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The definition of a slasher film varies depending on who you ask, but in general, it contains several specific traits that feed into the genre’s formula. Author Vera Dika rather strictly defines the sub-genre in her book Games of Terror by only including films made between 1978 and 1984. In other words, she saw it as a movement. When someone describes Brick, they don’t define it as a noir, but instead neo-noir . In other words, it’s a modern motion picture that prominently utilizes elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in those from the 1940s and 1950s. So does one consider Scream a slasher film or a neo-slasher, or simply put, a modern slasher?

Some consider Thirteen Women to be the earliest slasher – released all the way back in 1932. Personally I think that is rubbish. Thirteen Women is more like Desperate Housewives on sedatives.

Man, it has been a long time since I've heard anyone even mention the movie Silent Scream. It seems as if it's been lost a good long time. Thankfully a new DVD label known as Scorpion Releasing is changing all that, and the DVD will be hitting home in November! Hell yeah!

From the Press Release

A new DVD label, Scorpion Releasing, announces the 11/24/09 DVD release of one of the highest grossing slasher films from the golden age of the slasher genre, reaching number one at the box office in February of 1980. For the first time on DVD anywhere in the world, Scorpion Releasing is proud to present Silent Scream, the classic slasher film featuring Barbara Steele in one of her most terrifying roles. Out of circulation for decades, the film has recently been mastered in HiDefinition by Scorpion Releasing, and will be sure to shock a whole new generation of horror fans.

A couple more cult-fave slasher flicks of the early ’80s receive the special-edition treatment via DVDs that arrive November 24. Fango got the details on a new disc of Mark Rosman’s 1983 The House On Sorority Row (the basis of the current big-screen remake Sorority Row) from Liberation Entertainment, and the DVDebut of 1980’s Silent Scream from the new Scorpion Releasing.

House On Sorority Row, previously issued on a bare-bones disc by Elite, has been given a fresh transfer from a recently discovered print for this 25th Anniversary Edition (even though the film is technically 26 years old). The film is now supplemented with:

Audio commentary by writer/director Rosman Alternate ending Photo gallery Trailer

Retail price is $19.95. Silent Scream, directed by Denny Harris from a script by Jim and Ken Wheat (who also produced) and Wallace C. Bennett, is set at a boarding house where a group of college students take up residence,...