Slasher 101 | Unframed

Slasher 101: How to survive in a horror movie ?

by Zadig Perrot - November 2018

After the question of « Evil in Politics » as Ms.Saada puts it, let’s talk about Evil in Horror Movies. Not in any horror movie but in slashers. In order to perpetuate the great tradition of our campus, we shall analyze the phenomenon in a comparative perspective with four different movies.

Horrified… It is the state in which I find myself. It is Halloween’s eve and no-one’s talking about what truly matters. Micheal Myers is back. He struck once again in Haddonfield no later than last week.

The last time he went on a murder spree in 1978, he inspired legions of copycats and other psychopaths. And the most successful ones were Americans. Knowing that our campus is composed by more than 30% of American citizens we should be worried. So beware my dear comrades, especially around Halloween !

It is why, at the end of this article, I offer you a guide in order to survive if you ever are unfortunate enough to end up hunted by a mad killer. If you’re wondering, wait, Micheal Myers ? Who dat ? Then (what the hell have you been watching for the past eighteen years ?!) this article is made for you.

What's a slasher ?

Slasher films are a sub-genre of horror movies. They show the murders of a group of teen, perpetuated by a psycho-killer wearing a mask (in 95% of cases).

The reason why they are called slashers is implied in the name, « slasher » directly derives from the verb to slash. Why ? Simple as hell, the killer uses bladed weapons : machetes, knives, scissors, axes, forks… Anything you can think of has probably already been used.

Usually cheap with low-budgets and z-list actors, slashers are often looked down on. But they’re an important part of our popular culture and marked generations of filmmakers.

The slasher is a very codified genre that has some rules, or « tropes », that need to be respected. We will examine them further in the ‘Common Tropes’ section.

The Slasher : origins and death of the genre… Resurrection and second death… And its now unfolding return

Origins

Multiple factors have influenced the birth of the genre, however we could break it down to three reasons :

First, the important rise of serial killers in the seventies in the United States. Second, the Italian Giallo genre in the sixties that mixed thrillers with erotism and horror in a way that the American bigotry would have never tolerated. Third, the importance of Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock and Peeping Tom by Michael Powell. Both movies heavily influenced the young filmmakers that later created the Slasher genre.

The genre truly begins in the 70s. Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left in 1972 and Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974 can be seen as the proto slasher films. However, the first film to respect the codes of the Slasher genre as we know it is the Canadian film Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark in 1974. Its limited success prevents us from calling it the real first slasher. No. This title goes to our first movie.

THE BEGINNING :

HALLOWEEN, JOHN CARPENTER (1978)

This movie was a huge critical and financial success, it grossed more than 160 million dollars (adjusted for inflation) for a small budget of $1.2 million (also adjusted for inflation).

Thanks to Carpenter’s brilliant cinematography and incredible music (he indeed also composed the music of the film) the movie became a cult classic, internationally recognized as a masterpiece. It has to be seen at least once.

The movie creates tension by masterfully playing with space and time. The main action takes place over one night in two neighboring houses, creating an entire universe of tension within a very limited space.

What can you see in the other house and most importantly, what can’t you see ?

This is magnificently helped by an amazing use of different point of views. Carpenter doesn’t stick to one character’s vision, except during horror sequences. It creates an amazing contrast. At some point you feel omniscient, but right when it’s about to turn bloody you feel blinded, thus afraid.

During the murders, you stick to only one point of view, the one of the victim. When you’re omniscient, it alternates between the victim’s and the killer’s point of view. Which makes it worst, because it shows you that the killer is the true master of the situation. You feel terrible for the poor victim blessed in their ignorance, who acts as if nothing was happening.

The character of Micheal Myers is the embodiment of pure evil, always hidden behind a mask, completely silent during the entire movie, he kills very personally, not from far away with a gun but with kitchen knives he found in your house.

The success was such that it inspired a wave of movies, the slashers, which drew inspiration from Halloween. That is why we call it a

« trope-codifier », because it created the rules of the slasher genre.

Common tropes created by Halloween

The most important one is the final girl trope. She is the only character who will survive the movie. She is the only one facing the killer and surviving to tell the tale. Halloween’s final girl, Laurie Strode, is the ultimate final girl and has since become a cult character in pop culture. The actress, Jamie Lee Curtis became equally famous and went on to incarnate many other final girls in many other slashers and has reprised the role of Laurie Strode several times.

Another rule, the final girl has to be a virgin. This implies that if you have sex in those movies (and there is plenty of it, slashers are also synonymous with gratuitous nudity) you will die in horrendous ways, either after or in the middle of the act. This trope is called« death by sex ». As an extension, all of the « perverted » youth will die : it means no alcohol and no drugs. Else, you know what’s waiting for you.

