History Main / StockSlasher

* They will have a [[ImprobableWeaponUser unique, distinctive]] or [[{{BFS}} oversized]] weapon. More often than not they will [[DoesNotLikeGuns avoid using firearms]], as a good slasher will always get up close and personal to get their hands dirty with their victims.

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'': Beta, the {{Dragon}} for Alpha the Whisperer leader. He's a mountain of a man in a BadassLongcoat, who never reveals his face willingly (hiding it behind a mask made from zombie skin), and seems to have patterned himself after classic slashers; he stalks other survivors through woods and swampland and kills using a trademark pair of knives.

* ''Franchise/Arrowverse''

** ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': "[[Recap/LegendsOfTomorrowS5E3SlayAnything Slay Anything]]": Kathey Myers / Prom Night Slasher blatantly invokes this trope, with her entire character directly alluding to many famous slasher villains. Her surname and white mask are taken from [[Franchise/Halloween Michael Myers]], she's killing out of [[Franchise/FridayThe13th love for her son like Jason and Pamela]]. Her son's name is "[[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmsStreet Freddy]]" and she also possesses telekinetic powers upon resurrection. She's notably an InvincibleVillain who isn't killed like any of the other Encores and is only defeated by being RetGone.

* ''Film/AxeMurderingWithHackley'': Obviously, Hackley is one, being an {{Expy}} of Jason Vorhees and all. There's also the other employees at [=RKS=], like Rival, who's an {{Expy}} of Ghostface.

* As a pastiche of slasher movies, ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight'' of course has a number of these -- Evan [=MacMillan=], "The Trapper", is loosely based on Jason Vorhees, while Max Thompson Jr., "The Hillbilly", is an extremely direct pastiche of Leatherface. Interestingly, the later presence of Michael and Leatherface as [[GuestFighter Guest Fighters]] makes this a case of ExpyCoexistence.

* [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with Rick Taylor of ''VideoGame/{{Splatterhouse}}'', a a towering, muscular man in a Jason-esque skull mask who commits incredible violence... but he's actually a NiceGuy who's simply out to save his girlfriend (with the encouragement of the [[BloodKnight Terror Mask]]).

* ''Series/ScreamTVSeries'': Despite having two other masked killers, the clearest example of the stock slasher is the one who started it all: Brandon James. He was born with horrible facial deformities that led to him being bullied by the entire town and wearing a surgical mask, and he went on a killing spree of other teenagers at a dance. Despite his presumed death twenty years ago, the series plays around with the possibility that he's still alive, [[spoiler:which is confirmed but through less supernatural methods: Maggie helped him to survive and hid him out at his family's pig farm.]]

* Ghostface from ''Film/{{Scream}}'' deconstructs the trope. When first appearing in ''Film/Scream1996'', initially, it's played straight: a single, presumably male figure in a black costume with a screaming mask who implacably hunts, stalks, and carves up his prey. It's also the only film in the franchise with [[spoiler:two male killers]]. However, when unmasked, it's revealed that [[spoiler:part of the reason for Ghostface's ubiquity is that there are actually two killers, switching out when time allows, and that both are actually covered in bruises and cuts from where their victims fought back]]. Later films twist the NighInvulnerable seeming immortality that many iconic killers have by turning Ghostface into a LegacyCharacter, being a symbol that numerous people don, granting a degree of pseudo-immortality to the killer.

* Music/{{Eminem}}'s Slim Shady character is sometimes presented as one of these, with a HockeyMaskAndChainsaw, especially on ''Relapse''. But he deviates from the template in a few significant ways -- he's small-framed with a [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon cuteness]] to him, and he also combines a few more [[Film/{{Psycho}} Hitchcockian]] traits like his horrible OedipusComplex, his CreepyCrossdresser aspect and his ability to [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse appear disarming and normal]] until it's time to murder his victims. He's also pretty talkative, with a few songs dedicated to him monologuing to people he's murdering.

''[[Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre]]'' was [[TropeMaker one of the first]] true [[SlasherMovie Slasher Movies]], and its most prominent villain -- Leatherface, the hulking, voiceless, chainsaw-wielding cannibal in a mask made of human skin -- became an instant pop-culture icon. It wouldn't be until the end of the decade that the character's true influence would begin to be seen, however -- first with the blank white face of [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Michael Myers]] in [[Film/Halloween1978 1978]], [[FollowTheLeader and then]] the machete-wielding [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]] in [[Film/FridayThe13thPart2 1981]].

* They are usually [[EvilIsBigger tall]], towering over their victims. They are also [[MadeOfIron very robust]], able to shrug off injuries that would kill an ordinary person, and [[ImplacableMan cannot be stopped once they begin pursuing someone]]. This is sometimes justified by [[NighInvulnerable paranormal abilities]], but just as often they [[BadassNormal appear to be human]]. [[MenAreTough Because of this]], they are [[AlwaysMale almost always male.]]

* They will have a [[ImprobableWeaponUser unique, distinctive]] or [[{{BFS}} oversized]] weapon. More often than not they will [[DoesNotLikeGuns avoid using firearms]], as a good slasher will always get up close and personal with their victims.

