The1990ssaw a change in popular viewing habits at the cinema. After the slasher bonanza that took place during the 1980s, the horror genre shifted toward more supernatural scares. However, that did not mean the blood, guts, and masked killers were gone entirely. Through more modern storytelling, great scares, and even injections of self-aware humor, the slasher genre has seen a slow rise back to prominence since the ’90s.
These films treated audiences to terrifying tales of revenge and urban folktales come to life. The on-screen menaces took many forms during the slasher wave in the 90s. From the silent and lumbering to the quick and efficient, the villains in these slashers stalked and dispatched their prey in any number of creative ways. Nonstop scares and clever plot twists drive these horror hits and the films on this list will remind you that the ’90s was a great time for the slasher flick. All box office figures listed have been adjusted for inflation.
10Wes Craven’s New Nightmare - $36,845,700
In the seventh Freddy Krueger film, horror director Wes Craven blurs the lines between reality and fiction in his meta-horror movieWes Craven’s New Nightmare. It brought something new to the long-running Nightmare on Elm Street franchise while bringing back Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in the original film, and the iconic Robert Englund as Freddy.
The film follows Langenkamp, Englund, and Craven playing versions of themselves as the demonic presence of Freddy Krueger appears in Langenkamp’s dreams. The razor-fingered killer slowly insinuates himself into her mind and her life, leaving her to battle him to save her son. Craven cleverly examines the notion that Freddy’s evil has bled off the screen and into the real world, looming over the cast and crew who helped makethe Elm Street films. This film takes the slasher genre to new places while still honoring its origins.
9Candyman - $54,056,120
Based on a short story by horror heavyweight Clive Barker,Candymantakes the audience to the decaying Cabrini-Green housing projects in Chicago. Graduate student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is researching superstitions and local urban legends when she hears about the Candyman (Tony Todd), a hook-handed killer who appears when summoned by anyone daring to say his name five times while looking in a mirror. At first, Helen is dubious but slowly starts to believe the truth.
Todd’s scarily seductive performance is legendary among horror fans. Hearing his baritone voice say the words “Be my victim” will haunt you. He recently reprised his role inthe 2021 remakestarring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris. The hypnotic and haunting score by Philip Glass lures the viewer into a nightmarish world just outside of our own, where a murderous hook-handed figure stalks the shadows. This film remains a cult classic today.
8Child’s Play 2 - $75,678,580
Brad Dourif lends his voice to the role of killer doll Chucky for the second film in the long-running series,Child’s Play 2. Directed by John Lafia, who helped write the first film with Chucky creator Don Mancini, this sequel picks up two years after the bloody events of the original film, following young Andy Barclay as he recovers from his traumatic past. He is again stalked by Chucky who is deadset on transferring his soul into Andy’s body. Lafia delivers a great blend of jolting scares and suspenseful dread. There is dark humor peppered throughout the film. Chucky as a character can stand toe-to-toe with Freddy Krueger in a one-liner competition. Chucky’s second on-screen murderous rampage builds on everything that audiences enjoyed about the first film and the character has cemented his place in the minds of any viewers who are still afraid of dolls.
7I Still Know What You Did Last Summer - $74,444,900
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprise their roles as Julie and Ray, respectively, in the 1998 slasher sequelI Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Director Danny Cannon amps up the tension and suspense as the film finds Julie, Ray, and new characters Karla (Brandy), Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer), and Will (Matthew Settle) on a resort vacation during a powerful storm. The group is on the run from the vengeful, hook-handed Ben Willis aka The Fisherman (Muse Watson), who wants to settle the score after Julie and her friends tried to cover up his supposed death.
The sequel may not have reached the same heights as the original (Jack Black’s uncredited cameo as a wannabe Rastafarian is a sore spot), but it still delivers plenty of memorable and gory kills, slasher thrills, and a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game.
