While slasher movies were the hottest subgenre in the 1980s, they went out of style because they all looked the same. However, starting in the 1990s, things changed, and the genre began subverting the tropes and expectations of fans. That continues to this day, with the 2022 slasher movie X changing things drastically with the killer and victims and leading to an immediate prequel that arrived only six months later, with a September 2022 release date for Pearl.
The idea of a slasher killer was originally a faceless man or woman who hunted down mostly younger people and killed them with various weapons, mostly knives, chainsaws, or other basic sharp weapons. However, over the years, the idea of a slasher killer changed and filmmakers created unique villains to hunt down and kill youngsters in remote locations, making what was old new once again.
The Cult — Cabin In The Woods (2011)
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In most slasher horror movies, the killer is often a loner, someone hurt as a child and wants revenge against everyone who hurt him. In other cases, it is a serial killer who just wants to hurt people. However, The Cabin in the Woods subverted the entire idea of slasher killers in movies by making these killers scientists and laboratory workers who are part of a worldwide cult intent to save the world.
There are typical slasher killers in the movie, with hillbilly slashers and demonic presences, but these are demons and creatures held captive by the cult, and they release them to kill teens to keep the Old Gods from returning to destroy the Earth. That the lab workers control the release of the killers completely flipped the movie on its head, and it resulted in an instant classic.
The Kids — Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (2010)
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When teens go out into the country for mischief, they will probably run across some deranged hillbillies and end up dead. That looked to be the case in Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, where the kids found two guys living in a cabin in the woods who owned lots of axes and chainsaws. However, things got out of control, and it had nothing to do with Tucker and Dale.
Instead, Tucker and Dale weren't slasher killers at all. They were just two good old boys who lived in the country and mostly minded their own business. However, the kids misinterpreted things they saw and decided they would kill Tucker and Dale before they ended up dead, making the two country boys the victims and the kids the true slasher killers. Along the way, the kids accidentally killed themselves as each of their plans fell apart, while Tucker and Dale watched on in horror.
Ghostface — Scream (1996)
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Scream went on long enough to create its own clichés and spawn movies that have become as predictable as the genre movies that the original movie subverted. However, with that said, the original Scream movie reinvigorated the slasher genre by changing everything people expected from a slasher movie.
The changes were staggering. The kids dying in the Scream movies were not oblivious like the teens in the Friday the 13th slasher movies, because these kids grew up around slasher movies. More than that, the killer — Ghostface — also had extensive knowledge of the slasher movie genre, often experimenting with the tropes before killing his victims. The copycat movies that followed were rarely as original, but Scream revolutionized horror movies in the 90s.
It — It Follows (2014)
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If there is one movie that completely subverts everything about a slasher killer, it is the 2014 release, It Follows. The premise plays close to the belt, with people who have premarital sex ending up dead at the hands of the killer. However, it is how the killer takes its victims that subvert the slasher killer in this movie.
This slasher killer isn't an active slasher killer, but en entity passed on from one person to another sexually, one of the scariest curses in horror movies. The entire movie is an allegory for STDs and the entity slowly eliminates each villain one by one before moving on to the next. The killer changes its looks each time, and it is almost impossible to survive, as it is always a threat even if the person thinks they finally shook it.
Death — Final Destination (2000)
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There might not be a scarier slasher killer than Death itself. When the victims realize Death is coming after them, and there is no way to stop it, the movie takes a frightening turn into intense terror. In Final Destination, when it is someone's time, but they cheat death somehow, Death doesn't stop until they are dead and finally move on.
This is a slasher movie franchise, as from the start, Death kills characters through intricate sequences, often using accidents that lead to horrific endings. These characters did nothing wrong other than not being in the right place at the wrong time, but Death is going to kill them. It subverts everything about the slasher villain, and the fun here is seeing how it happens, rather than watching a faceless killer hacking people to death.
Frank Zito — Maniac (2012)
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In Maniac, Frank Zito is a slasher killer and what he does fits the tropes that the genre has mostly set up for him. The movie is a remake of an old slasher movie from 1980, but there were some changes that subverted the audience's experience with watching the killer in action. The story is mostly the same, with Frank as a slasher killer who targets women because of his sexual repression.
However, the movie is shot with the viewer watching almost everything from Frank's point of view. While the camera would switch to Jason's POV in Friday the 13th to show the kills from his angle, Maniac keeps almost the entire movie shot from what Frank sees, making the viewers almost implicit in his killings, one of the most uncomfortable feelings imaginable.
Leslie Vernon — Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon (2006)
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Released in 2006, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is almost a love letter to slasher movies. In this movie, the first part sets itself up like a mockumentary, with a film crew making a movie about a real-life serial killer named Leslie Vernon. In the second half of the movie, it becomes a more traditional horror movie, with Vernon targeting the film crew.
It is that first part of the movie that not only subverts what people know about slasher killers but also deconstructs it. This is like what Scream did, but differently. Vernon shows the kids how slasher killers do impossible things, like always walking slow but keeping up. He also shows how the slasher killers set up traps in the house, which explains why things always go wrong for kids trying to escape.
Freddy Krueger — Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)
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When Wes Craven created Freddy Krueger in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, it was already a subversion of the traditional slasher killer of its time. Instead of a killer hunting kids through the woods with a chainsaw or machete, Freddy attacked them in their dreams and killed them with their own fears. That was intriguing, but Craven went even further a decade later with Wes Craven's New Nightmare.
This hit theaters before Craven made Scream, and it took the same ideas, but audiences were not ready for the subversion of the slasher killer tropes in 1994. The stars from the first movie played fictional versions of themselves, and Wes Craven even starred as himself, writing the movie. However, the twist here was that Freddy was real and haunted Craven's dreams to get those movies made. Now, Freddy wants into the real world, and it was like nothing the slasher killer genre ever attempted.
Pearl — X (2022)
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In X, the movie seemed a straightforward slasher movie by Ti West, a filmmaker who has specialized in throwback horror movies. However, what few fans expected was a complete subversion of the idea of a slasher killer here. The basis of the movie was the same, with a group of youngsters arriving at a remote farmhouse, in this case, to shoot a pornographic movie.
However, what changed here was the killer was an elderly couple living in a struggling marriage. The movie tells the story of aging and how Howard's heart condition doesn't allow him to satisfy Pearl, so he abducts their victims, allowing her to choose who she wants. What they do is evil and horrific. However, the movie gave them a tragic backstory and their victims are all liars, drug users, who set out to take advantage of the couple's generosity from the start.
Angela — Sleepaway Camp (1983)
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The entire twist in Sleepaway Camp completely subverts the entire slasher subgenre in every way. The movie looked, from the start, like another carbon copy of Friday the 13th, with a faceless serial killer slashing their way through kids at a summer camp. However, there was a lot more under the surface of this movie than other follow-ups to the landmark slasher movie.
The biggest change was that the killer here was one of the summer camp attendees, Angela. The twist was and remains controversial, due to its wildly transphobic undertones. Angela was born a boy but forced to take on the persona of a girl by an abusive aunt after her mother and brother died. However, the biggest subversion was that everyone who died was an abusive personality — a chef who attempted to sexually assault Angela, a boyfriend who cheated on her, and another kid who bullied her. Angela, the slasher killer, was the victim of the movie all along.