Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher FilmMovies like Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film
- Key Features:
- Film history, Horror, Filmmaking, Cultural impact, Cult classic, Meta-analysis, Industry analysis
- Tone:
- serious, humorous
- Target Audience:
- Film buffs, Horror fans, Documentary enthusiasts
- Emotional Arc:
- Excitement → Decline → Revival
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night. The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, Nightmare on Elm Street revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when Scream brings humor and TV stars into the mix.
Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film
For decades, Freddy Krueger has slashed his way through the dreams of countless youngsters, scaring up over half a billion dollars at the box office across eight terrifying, spectacular films.

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

The next great psycho horror slasher has given a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo, all the while deconstructing the conventions and archetypes of the horror genre for them.

A group of young adults visit a boarded up campsite named Crystal Lake where they soon encounter the mysterious Jason Voorhees and his deadly intentions.

From 1970-1977, six low budget films shown at midnight transformed the way we make and watch films.

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

Taking inspiration from Peter M. Bracke's definitive book of the same name, this seven-hour documentary dives into the making of all twelve Friday the 13th films, with all-new interviews from the cast and the crew.

Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.

A young woman learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from her deceased grandmother. After embarking on a road trip with friends to uncover her roots, she finds she is the sole owner of a lavish, isolated Victorian mansion. But her newfound wealth comes at a price as she stumbles upon a horror that awaits her in the mansion’s dank cellars.

A reality TV director copes with a spoiled celebutante and a show gone haywire when a masked killer starts bumping off the crew in this slasher-movie satire.

After failing to kill stubborn survivor Laurie and taking a bullet or six from former psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael Myers has followed Laurie to the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, where she's been admitted for Myers' attempt on her life. The institution proves to be particularly suited to serial killers, however, as Myers cuts, stabs and slashes his way through hospital staff to reach his favorite victim.

Jason Voorhees is tracked down and blown to bits by a special FBI task force, reborn with the bone-chilling ability to assume the identity of anyone he touches.

The early years of young Michael Myers and the events leading up to his fateful Halloween night murder rampage in the quiet town of Haddonfield, Illinois.

As bodies begin dropping around the Hollywood set of STAB 3, the third film based on the gruesome Woodsboro killings, Sidney and other survivors are once again terrorized by another Ghostface killer.

A young nurse is kidnapped by a group of violent teens who escape from a mental hospital and take her on the road trip from hell. Pursued by an equally deranged lawman out for revenge, one of the teens is destined for tragedy and horrors that will destroy his mind, moulding him into a monster named Leatherface.

About to be electrocuted for a catalog of heinous crimes, the unrepentant Horace Pinker transforms into a terrifying energy source. Only young athlete Jonathan Parker, with an uncanny connection to him through bizarre dreams, can fight the powerful demon.

An exploration of '80s horror movies through the perspective of the actors, directors, producers and SFX craftspeople who made them, and their impact on contemporary cinema.

Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.

Camp counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer camp that was the site of a child's drowning.

Delving into a century of genre films that by turns utilized, caricatured, exploited, sidelined, and finally embraced them, this is the untold history of black Americans in Hollywood through their connection to the horror genre.

Just when you thought it was safe to sleep, Freddy Krueger returns in this sixth installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, as psychologist Maggie Burroughs, tormented by recurring nightmares, meets a patient with the same horrific dreams. Their quest for answers leads to a certain house on Elm Street -- where the nightmares become reality.

Two years after the Woodsboro murders, Sidney Prescott acclimates to college life while someone donning the Ghostface costume begins a new string of killings.

A documentary of the decline of America. Featuring footage (most exclusive to this film) from race riots to serial killers and much, much more.

Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer has donned the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.

A student creates and sells a drug called 'Z' which has the unexpected side effect of resurrecting the dead as flesh-eating zombies, who proceed to wreak havoc at a Halloween rave.

Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter.