6Bride of Chucky - $93,056,130
Red-headed killer doll Chucky makes a second appearance on this list in the fourth movie in the Child’s Play series,Bride of Chucky. This film brings a morbidly twisted blend of slasher horror and pitch-black self-referential comedy. The remains of Chucky, the doll possessed by serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), are put back together by a former lover named Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly). After killing Tiffany and trapping her soul in a doll, the demonic duo embarks on a murderous road trip in search of the amulet that will turn them back into humans. Chucky and Tiffany have comedic chemistry, bickering like an old married couple while also supplying plenty of gory and outlandish kills. Director Ronny Yu and writer Don Mancini fill this slasher film with cheeky nods to horror classics while also establishing itself as a new kind of Chucky movie.
5Urban Legend - $134,000,834
In 1998’sUrban Legend, a group of attractive college students faces off against a psycho killer. Familiar material, to be sure, but director Jamie Blanks and his cast including Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, and Rebecca Gayheart, embrace the power of folklore and its ability to become part of the cultural lexicon in this film. It follows a crew of students who are at the epicenter of a series of gruesome murders inspired by popular urban myths.
Some ofthe urban legendsthat appear in the film include the killer in the backseat, the old woman who dries her wet dog in a microwave, and a twisted version of the Pop Rocks and Soda story using drain cleaner. Blanks toys with the viewer’s expectations, deftly combining horror elements and a whodunit mystery. Urban Legend is a solid ’90s slasher that upholds the aesthetic while also calling back to the many terrifying tales that live in the collective consciousness.
4Halloween H20 - $139,584,202
Michael Myers is on a killing spree yet again inHalloween H20, the terrifying seventh film in the Halloween franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her iconic role as the original scream queen Laurie Strode, now living under an assumed identity and working as a headmistress at Hillcrest Academy, a private boarding school. As Laurie discovers, there is nowhere she can hide from her brother Michael and his bloodthirsty rage. Halloween night soon approaches and Laurie has to confront her past and battle Michael.
Curtis’s performance as Laurie carries the film, playing the tortured character as a hardened survivor. Director Steve Miner crafts sequences of heart-pounding suspense and pays homage to the original while also introducing a more modern take on horror. This film rode the wave of the slasher resurgence and is part of the franchise that started it all. H20 holds its place within theHalloweencanon as well as the slasher film genre overall.
3I Know What You Did Last Summer - $236,264,018
I Know What You Did Last Summeris a quintessential slasher flick from 1997 loosely based on a novel by Lois Duncan. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe, and Sarah Michelle Gellar star as a group of friends who are involved in a fatal car accident on a dark road. They make a pact to keep it a secret and a year later, the film shows how much the secret has tormented them. That torment takes on a human form: The Fisherman, a killer in a black slicker who uses a hook to murder his victims and has his sights set on revenge.
This slick and suspenseful slasher features bloody kill scenes, plenty of jump scares, and some intense chase sequences, including one throughout a general store after hours. I Know What You Did Last Summer also welcomed a new scream queen into the horror pantheon: Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie James.
2Scream 2 - $325,099,290
Boasting a haunting opening kill set in a rowdy movie theater while watching a slasher movie,Scream 2is a worthy follow-up to the original. The sequel picks the story up two years after the events in Woodsboro, finding survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) away at Windsor College. However, she cannot outrun her past and finds herself being stalked by a copycat killer of the first Ghostface. Also returning for the sequel are tenacious reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and film nerd Randy (Jamie Kennedy).
As the body count piles up, Sidney has to fight to survive this new Ghostface killer. Scream 2 takes apart the conventions of the slasher genre, showing Randy engaging in discussion with his film class and debating with Dewey about how the rules change in horror sequels.The humor, the chase scenes, and the killer reveals make this sequel a top-notch slasher.
1Scream - $334,492,026
Screenwriter Kevin Williamson struck gold in the 90s, reinvigorating the slasher genre by giving it a fresh approach and imbuing it with his signature darkly humorous edge. He wrote the screenplays for the top three films on this list.Scream, one of the most iconic horror films ever made, was directed by Wes Craven and is the original meta-slasher film.
Set in the fictional town of Woodsboro, Scream follows Sidney Prescott, a high school student who becomes the target of a killer known as Ghostface. This film has all the tropes horror fans love while also subverting them in clever ways, like having Drew Barrymore, one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood, playthe first victim Casey Becker. The memorable characters, quotable dialogue, and relentless suspense make Scream an indisputable heavyweight in the slasher genre and in horror history as a whole.
