Film

Friday the 13th Part III

Friday the 13th Part III is the film that gave Jason Voorhees his iconic hockey mask and established the slasher template that would dominate horror for decades. Shot in 3D, it's gloriously silly and surprisingly mean—more interested in creative kills than character. It's for anyone who loves watching teens get picked off by an unstoppable force with a machete.

TMDb rating2.9

If you liked this

The Final Girl Support Group

A fresh, witty deconstruction of slasher tropes that loves the genre while gently mocking its worst impulses. It's affectionate horror-comedy that actually understands what made these films work.

But Relies heavily on your familiarity with the conventions it's parodying. If slashers aren't already part of your DNA, the references won't land.

The Final Girl Support Group poster

A Nightmare on Elm Street1984

The other essential 80s slasher that proved the formula could sustain a genuinely inventive villain. Freddy is funnier and scarier than Jason, and the dream logic opens possibilities Jason's mundane brutality never could.

But The first film is visibly low-budget in ways that don't always work. Some of the effects and acting land awkwardly by today's standards.

A Nightmare on Elm Street poster

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre1974

The granddaddy of them all—meaner, grittier, and far more disturbing than Part III because it commits fully to its own nightmare logic. If you want to understand where all of this came from, start here.

But It's genuinely unpleasant in a way that goes beyond jump scares. The tone is bleak and the violence feels consequential, which some find exhausting rather than fun.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Friday the 13th Part III

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sleepwalkers1992

Both are 80s-adjacent films about an unstoppable killer preying on a small community, but Sleepwalkers inverts the formula: the 'killers' are the protagonists, and the townspeople become the hunters. It's Jason Voorhees from the monster's perspective.

Stephen King's only screenplay is a gloriously unhinged creature-feature that operates in slasher territory—a family of interdimensional vampires hunted by a small town. It's campy, weird, and utterly committed to its own madness in a way contemporary horror rarely is.

But It's genuinely bizarre in ways that might feel more silly than scary. King's eccentric vision doesn't always cohere, and some will see it as confused rather than creative.

Sleepwalkers poster
More like this (8)

Sleepaway Camp1983

A truly bizarre slasher with a twist ending that still lands decades later. It's weird, occasionally unintentionally hilarious, and committed to making you feel properly uncomfortable in ways that feel almost transgressive.

But The pacing is off in places and some performances veer into territory that feels more accidental than intentional. It's charmingly clunky.

Sleepaway Camp poster

Happy Death Day2017

Takes the slasher format and adds a Groundhog Day twist that keeps it fresh and funny. It's got genuine character development beneath the stabbings, which is rare for the genre, and the killer design is genuinely creepy.

But The tonal shift in the final act feels like a different movie. Some viewers resent the shift from comedy-horror to sincere drama.

Happy Death Day poster

The Burning1981

A summer camp slasher with a genuinely unsettling killer (scarred, silent, methodical) and a standout early role from Jason Alexander. It's competent, mean-spirited in the right way, and criminally underseen.

But It's been overshadowed by Friday the 13th and its sequels. There's nothing here that will surprise you if you've seen better examples of the form.

The Burning poster

Friday the 13th1980

The original that started it all. It's leaner, meaner, and genuinely suspenseful in ways Part III can't quite match. The twist ending still works, and you'll understand why this became a phenomenon.

But Now that you know where it leads, the identity reveal in the final act feels anticlimactic. The kills are less creative than what would follow.

Friday the 13th poster

Madman1981

A summer camp slasher with a folk-horror edge and an genuinely eerie masked killer. It's less polished than Friday the 13th but more atmospheric, and the kills have a nasty creativity to them.

But It's a pale imitation in the shadow of the franchise it's copying. The script and acting are noticeably rougher than its more famous contemporaries.

Madman poster

The Mutilator1985

A deeply weird slasher with a genuinely disturbing premise and a killer who feels like an actual threat rather than a supernatural force. It commits to its sick logic in a way that feels almost punk rock.

But The low budget shows in almost every frame and not always charmingly. The acting ranges from fine to truly painful, and the pacing drags in the middle stretch.

The Mutilator poster

The Cabin in the Woods2012

Where Part III codified the slasher blueprint, Cabin in the Woods asks what that blueprint actually means—it examines the machinery that makes Jason possible, and the price of that machinery.

A meta-slasher that deconstructs the entire genre from the inside—it knows every beat you expect and uses that knowledge to genuinely unsettle you. It's a love letter to horror that's also a funeral oration for it.

But It heavily relies on you knowing slasher conventions. The final act veers into cosmic body-horror that feels tonally different from what comes before, and not everyone follows it willingly.

The Cabin in the Woods poster

Let's Scare Jessica to Death1971

Both films are about communities under siege, but Jessica achieves its dread through psychological dissolution and atmosphere rather than stalk-and-slash mechanics. It's what happens to a slasher when you remove the slasher and replace him with the killer inside everyone's head.

A genuinely eerie psychological horror film that predates the slasher boom and works in an entirely different register—paranoid, slow-burn, operating in daylight rather than darkness. It feels like a fever dream where you're never quite sure what's real.

But There's minimal gore and no traditional killer. It's anti-slasher in every way—cerebral where Part III is visceral, elliptical where it's direct. If you want kills, this will feel like watching paint dry.

Let's Scare Jessica to Death poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by