A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie involving graphic acts of murder, the slasher as a genre has its own set of characteristics which set it apart from related genres like the splatter film.
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Possibly the earliest film that could be called a slasher, Thirteen Women (1932) tells the story of an old college sorority whose former members are set against one another by a vengeful peer, seeking penance for the prejudice they bestowed on her because of her mixed race heritage. Another film important to the sub-genre is Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960). The film's plot centers around a man who kills women while using a portable movie camera to record their dying expressions. The film was immensely controversial when first released; critics called it misogynistic (as would critics condemn the slasher films during its golden age). Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), released three months after Peeping Tom, is described as 'the mother of all slasher films' and is the first true slasher film. Even though the villain's body count is only two, the film's "whodunit" plot structure, knife wielding and mentally disturbed killer, twist ending, and 'stalking' camera technique anticipates the gorier films of the 1980s. However, the famous shower sequence has, in itself, become a classic of horror cinema, and the film itself hailed by contemporary critics as a modern masterpiece. Another early pioneer of the sub-genre is director Francis Ford Coppola's controversial 1963 film Dementia 13, which was rushed into production following Psycho's success at the box office.
The self-proclaimed "guru of gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis," invented the splatter film in 1963 with the release of Blood Feast. Blood Feast was made quickly and cheaply but differed from its genre contemporaries in that it featured the stalking and mutilation of beautiful women. Lewis went on to use this successful formula to make movies such as 2000 Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red and The Gruesome Twosome.
Another influence for the slasher sub-genre was the Italian Giallo genre. This film genre was made up of films done by various Italian directors, most notably Dario Argento and Mario Bava. These films were known for extended, graphic murder sequences and bizarre storylines. Probably the most notable are Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1963) and Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971). Several critics have noted that the films had profound impact on the development of slasher film sub-genre.[1] Writing in 2000, Tim Lucas wrote that Bava is “the acknowledged smoking gun behind the ‘body count’ movie phenomenon of the 1980s, which continues to dominate the horror genre two decades later with such films as Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and their respective sequels.”[2] According to Gary Johnson, “Twitch of the Death Nerve is one of the most imitated movies of the past 30 years. It helped kick start the slasher genre….[Bava’s] influence still resonates today (although somewhat dully) in movies such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, and Urban Legend.”.[3] Johnson also states of Blood and Black Lace that "Equipped with his colored gels and his predatory camera, Bava arguably created the slasher subgenre and kicked down the door for subsequent directors to stick in their cinematic blades as well, for better or worse. Hitchcock toyed with us, Powell showed us but kept his emotional distance, but Bava passionately reveled in the shock of it all. Camera as weapon; the masked killer as cipher upon whom the audience was almost gleefully invited to imprint their darkest animosities. "[4] The 1992 movie Knight Moves has been described online as a Western Giallo, with considerable elements to the genre used in this motion picture.[5]
The 1970s were arguably the Golden Age for exploitation films, which tended to be low budget affairs and specialize in suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, the bizarre, destruction, rebellion, and mayhem. While such films have existed since the earliest days of moviemaking, they were popularized in the 1960s with the general relaxing of cinematic taboos in the United States and Europe. Additionally, low budget filmmakers used sensational elements to attract audiences away from television.
Important to the development of the slasher sub-genre were rape and revenge films, notably, Wes Craven's film Last House on the Left (1972), one of the first of its kind.[6] The 1970s saw a number of new filmmakers such as Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter and others making names for themselves in the horror genre. Many of these directors were young, but would soon be considered important to the horror genre.[7][8][9] Slasher films are often considered exploitation films because of their use of their often low budgets, nudity, gore and shock techniques.[10]
Black Christmas (1974) is widely considered the first proper slasher film. Directed by Bob Clark (later the director of A Christmas Story) Black Christmas was noted as one of the earliest films to present some of the sub-genre's characteristics that the slasher film would come to be known for: a mysterious stalker, a set of adolescent or young adult victims, a secluded location with little or no adult supervision, point-of-view camera shots representing the "killer's perspective," and graphic depictions of violence and murder.[11] The film was remade in 2006 by Dimension Films. Other films that helped to kick-start the slasher genre were Savage Weekend, Scream Bloody Murder, Silent Night, Bloody Night, The Toolbox Murders, Drive-In Massacre, The Driller Killer, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
It was not until the huge box office success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), both of which spawned numerous sequels and remakes and countless imitators, that the slasher genre began to gain widespread popularity.
Halloween, though not the first film of its kind, was the first to introduce the concept of the killer being a seemingly indestructible evil force, and its success is often considered the film responsible for the proliferation of the slasher trend, popularizing many of what would become key elements in the genre. A long succession of slasher films were produced, though Halloween actually has far less graphic violence than the later films that defined the slasher genre.[12][13][14] Friday the 13th was the first to couple this type of murderer character with the sequential murder countdown, which had been seen earlier in 1945's And Then There Were None, which was based on Agatha Christie's famous 1939 murder mystery novel of the same name.