Japan's number one extreme reality show is having it's first all-American special! Six lucky contestants, chosen from thousands of applicants, will have the chance to win millions of dollars, and all they have to do is stay alive!

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Ten years after the original Woodsboro murders, one of the survivors returns home to promote their new book about surviving trauma, only for a new Ghostface killer to emerge, targeting a new group of teens.

After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.

An idyllic summer turns into a nightmare of unspeakable terror for yet another group of naïve friends. Ignoring Camp Crystal Lake's bloody legacy, one by one they fall victim to the maniacal Jason, who stalks them at every turn...

The making of a horror movie takes on a terrifying reality for students at the most prestigious film school in the country. At Alpine University, someone is determined to win the best film award at any cost - even if it means eliminating the competition. No one is safe and everyone is a suspect.

A Chicago artist's sanity starts to unravel, unleashing a terrifying wave of violence when he begins to explore the macabre history of the Candyman.

Mark Patton sets the records straight about the controversial 1985 sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which ended his acting career, just as it was about to begin.

A teenage boy is haunted in his dreams by deceased child murderer Freddy Krueger, who is out to possess him in order to continue his reign of terror in the real world.

A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.

After nearly 50 years of hiding, Leatherface returns to terrorize a group of idealistic influencers who accidentally disrupt his carefully shielded world in a remote Texas town.

A low-budget film crew working in New York City find themselves being preyed upon by a sexually conflicted serial killer.

Annie, a young schoolteacher struggling to solve the brutal murder of her father, unwittingly summons the "Candyman" to New Orleans, where she learns the secret of his power, and discovers the link that connects them.

A frustrated Boston detective searches for the maniac responsible for mutilating a number of university coeds.

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...

After witnessing a brutal murder on Halloween night, a young woman becomes the next target of a maniacal entity.

The evolution of adult cinema through the most influential films in history, a journey that begins in the 1970s and ends nowadays. An in-depth analysis of the success of the most prestigious erotic films, their impact on industry and society, and their influence on cinema and contemporary culture.

Psychotic Angela is itching to do what she does best: slaughter dozens of teenage campers. As luck would have it, the previous site of her murders has been renamed and converted into an experimental summer camp meant to bring together privileged and lower-class teens. On the day the youths are boarding the buses to camp, Angela runs over a potential camper with a garbage truck and assumes her identity. Once she has infiltrated the camp, the real terror begins.

At a seedy theater in a sleepy suburban town, a group of friends get together for a midnight screening of an early 1970s horror film, unaware that the director has something more in store for them.

Years after a terrible boating accident, Angela is sent to Camp Arawak where a series of bizarre and violent "accidents" begin to claim the lives of various campers.

Documentary about the art of film editing. Clips are shown from many groundbreaking films with innovative editing styles.

A college campus is plagued by a vicious serial killer murdering students in ways that correspond to various urban legends.

A group of young horror fans go searching for a film that mysteriously vanished years ago but instead find that the demented killer from the movie is real, and he's thrilled to meet fans who will die gruesomely for his art.

At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years prior.

A few years ago, a mysterious serial-killer caused panic on Crippen High School. The killer was never caught. A movie company, Cosmic Pictures, has decided to make a feature movie about these events - on location, at the now abandoned school. Since members of cast and crew disappear without a trace, it seems as if history is repeating itself...

After his revival in a hospital morgue, Jason fixes his vengeful attention on the Jarvis family and a group of hitherto carefree teenagers.

Ten stories from horror's top directors. Ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and the devil delight in terrorizing unsuspecting residents of a suburban neighborhood on Halloween night. This creepy anthology combines classic Halloween tales with the stuff of nightmares.

On Halloween night at a horror theme park, a costumed killer begins slaying innocent patrons who believe that it's all part of the festivities.

The Los Angeles punk music scene circa 1980 is the focus of this film. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.

