The 80s Reborn: The 2020s Slasher Boom

Source: AfterDark Substack

by Jimmy O'Hara

All Hallows Eve is significant around the world for various historical, cultural, and pop-cultural reasons, but for horror fans, the hype also revolves around the equally emblematic slasher hit Halloween (1978).

​Starring legendary, future Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis in her debut/breakout role, the small indie genre film perfected the slick storytelling of Black Christmas (1974) and combined it with the viscerally grunge gore of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) to cement the subgenre for over the next two decades; it propelled the slasher horror genre into the 1980s just in time for the encroaching reek of Reagan era satanic panic. 

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Forty years later, Halloween (2018) premiered at the back end of the 2010’s to resurrect the slasher genre from a depth of hell in which even Jason and Freddy wouldn’t find themselves lurking. Once more, the slasher lives on to see a new decade: The 2020’s– bigger, better, and scarier than ever before seen on screens.


Jason sycophants and Crystal Lake campers may be offended that Friday the 13th (1980) is not being credited as patient zero for the slasher BOOM that defined the 80s. Yet, despite premiering at the top of the decade, Friday the 13th would not have become the blockbuster series it continues to be (A24’s Camp Crystal Lake serialized adaptation drops later this year) if Carpenter’s hit hadn’t first succeeded in subverting horror fans, critics, and general audience perceptions alike two years prior.


Without Halloween, audiences would have never met Jason and his mother, Freddy and the dream warriors of Elm Street, or even Ghostface and his movie buffs DECADES later. Nearly three hundred (300!!!) American slashers were produced between 1980-1989 alone. Those kinds of numbers, and their continuous cultural impact, are hard to recreate. But the 2020’s dare to try, and it's all thanks to Carpenter's franchise.


Cut to 2018, Curtis is in a career resurgence…EXACTLY forty years after her debut in Halloween. It was the perfect time for a Halloween revival and, with the help of a changing world, evolving tastes, and the viewpoints of a new generation, the perfect time to breathe new life into the slasher! Since 2018, and even more since the 2020’s began, audiences have been treated to revivals of their favorite franchises including Scream, Friday the 13th, The Strangers. And movies like MaXXXIne, Fear Street, and Bodies Bodies Bodies  are shining, fresh stars for a new, slasher-loving generation.


The slasher was first introduced during a conflicted era in American history; in the shadow of a war and political stagnation, social repressions manifested on the surface of mainstream consciousness revolving around gender and sexuality. It was similar to where we are now; in the wake of a global pandemic and rampant and rising conservatism, a new generation is reshaping the dialogue that will define America’s future (or else face a fate worse than a slasher victim). In this environment, it’s natural that the slasher be reworked as well. 
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An iconic, genre-defining, critically acclaimed, and period-reflecting slasher masterpiece like Halloween or Scream has yet to reveal itself in this new generation. It will though, sooner rather than later, because the 2020’s are THE first decade to watch for horror since the 1980s concluded. 

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