Following a trend set by Black Christmas, Halloween, and Friday the 13th (as well as To All a Good Night, a slasher film with a Christmas setting released in January 1980 and preceding Friday the 13th by four months), many films of the era used special days or holidays as a motif. Four titles released the same year as Friday the 13th were: New Year's Evil, Prom Night, Christmas Evil, and Mother's Day; and 1981 saw the release of My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, and Graduation Day. 1982's Humongous, opened with a Labor Day weekend setting. Silent Night, Deadly Night, released in 1984, was the fourth film of this type to use a Christmas setting, and toward the end of the cycle, a twist on the genre was seen in 1986's April Fool's Day. 1987's Blood Rage used a Thanksgiving weekend setting.
A few films picked up Friday the 13th's "youth camp in the woods" setting, like The Burning (1981); Madman (1982); Sleepaway Camp (1983); and Cheerleader Camp (1988). Other films highlighted highschool or college settings: Terror Train (1980), Hell Night, Final Exam, Night School, the serio-comic Student Bodies (all 1981); The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982); The House on Sorority Row (1983); The Initiation, Splatter University and Girls Nite Out (all 1984); and Slaughter High (1986). The "hospital" setting was used at least three times in 1982 with Visiting Hours, Alone in the Dark, and Hospital Massacre.
Other lesser known films during the genre's heyday include He Knows You're Alone (1980); The Funhouse, Just Before Dawn, Bloody Moon, and Nightmare (all 1981); Blood Song (1982); and Mortuary (1983). Later entries include The Mutilator (1985); Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986); Stage Fright (1987); and Intruder (1989). Obscure entries are Night Warning (1982); and Curtains and Death Screams (both 1983).
Despite a strict formula developing within the genre, audience interest was maintained by developing new, increasingly "novel" ways for victims to be killed, as well as increasingly graphic and realistic special effects. Some series, such as 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street and later 1988's Child's Play, added supernatural twists to the slasher formula, as well as added comedic elements as the respective series progressed.
Earlier films, such as Psycho (1960) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), were also revived and given a series of increasingly gory sequels in attempts to compete with other franchises. The genre arguably peaked in 1983, a year in which, according to the book Crystal Lake Memories, nearly 60% of all box-office takings were for slasher movies. Even feminists took a satirical stab at the sub-genre with Slumber Party Massacre (1982).
The larger part of slasher villains are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or physically deformed individuals who were traumatized, in many instances at an early age. Long-running franchises in the genre tended to focus more and more on the returning villain than on surviving victims, effectively transforming characters once viewed as sick psychopaths into sympathetic antiheroes for some. Notables include: Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Ben Willis, Michael Myers, Chucky, Ghostface, Leprechaun,Victor Crowley, and Norman Bates, all of whom have become some of the more recognizable 20th century American pop culture horror symbols.
The profitability of the slasher genre began to dwindle, and controversy over the subject matter would eventually persuade some studios to stop producing and distributing slasher films. Sequels to the most popular slasher series, as well as new series such as Leprechaun, would continue to be released in theaters or direct-to-video throughout the early to mid-1990s. However, few gained the success of the genre's earlier productions, and even entries in the established Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sagas became less frequent.
Notable non-US slashers are Cut from Australia, Gutterballs from Canada, Anatomy from Germany and the French titles Haute Tension, directed by Alexandre Aja, who would go on to direct an American remake of The Hills Have Eyes, Them and, more recently, Inside.
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.
Slasher films can be split into two distinct sub-types: one type in which the killer's identity is known from the outset and he is shown overtly (albeit sometimes in a mask), and one in which the killer's identity is not known and which employ a whodunnit angle, often with a twist at the end.
There is substantial critical debate as to how to define the slasher sub-genre and what films are and are not slashers. For instance, Vera Dika rather strictly defines the sub-genre in her book Games of Terror only including films made between 1978 and 1984[15] where as Carol Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws has a looser definition, including films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its sequels.[16] In Peter Hutchings book The Horror Film he considers the films following the success of Halloween critically different than films prior (such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre).[17]
Dika attempts to define the sub-genre by its often formulaic plot structure. She theorizes that the slasher films loosely adhere the following formula:
Past event
Present events
She further goes on to attempt to define the sub-genre's appeal to its audience as being threefold:
Other common characteristics include:
The slasher genre is known for its extreme graphic violence and adult content which has frequently come under fire from censorship advocates, particularly from Christian and Family Friendly groups. Christian campaigner Mary Whitehouse, had once led a crusade against video nasties.
