Horror movies have several subgenres, but one that became particularly popular in the 1970s and 1980s was that of the slasher film. These movies featured crazed maniacs out for blood, with the homicidal cretins usually sating their bloodlust by dismembering teenagers. Some of the biggest names in this genre include Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers, but very few killers besides this have been added to the slasher pantheon.
In the past two decades, next to no new slashers have killed their way to the top of the genre. This reflects the trends in horror movies, as well as a period in which the only slasher movies being made were retreads of classics. Due to this, the current generation of moviegoers has grown up with the same movie maniacs as their parents.
Chucky and Ghostface Were Some of the Last 'Classic' Slasher Villains
As mentioned, the 1980s, in particular, was the heyday of the slasher movie, with Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers all severing limbs with reckless abandon. By the beginning of the '90s, however, the genre began to wane, with dream king Freddy Krueger going from royalty to court jester. From there, the genre would follow suit and begin employing more comedic killers, such as Leprechaun and Chucky being almost subversive compared to their predecessors. Given that the former's first two movies feel basically like gory kid's films, it was obvious that slasher's had become a joke.
Things would turn around with the meta-horror film Scream, with its success seeing a brief revival of slasher movies. It helped that the movie and its villain Ghostface were made by Wes Craven, the mind that gave audiences Freddy Krueger. Many of the movies that came out afterward were more "one-off" in nature and didn't result in the sprawling assembly line of movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th. Exceptions would be the Saw series, which introduced audiences to Jigsaw, one of the few new slasher icons. His contemporaries were The Creeper from the Jeepers Creepers films, as well as Victor Crawley, the villain of the Hatchet series. With the exception of arguably Jigsaw, however, none of these new gut-spillers were even half as iconic as Freddy or Jason. This is part of why there haven't been any new guys or gals running around to kill teens in the woods, though nostalgia is also a big factor.
Reboots & the Evolution of Horror Have Stifled the Need for New Slasher Villains
One issue with getting new slasher villains over is that the old-timers keep coming back. Freddy, Michael, Jason and even Chucky have all appeared quite a bit over the past two decades, be it through endless remakes, reboots or full-on sequels to their original stories. From a marketing perspective, it makes some sense to try to bank on an established franchise instead of creating something from scratch. Unfortunately, the remake era had more misses than hits, keeping the classic killers from reaching their full potential in the new era.
Likewise, there's been a shift in focus with the horror genre, with found footage and possession-based stories taking center stage. In the case of the former, this arguably began in the '90s with the success of The Blair Witch Project, though it really took off with the Paranormal Activity series of the 2000s and 2010s. James Wan's The Conjuring movies and the resulting universe took things back to the scope of films like The Exorcist, with demons and similar entities being the threats of the day. In these films, actual scares and terror were the main priority, with the ever-increasing kill count of a plodding zombie wielding a cleaver having grown blasé. This has only added to the stagnation of the slasher genre, with some seeing it as played out. With no one willing to give the subgenre a chance outside established names, it ultimately makes sense that few fiends in modern movies have made their haunts as fearsome as Crystal Lake or Elm Street.