A collection of Halloween-themed videotapes unleashes a series of twisted, blood-soaked tales, turning trick-or-treat into a struggle for survival.

A journalist goes in search of the truth after a series of brutal deaths and disappearances lead back to an urban legend about a serial killing clown that has stalked the woods of Century Park for over a hundred years.

Dana, daughter of the only survivor of a massacre in 1993, is going on a weekend trip with her friends. After their car breaks down in the very same town where her mother once fought the Driller Killer, Dana and her friends must come face-to-face with the man who has haunted her mother’s life for the past 30 years.

A group of teenagers get into a car crash in the Texas woods on prom night, and then wander into an old farmhouse that is home to Leatherface and his insane family of cannibalistic psychopaths.

Five years after the horrible bloodbath at Camp Crystal Lake, new counselors roam the area, not sensing the ominous lurking presence that proves that the grisly legend is real.

A sociology instructor finds her new teaching duties at a private college interrupted by the presence of a killer.

Edward is a friendly, harmless film editor in the splatter and gore department of a horror film company. Ed is assigned to work on the new Loose Limbs series of horror films after the previous editor killed himself with a hand grenade. Later his reality begins to twist and distort into a horrifying world where nothing is as it seems. Soon enough this turns Ed into Evil Ed!

As the Day of the Dead celebration approaches the barrio of East Los Angeles, Caroline is challenged to control the horrifying legend of her ancestor, the "Candyman".

When a tough-as-nails reporter is lead to a mysterious cult and the evil Pinhead, any moment could be her last.

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.

Rebellious teen Amy defies her parents by going to a trashy carnival that has pulled into town. In tow are her boyfriend, Buzz, and their friends Liz and Richie. Thinking it would be fun to spend the night in the campy "Funhouse" horror ride, the teens witness a murder by a deformed worker wearing a mask. Locked in, Amy and her friends must evade the murderous carnival workers and escape before it leaves town the next day.

This documentary explores the hidden history of the American Exploitation Film. The movie digs deep into this often overlooked category of U.S. cinema and unearths the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of this popular entertainment.

A psychiatrist, familiar with the knife-wielding dream demon Freddy Krueger, helps teens at a mental hospital battle the killer who is invading their dreams.

High school student Paula Carson's affections are being sought after by two of her classmates: Dwight, the "bad boy", and Brian, a disturbed young man who has just been released from a mental hospital where he was committed following the suspicious death of his father. Soon after being released, more murders start happening. Is Brian back to his old tricks, or is Dwight just trying to eliminate the competition?

Four years after the events of Halloween in 2018, Laurie has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.

When six friends fly off on a weekend getaway and are suddenly plagued by engine trouble, they're forced to land on a remote island. Looking for shelter, they're grateful to encounter Ma and Pa and their children - an eccentric family living in the island's backwoods. But what begins as simple hospitality turns into a terrifying race for survival as the friends start disappearing one by one ... and turning up dead.

Michael manages to free himself from Laurie Strode's trap to resume his ritual bloodbath. As she fights for her life from injuries from their last encounter, she inspires her daughter Karen, her granddaughter Allyson, and all of Haddonfield to rise up against the unstoppable monster.

A strange mortician tells four horrific tales to three drug dealers that he traps in their local funeral parlor.

Reality programmers at DangerTainment select a group of thrill-seeking teenagers to spend one night in the childhood home of serial killer Michael Myers. Their planned live broadcast turns deadly when Michael decides to crash the party.

With Prom only hours away, the usual suspects of Cosa High (Cheerleaders, geeks, bad boys and the happy-go-lucky student council alike) are preoccupied with the annual rituals of teendom. On the night of the big dance when the dead unexpectedly rise to eat the living, polar opposite groups will be forced to unite in their final chance to save the town from the zombies.

A behind the scenes look into George Romero's groundbreaking horror classic Night of the Living Dead.

A troubled group of children living on the same block are haunted by a talking dog named Labby who brings them on surreal hell-rides between different dimensions and time periods.

