipo Slasher. Nos brinda información sobre filmes ya de culto del género y otros poco conocidos, de manera clara y suscinta. Contiene algunas fotos de los mismos. Ŕecomendable para los fans del subgénero

[Danny Pas · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I don’t always agree with the author’s takes especially on how surface level he finds most of these films it was a comprehensible account for a lot of the genre’s essentials and offered up plenty of behind the scenes stories to keep this from being too dry of a read.

[Debi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review coming soon......

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in sections, and some of the stories of how these movies got made are quite compelling, but all too often it feels like naked apologia. It’s also a bit dated by today’s standards.

[Fatman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched and highly informative. I wonder if there is a more recent edition covering the slasher revival of the aughts and teens.

[Brian Necastro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly interesting for fans of slashers. I've been watching and reading about them for years, and I learned a lot from this book. Great for finding some lesser known gems of the past.

[Kristen Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love slasher films but I do not love this book.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a book that seems to have been written for people with little to no knowledge of the slasher sub genre. I would also have to say that there were times where I disagreed with the author's review of certain films (Nightmare 5 superior to Nightmare 4? Ha, not even close) but overall a decent book with a moderately good history of the slasher genre.

[Miles Jay Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

If not for a few inaccuracies in some of the film summaries, I'd have given this a full five stars. Otherwise, it's a pretty comprehensive and interesting discussion on the history of slasher films. Recommended for genre fans, but be prepared to find yourself thinking, "wait...that's not exactly what happened" while reading about a few of the movies he covers.

[Shane Grier]

Good companion piece to the documentary. I love some of these movies and sadly, like a lot more. Although in my defense the vast majority of these "slasher" films are terrible. Good read for a kid that grew up in the 80's with Joe Bob Briggs and USA' s Up All Night.

[Brian Sammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love 80s slasher films. Call them my guilty pleasure. This was a pretty good book about them that made for a pretty good documentary.

[Adelaide Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worst Kindle formatting ever.

[Jewbo23 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its a good read but there is little here that I didn't know and it does spoil a few endings.

[Tim Potter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The single best work about slasher films ever.

[Donnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book on slasher history, but it needs an update...

[Paul Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read for horror and slasher fans with some great anecdotes about even the most obscure ones

A great book detailing some great stories from the golden age of slasher films, recommended for horror fans. Very well researched too