The Prowler

First appearance: The Prowler (1981)

Normally I'd put the name of the character in the title of the post but I liked the Red Herrings in the movie so much that I think I'll save the mystery. The movie's another of those slasher movies where there's going to be a big dance in town, this time its a graduation dance, that everyone in town loves, until some people get murdered. The town decides from that moment on there are no more dances. Flash forward 35 years, someone decides its time to have that dance again even though everyone assumes the murdering will start again. Sure enough murdering starts again. Will small towns never learn.
The thing I thought was cool about this one was the WWII angle with the first batch of murders being committed by a Crazy GI back from the war to find his girlfriend has fallen in love with some other guy whom she has taken to her High School (?) graduation dance. He kills them and then disappears. 35 later the killing starts again. I really like the look of the killer in the movie, I think the full combat gear matched with a pitch fork was very striking and new.

David Lo Pan

  

First appearance: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

One of my favorite movies of all time (weird how many of them are John Carpenter movies) is Big Trouble in Little China. If you haven't seen it its about an over confident truck driver's attempt to stop an ancient evil Chinese ghost from marrying two women with green eyes. One girl is a gambling buddy's girlfriend and the the other is some woman he met at the airport. Mayhem ensues. 

An interesting bit of trivia: The movie was originally set in the old west, which would have made it the only actual western John Carpenter would have made, but was re-written by the guy responsible for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

You might also like to know you can get Dave on a bunch of stuff at my Cafe press store. So if you dig this and want it on a shirt or a keychain or on a teddy bear or something go to the store and buy something.

Mutant

First appearance: Mutant (1984)

Two Brothers on vacation run afoul of some rednecks when one brother tries to take his younger brother's mind off his crippling allergy to wearing his shirts buttoned up by driving on the wrong side of the road. The rednecks retaliate by running the brothers off the road. Eventually the brothers make it to a small town where strange things are afoot! When shirtless brother disappears its up to crummy driving brother to discover the secret. Why did shirtless brother disappear? Why are the towns folk turning into weird zombies that leak a corrosive yellow ichor from their hands?
Pretty decent variation on zombie flicks.

The Creeper

First Appearance: House of Horrors (1946)

The first time I saw The Creeper was in The Brute Man, which was a kinda prequel to House of Horrors. The Brute Man was a very strange movie and kind of tasteless since the origin of The Creeper as shown in the movie sort of mirrors the sad life of Rondo Hatton the actor playing the creeper. The main difference is that after hatton was disfigured he went on to become an actor instead of a creepy murderer.

Daddy

First appearance: The People Under the Stairs (1991)

I don't know why but I've always enjoyed this weird movie about incestuous cannibals kidnapping people to pretend to be their kids and feeding on the poor. Weirdly hilarious. Apparently its a metaphor for "Reaganomics."The cannibal angle makes him a slasher in my books, even though he used a shotgun for most of his killing.

Ghota

First appearance: Alien Tresspass (2009)

Fun little tribute to 1950's monster flicks. Not as entertaining as the Larry Blamire movies, but still pretty good. Story wise its similar to the Brain from Planet Arous. Alien cop takes over the body of a human to track down a killer. This one stars Eric McCormack, and someone named Sage Brocklebank a name almost as awesome as Flex Shrapnel, Corky Burger, or Oliver Onions.

An Atomic Mutant

First appearance: The Day the World Ended (1955)

A bunch of jerks and an ass (literally, some guys brings a mule along) muscle in on a Rancher and his daughter's house after a nuclear war. Most of them don't get along and then a mutant (pronounced Mew- TANT) shows up and nobody gets along with him either. In the end almost everyone dies  but the good new is some one in France is still alive so I guess there's hope for the survivors even though they're out of food.
If you didn't like how the aliens were defeated in Signs you'll probably go nuts after you see what kills mutants (and giant clouds of radiation)
It may not look like it from what I've written here but I kinda liked this movie.