Angela Baker escapes from a mental hospital and surfaces at a summer camp as a counselor who lectures her teenage charges on proper moral behavior. Those teens who break her strict rules -- from the camp chatterbox or a sex-obsessed girl to the boys who are peeping Toms -- are murdered by the impostor in various gruesome ways. As more campers go missing, intrepid counselor Molly begins to piece together the truth.

Six of the worlds scariest psychopaths escape from a local Asylum and proceed to unleash terror on the unsuspecting crowd of a Halloween Funhouse whose themed mazes are inspired by their various reigns of terror.

A massacre survivor studies serial killers under a famous expert, but her classmates soon start dying at the hands of a Jack the Ripper copycat.

Two decades after surviving a massacre on October 31, 1978, former baby sitter Laurie Strode finds herself hunted by persistent knife-wielder Michael Myers. Laurie now lives in Northern California under an assumed name, where she works as the headmistress of a private school. But it's not far enough to escape Myers, who soon discovers her whereabouts. As Halloween descends upon Laurie's peaceful community, a feeling of dread weighs upon her -- with good reason.

A local TV personality leads a team of supernatural investigators, including an exorcist, into the darkest corners of a supposedly haunted house.

This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.

Delving into our collective nightmares, this horror-documentary investigates the origins of our most terrifying urban legends and the true stories that may have inspired them.

Chrissie and her friends set out on a road trip for a final fling before one is shipped off to Vietnam. Along the way, bikers harass the foursome and cause an accident that throws Chrissie from the vehicle. The lawman who arrives on the scene kills one of the bikers and brings Chrissie's friends to the Hewitt homestead, where young Leatherface is learning the tools of terror.

During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

Confined to an asylum for the criminally insane for the past four years, Nica is wrongly convinced that she, not Chucky, murdered her entire family... until a string of grisly deaths occur after her psychiatrist introduces a new group therapy tool -- a "Good Guy" doll.

The boredom of small town life is eating Bill Williamson alive. Feeling constrained and claustrophobic in the meaningless drudgery of everyday life and helpless against overwhelming global dissolution, Bill begins a descent into madness. His shockingly violent plan will shake the very foundations of society by painting the streets red with blood.

Trish invites her high school basketball teammates over for a night they'll never forget when an unexpected guest crashes the party: an escaped psychopath with a portable power drill.

Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.

Five grisly tales from a 1950s-style comic, including a murdered father rising from beyond, a bizarre meteor, a vengeful husband, a mysterious crate's occupant, and a plague of cockroaches.

The most famous murder scene in movie history comprises 78 camera settings and 52 cuts: the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. 78/52 tells the story of the man behind the curtain and his greatest obsession.

Ten years ago, over forty people were brutally torn to pieces in Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp. Over the past decade, lone survivor Andrew’s claims that local legend Victor Crowley was responsible for the horrific massacre have been met with great controversy. But when a twist of fate puts him back at the scene of the tragedy, Crowley is mistakenly resurrected and Andrew must face the bloodthirsty ghost from his past.

Tina Shepard, a telekinetic teenage girl, accidentally unchains Jason from his watery grave, allowing him to go on another killing spree in the area.

Twins Todd and Terry seem like sweet boys -- that is, until one of them takes an axe to the face of a fellow patron at the local drive-in.

Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees return to terrorize the teenagers of Elm Street. Only this time, they're out to get each other, too.

A group of paranormal investigators enter the abandoned home of paedophile and serial killer John Gacy, hoping to find evidence of paranormal activity. Upon entering the house they set-up cameras throughout the abandoned house while going room to room with hand-held cameras, performing séance's and asking for John Gacy to come forward. As the evening progresses it seems the investigators are not prepared for the horror still within the house.

After the death of a high school track star during a race, a mysterious killer in a fencing mask begins murdering her friends and teachers.
