“Slasher Nation,” in Fangoria), knocks it out of the park with Chainsaw, showing a rapidly gentrifying small town through the eyes of Jade, a slasher-obsessed teenager. Jones, who’s always had a gift for working horror criticism into his horror novels (and even has his own column about slasher movies. My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones Curse of the Reaper adds to this by humanizing both its leads, painting a realistic portrait of Howard’s struggles with his declining age and mental issues and Trevor’s battles with his own self-doubt and addiction while viciously skewering the apathetic studios who only care about their bottom line, setting up both humor and heart well before the blood (actual and fake) starts getting spilled.Īpple | Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Unfortunately, the increased stress of Howard’s battles with the studio, his advancing Alzheimer’s, and his young contemporary brings his alter ego out to play, setting the two men on a violent collision course with the Reaper himself. McAuley’s savage but affectionate sendup of the horror film industry begins as a cross between Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and All About Eve, with old actor Howard Browning clinging to the one steady role he’s ever had as twisted, scarred slasher villain the Reaper, while Trevor, a former child star, is pushed to step into the Reaper’s bloodstained overalls for the studio’s planned reboot.

Hopefully, this list of ten favorites both old and new will help you get started. Slashers have seen something of a resurgence recently, with authors and critics alike lining up to offer their own unique takes on one of the simplest but most varied and enduring genres of horror there is. It’s a fertile playground for the imagination, both in terms of kills and location, allowing the authors to have a lot more fun with a relatively simple premise. But while the slasher movie genre is tied down by a budget, script, and filming constraints (for instance, Blood Harvest, a movie where the red herring for the killings isn’t even in the same location as the rest of the cast), slasher novels have no such compunctions. It’s viscerally satisfying, like a murder mystery with less mystery and exposition, and three times as much murder.

Set up the characters, set up the masked killer, wind them up, watch them go, straight line from a to b, boom. There’s something beautifully and brutally simple about the slasher genre.

Kill River by Cameron Roubique