The first modern slasher film is also the best. Black Christmas set the bar and established many of the genre trademarks that slashers would follow for decades to come. Notably, this film also began the trend of basing slashers around a holiday, a trend that was followed in Halloween, April Fool’s Day, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and many others. The phone calls in this movie are disturbing enough to make you never want to answer your phone again.

Michael Myers is the ultimate slasher: silent, indestructible, cuts his victims up with a kitchen knife, wears an awesomely modified Captain Kirk mask, and - most importantly - is pure evil incarnate. Halloween - produced, directed, written, and scored by John Carpenter - truly kick-started the slasher boom of the late 70s and early 80s, and made Jamie Lee Curtis a household name.

The master of Italian horror, Dario Argento, gave us the most artistic slasher film with Deep Red (known in Italy as Profondo Rosso). While not as visually stunning overall as Suspiria, Argento’s most well-known film, Deep Red contains the most gorgeous death scenes you'll find. You'll be hooked the moment you hear the opening theme (by longtime Argento collaborators Goblin) interrupted by the creepiest children's music you've ever heard.

Despite the escalating absurdity of the sequels, the first A Nightmare on Elm Street remains one of the scariest films ever. The concept of a killer (and a child murderer who was burned alive, at that) who murders you in your dreams is both original and terrifying, and caused many moviegoers to fear falling asleep. Freddy Krueger's scarred face, razor glove, and ugly sweater are also equally nightmare-inducing.

The mother of all horror films (pun intended) was groundbreaking upon its release in 1960 and still shows little signs of age. Almost 50 years later, Psycho still contains some of the scariest - and most memorable - scenes in film history. The scenes of "Mother" talking to Norman while the camera shows the exterior of the house are about as creepy as it gets. Hitchcock's best film, bar none.

When The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released in 1974, the public was completely blindsided by Tobe Hooper's grizzly account of a family of cannibals and a chainsaw-wielding maniac named Leatherface, all supposedly based on real events. Adding to the graphic portrayal of the murders was the fact that the cast was made up completely of unknowns, which heightened the realism of the film.

This is one of the most disturbing movies of all time. What starts as a lighthearted romance about a man who sets up a casting call for a fake film in order to meet a potential wife takes a harsh 180-degree turn about halfway through into a test of how much gore and graphic violence one can handle. There are some scenes so horrific that even the most resilient viewers have a hard time stomaching them.

As a horror film with built-in social commentary, Candyman is effective on many levels. But Clive Barker's update on the "Bloody Mary" urban legend, set in the Cabrini-Green housing projects on Chicago's north side, mixes the real life horror of extreme poverty and gang violence with the shock appeal of a brutal horror film. Tony Todd's turn as the Candyman, a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand and a mouth full of bees, is truly memorable.

Before this film was released, slasher films were mostly low-budget sequels in once thriving franchises (like Jason Goes to Hell) or even lower budget straight-to-video clunkers (like Ice Cream Man). Scream is singlehandedly responsible for reviving the slasher genre for a good seven or eight years. It provided both real scares while offering a tongue-in-cheek dissection of characteristics of the sub-genre itself.

One thing Brian De Palma knows is Hitchcock, and Dressed to Kill is his fantastic tribute to Psycho. Sure, it walks that fine line between serving as an homage and being a rip-off, but casting aside some of the key plot devices, this film stands by itself as one of the premiere slasher flicks. Lots of gore, great performances by Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, and Nancy Allen, and De Palma's stylish camerawork make this a must-see.

A serial killer who is mortally wounded uses a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a child's toy; the concept alone should have sent this one straight to video. But the end result rose well above such a ludicrous plot device and gave us one of the best combinations of horror and comedy ever produced. The foul-mouthed "Good Guys" doll Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) is also one of the most likeable killers in any horror film.

We couldn't give you a list of the Top 13 Slasher Films on Friday the 13th (or the day before) without mentioning a film in the Friday the 13th franchise. However, it's not the original that gets the nod here, as Jason isn't even the killer in the first installment. It's Part III, where many of the characteristics of the later films originated, including the hockey mask, the exponentially rising body count, and the creative death scenes. Plus, it was in 3-D!

This might be the worst horror film of all time. It's a perfect storm of bad filmmaking – awful acting, horrible production, a cheesy synth score that is repeated ad nauseam – that makes it one of the most entertaining movies to watch. Unfortunately, not enough people have seen this to make it a cult classic. That needs to change. Don't miss future Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean playing the killer as a child in a flashback scene.