Films such as Scream were warmly received because of their self-aware, parodic take on the sub-genre. Roger Ebert coined the derogatory nickname "Dead Teenager Movies", although he did write a highly favorable review of the original Halloween. This was not the first time he had attacked the genre or coined a term for it, originally during the 80s, he and the late Gene Siskel had a special about the term they used back then "Women in danger" films, where they said how the genre was degrading to women as it would show them at the mercy of a strong brutish man.
Three often-cited content analyses were performed by Cowan and O'Brien (1990),[19] Weaver (1991)[20] and Molitor and Sapolsky (1993).[21] These analyses sought to verify or refute assumptions made about the sub-genre.
Feminists have criticised the sub-genre. These include: Vera Dika's Games Of Terror tended to the genre's formula and its treatment of female victims, Carol J. Clover defined the Final Girl in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws, Cristal Isabel Pinedo's Recreational Terror considered female spectatorship.
The TV writer and producer Liz Friedman graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in sociology and her thesis was entitled "A Feminist and Class-based Analysis of Slasher Films".[22][23]
In the 1990s, the horror genre was almost dead. Audiences and critics were getting very tired of the same, typical teen slasher films. With the exception of Wes Craven's New Nightmare. The slasher genre resurfaced into the mainstream in the mid 1990s, after being deconstructed in Wes Craven's Scream (1996), which was a parody of Halloween which had a similar effect on the movie industry. The film was both a critical and commercial success, which attracted a new generation to the genre. A self-aware satire of the slasher genre, whereby the characters realize they were in a horror film and did not make all the usual "mistakes" (i.e. saying "I'll be right back"). Critics lauded Scream for its fiendishly clever storyline and three-dimensional characters, with more of a focus on suspense than gore. The script carried its own learned analysis of slasher films, and was directed by Wes Craven, a popular maestro of the genre who also created such classics as Last House on the Left and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Followed by two equally successful sequels; both sequels starred Neve Campbell as main character Sidney Prescott, an attractive, intelligent and resourceful young woman whose characterization both mocks and typifies the Final Girl stereotype. To date, it is the most commercially successful film series in the genre, earning a combined total of over $330 million in the US, and over $600 million worldwide. Scream 4 was released in April 2011.[24]. The film received generally good reviews with Kevin Sommerfield of Slasher Studios calling it "bloody, fun, and very entertaining." [25]
Scream kicked off a new slasher cycle that still followed the basic conventions of the 1980s films, but managed to draw in a more demographically varied audience with improved production values, reduced levels of on-screen gore, increased self-referential humor, more character development, and better-known actors and actresses (often from popular television shows). This trend continued for the duration of the 1990s with films such as a nearly shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Final Destination, Valentine, Cherry Falls and Jason X.
Chucky of the Child's Play series also returned to the screen, first in Bride of Chucky and later with Seed of Chucky. In 2003, two of the largest slasher series, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, were combined by New Line Cinema in the film Freddy vs. Jason.[26]
Most modern day slashers are sequels or remakes of franchised slasher films, which generally contain more blood, gore and computer generated effects. Recent slasher examples are Hatchet, The Pumpkin Karver, Hellbent,Slash,Holla, MTV's My Super Psycho Sweet 16, Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet, Grizzly Park,April Fools,The Legend Of Bloody Jack, Trick 'r Treat, and many more.
Many new directors paying homage to their old favorites have come into the light such as Rob Zombie with his films House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Rejects (2005). Another new director popular for paying homage is Eli Roth, with his film Cabin Fever (2002). Adam Green and Ryan Nicholson, both relatively young aspiring filmmakers, are notable for directing Hatchet and Gutterballs respectively, billing them as throwbacks, or "love letters", to 1980s slasher films.
In 2006, Roth's second feature film, Hostel was released following the success of Saw. Following its success at the box office, many major distributors began churning out similarly-themed gruesome horror films. This trend became known as torture porn and continues today with the release of such films as Turistas and Captivity.
In 1998, the Halloween series was revived, playing off the success of the Scream franchise. The new film, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, was conceived as a direct sequel to 1981's Halloween II, and would lead to one further sequel, Halloween: Resurrection.
Another revival came in 2003 when a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning popularized the prequel. The success of theTCM remake would soon lead to a slew of other slasher remakes, including Toolbox Murders, House Of Wax, Black Christmas, the "reimagining" of John Carpenter's Halloween, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine 3D, Friday the 13th reboot, Sorority Row and A Nightmare on Elm Street. A remake of Child's Play and Hellraiser are also in development.
The Scream series - which created the self aware characters stalked by killers making their own horror movie, sequel and trilogy - was relaunched in 2011 with Scream 4 featuring a killer recreating the Woodsboro murders, therefore remaking the original film.
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