* Ghostface from ''Film/{{Scream}}'' deconstructs the trope. When first appearing in ''Film/Scream1996'', initially, it's played straight: a single, presumably male figure in a black costume with a screaming mask who implacably hunts, stalks, and carves up his prey. It's also the only film in the franchise with [[spoiler:two male killers]]. However, when unmasked, it's revealed that [[spoiler:part of the reason for Ghostface's ubiquity is that there are actually two killers, switching out when time allows, and that both are actually covered in bruises and cuts from where their victims fought back]]. Later films twist the NighInvulnerable immortality that many iconic killers have by turning Ghostface into a LegacyCharacter, being a symbol that numerous people don, granting a degree of pseudo-immortality to the killer.
* ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'' is the TropeMaker thanks to Leatherface, a hulking brute of a man with [[{{Manchild}} the mental capacity of a child]] who wields a [[DropTheHammer sledgehammer]] and a {{chainsaw|Good}} as his weapons of choice and wears [[GenuineHumanHide a mask made of human skin]]. Uniquely, though, he's only TheHeavy to the rest of the Sawyer family rather than operating alone.

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' has Doctor Salvadore, a much tougher version of the villager. He is tall and heavily built, never speaks, wears a [[SackheadSlasher potato sack with eyeholes cut in it]] on his head, overalls, and wields a chainsaw (of course).

* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'' features "the Psycho," a tall, bulky man in coveralls who wears a clown (or zombie) mask and occasionally wields a machete. Despite his appearance, he prefers complex traps with {{Sadistic Choice}}s over mindless brute force, which makes him closer to [[Franchise/{{Saw}} Jigsaw]]. He's implied to be a disgruntled employee of the Washington family. [[spoiler: Turns out, however, that he's actually Josh Washington playing an elaborate, and exceptionally cruel, prank on his friends as revenge for them indirectly getting his sisters killed. The slasher elements are a deliberate homage InUniverse.]]

* ''Film/{{Hayride}}'' and [[Film/Hayride2 its sequel]] have Ol' Pitchfork (not to be confused with the below-mentioned Pitchfork), a SackheadSlasher who wields a giant pitchfork. He's an OverprotectiveDad who would threaten anyone who came near his daughter, and is now on the hunt for the man that she ran off with.

* ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'' refers to this as the "Strong, Silent Type", the first of [[OurSlashersAreDifferent five different types of slasher villain]]. His main weakness is his singlemindedness causing him to be very easily led into traps.

** The FinalBoss Piggsy is a cannibalistic serial killer who's completely nude barring the severed head of a pig that he wears as a unique mask, and he speaks in a brief, disorganized way under the belief that he's an actual pig. He's extremely fast, wields a dulled chainsaw as his main weapon, can withstand several executions (with wooden spikes and glass), and can kill Cash very quickly with 2-3 strikes of his chainsaw, making him one of the deadliest opponents in the game. He's also confronted in the claustrophobic attic of Starkweather's mansion, where he hides in wait behind corners before lunging out at you, and he was driven to insanity by overindulging in violence.

** The protagonist James Earl Cash is what happens when you combine this with the ActionGenreHeroGuy. He's a big, buff, and {{bald|OfEvil}} man with the FaceOfAThug who and did ''[[MysteriousPast something]]'' to get himself sentenced to death, and was spared lethal injection only so that [[BigBad Lionel Starkweather]] could use him as a killer in his SnuffFilm operation. While he is a NobleDemon who only kills the bad guys and tries to protect the good, he's still a brutal and unflinching murderer who [[TheQuietOne speaks very few lines]] and prefers to fight using {{stealth|BasedGame}}, which allows him to perform gratuitously violent execution moves that kill enemies in one blow. Certain levels do have him getting into shootouts, but otherwise, guns and ammo are very rare to come by, meaning that melee combat is the name of the game. While he doesn't wear a mask, many of the people he kills do.

* They are usually [[EvilIsBigger tall]], towering their victims. They are also [[MadeOfIron very robust]], able to shrug off injuries that would kill an ordinary person, and [[ImplacableMan cannot be stopped once they begin pursuing someone]]. This is sometimes justifed by [[NighInvulnerable paranormal abilities]], but just as often they [[BadassNormal appear to be human]]. [[MenAreTough Because of this]], they are [[AlwaysMale almost always male.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}}'': Seemingly invoked through the snuff film franchise. Piggsy is a cannibalistic serial killer, he's completely nude, wears the severed head of a pig as a unique mask, and speaks in a brief, disorganised way under the belief that he's an actual pig. Piggsy wields a dulled chainsaw as his main weapon and he's one of the deadliest opponents Cash has faced so far as he's extremely fast, can withstand several executions (with wooden spikes and glass), and can kill Cash very quickly with 2-3 strikes of his chainsaw. He's also confronted in the claustrophobic attic of Starkweather's mansion and he was driven to insanity by overindulging in violence.

* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' has Jason Voorhees, one of the three main {{Trope Codifier}}s together with Leatherface and Michael Myers, having all the traits of being a masked, silent, unstoppable, supernatural SerialKiller who wields a {{machete|Mayhem}} as his WeaponOfChoice. Interestingly, this was averted in [[Film/FridayThe13th1980 the first film]], as the killer turns out to be his mother Pamela, an ordinary middle-aged woman. Subsequent films would focus on Jason and make him one of the most iconic versions of this trope, laying the groundwork for many films of the genre, especially after he got his iconic hockey mask in ''[[Film/FridayThe13thPartIII Part III]]''.

* The Hunter from ''VideoGame/LittleNightmaresII'' would not feel out of place in a slasher film. He wears a burlap over his head with a single hole for his eyes, reminiscent of Jason Voorhees. He lives alone in the wood and hunt children for fun. He also has a WeaponOfChoice but unlike most slasher portrayals, he uses a gun.

** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' and its [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake remake]] feature the T-00 (aka "Mr. X"), an enormous mutant who relentlessly pursues protagonists Leon and Claire. Unlike most examples of this trope, the T-00 doesn't have a WeaponOfChoice; [[LivingWeapon he doesn't need one.]]

* ''Film/PlayingWithDolls'': The killer in this movie is a man who wears dirty clothes, including a full-head mask that's torn and worn with barbed wire wrapped around it. He's also capable of OffScreenTeleportation.

* ''Film/Frankenstein1931'' could be considered the UrExample; its portrayal of FrankensteinsMonster carries many of the traits (enormous size, unique facial features, lack of elaborate speech) that would later be picked up by Leatherface and his many clones.
* ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'' is the TropeMaker thanks to Leatherface, though he's notably only TheHeavy to the rest of the Sawyer family rather than operating alone.
* While ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' established this trope, ''Film/Halloween1978'' is the one that made it a pattern; its villain Michael Myers sports a twisted Captain Kirk mask, never speaks, has superhuman endurance and resistance to pain, and wields a carving knife as a weapon. The only attribute he lacked was size, being played in the first two films by normal-sized stuntmen[[note]]The 5' 10" Nick Castle in the first film and the 5' 8½" Dick Warlock in [[Film/HalloweenII1981 the second]][[/note]] who were paired with the fairly tall Creator/JamieLeeCurtis as the FinalGirl -- and even then, later films cast taller stuntmen in the part, likely due to the influence of other films on this list, especially...
* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'' has Jason Voorhees, one of the three main {{Trope Codifier}}s, having all the traits of being a masked, silent, unstoppable, supernatural SerialKiller. Though interestingly, this was averted in the first entry, ''Film/FridayThe13th1980'', as the killer turns out to be the ordinary woman Pamela Voorhees. Subsequent films would focus on Jason and become one of the most iconic versions of this trope laying the groundwork for many films of the genre, though he wouldn't get his iconic mask until ''Film/FridayThe13thPartIII''.

* ''Film/{{Hayride}}'' and [[Film/Hayride2 its sequel]] have Ol' Pitchfork (not to be confused with the aforementioned Pitchfork), a SackheadSlasher who wields a giant pitchfork. He's an OverprotectiveDad who would threaten anyone who came near his daughter, and is now on the hunt for the man that she ran off with.

* Ghostface from ''Film/{{Scream}}'' deconstructs the trope. When first appearing in ''Film/Scream1996'', initially, it's played straight: a single, presumably male figure in a black costume with a screaming mask who implacably hunts, stalks, and carves up his prey. It's also the only film in the franchise with [[spoiler:two male killers.]] However, when unmasked, it's revealed that [[spoiler:part of the reason for Ghostface's ubiquity is that there are actually two killers, switching out when time allows, and that both are actually covered in bruises and cuts from where their victims fought back.]] Later films twist the NighInvulnerable immortality that many iconic killers have by turning Ghostface into a LegacyCharacter, being a symbol that numerous people don, granting a degree of pseudo-immortality to the killer.

* In ''Film/TheFinalGirls'', the protagonists are [[TrappedInTVLand trapped in a B-list Horror]] that's effectively a knockoff of Friday the 13th and are forced to contend with Billy Murphy, who's effectively Jason in all all the ways that matter. The protagonists are forced to use their knowledge of horror movie genres to contend with Billy, who as a movie character [[ContractualGenreBlindness is still subject to the conventions of the genre]] including only being able to be killed by the FinalGirl.

* ''Film/{{Madman}}''[='s=] villain "Madman" Marz, a farmer-turned-[[AnAxeToGrind axe murderer]] with a mutilated face.

* They will have a [[ImprobableWeaponUser unique, distinctive]] or [[{{BFS}} oversized]] WeaponOfChoice. More often than not they will [[DoesNotLikeGuns avoid using firearms]], as a good slasher will always get up close and personal with their victims.

* While ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' established this trope, ''Film/Halloween1978'' is the one that made it a pattern; its villain Michael Myers sports a twisted Captain Kirk mask, never speaks, has superhuman endurance and resistance to pain, and wields a carving knife as a weapon.