The term "slasher film" was common parlance by the mid-1980s but the horror subgenre it describes was at least a decade old by then--formerly referred to as "stalker," "psycho" or "slice-'em-up." Examining 74 movies--from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) to Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)--the author identifies the characteristic elements of the subgenre while tracing changes in narrative patterns over the decades.

The slasher canon is divided into three eras: the classical (1974-1993), the self-referential (1994-2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2000-2013).