It also set up the now very mocked tropes of the « menacing stroll » : the killer keeps on walking while you’re running. The « teleportation trope » : you’re watching him through the window and hear a noise behind you. You turn around and there’s nothing. But it was enough time for him to disappear in less than a second. The « not quite dead » trope : there is always this moment when you think he’s dead but he creepily rises back in total silence and comes for you while you’re finally resting.

Along with these tropes, the movie created a setting. The targets are teenagers and are isolated. No adults are here to help them and if there are, they simply don’t believe them. It also installed a key element of the genre. The villain must have a mythos surrounding him that deeply connects him to the town/forest/street/house where he operates. And because he is a central part of your story, you need shots from his point of view.

A little off topic warning here, if you like Halloween and want to see the sequels, be aware that there are five continuities. First : Halloween 1 to 6 (except 3). Second : Halloween, Halloween 2, Halloween : Twenty years later (7th installment in the franchise) and Halloween: Resurrection (8th installment of the franchise). Third : Halloween 3 (it’s independent). Forth : The remake timeline with Rob Zombie’s 2007 and 2009 Halloween movies. Fifth : Halloween (the original one of 1978) and Halloween (the new one, from 2018). Pretty messy…

The golden age:

Friday the 13th, Sean S. Cunningham (1980)

This movie is the perfect illustration of many of the slasher tropes. From the « death by sex » to the isolated setting in which a group of young teenagers are having fun. Here, the teenagers are in the middle of the woods, where they are re-building an old summer camp, Camp Crystal Lake, in order to reopen it in the next few days.

This movie completely magnifies the slasher tropes. Gorier than Halloween, it goes further in the use of the now clear rules of the genre. At least four people are killed after sex, every death is shot from the killer’s point of view, you will never see his face until the final showdown and every murder is different : the victims are throated, stabbed in the heart, axed in the face, nailed to the door with arrows and many more. The movie also feature an on-screen slow-mo decapitation.

But one of the real strengths of the movie is that it is not only a simple slasher, it is also a« whodunit » you’re trying to discover the identity of the killer. As people get killed one by one, the list of suspect gets shorter. Even better, if you know the Friday the 13th franchise but have never seen the original you will be astonished by the true identity of the killer. The final twist is very good and will leave you surprised.

The franchise is also a perfect example of one of the biggest problems in the Slasher genre: Sequels.

Too many sequels of increasingly poor quality (I mean, the 10th installment is set in space. Hell of fun, but ridiculous). These movies being inexpensive to make, they offer a high return on investment. The studio then launch many sequels and want them made as fast as possible. They’re victims of their own success.

The direct sequel was released only one year after the original and it went on for more than 29 years (with breaks obviously, the peak being between 1981 and 1989 where we got more than eight Friday the 13th movie).

Our next movie also got many sequels with ups and downs (but more downs than ups).

A nightmare on Elm street, Wes Craven (1984)

This one falls into a new category, the supernatural slasher. There is a twist to the simple formula. Wasn’t it too easy to just be the victim of random acts of violence ?

Here the vilain doesn’t exist, physically. He attacks you in your dreams. The simple fact of falling asleep is enough to get you killed.

Apart from this huge twist, the rules are respected. If you have sex you die, you’re isolated because it’s in your dreams, the vilain is linked to the town where he operates, deaths are like in Friday the 13th, hell of gory (a guy sinks in his own mattress and is transformed in a geyser of blood, offering a new free paint job to his room) and the final girl is a virgin.

But here, we can point out that the final girl, Nancy, is a total badass.

Like the ones from the two previous movies you could argue. Sure… But Nancy has something more. Laurie (Halloween) and Alice (Friday the 13th) were pushed to the edge and forced to become survivors and fighters at the last minute of the final encounter. Here, Nancy actually prepares. She wants to make the killer play by her rules. She inverts (well… she tries) the situation. By preparing booby traps and anti-personal devices she tries to Kevin McCallister the sh*t out of Freddy. It’s no more about her being a prey, it’s a duel.

Like the other two movies, it plays with the « not quite dead » trope. But here, it is in a brilliant manner that makes it work on multiple levels.

As many slashers, the movie was followed by many sequels with the notable exception that this time the original creator, Wes Craven, came back to direct the last one (until the 2010’s remake at least).

It is another example, like Friday the 13th of the creation of a franchise with increasingly bad plots and critical responses. We could, like in the Friday the 13th case, blame it on the way too short production period. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 : Freddy’s Revenge was released only one year after the first one.

And like Friday the 13th, the peak of the franchise was reached during the late 80s. Bringing us to our next part :

The first death of the genre

In an attempt to write an oversimplified history of the genre we could say that it goes like that : Birth of the slashers in the late 70s and early 80s.

Golden age in the mid 80s with new cult franchises like Friday the 13th, A nightmare on Elm Street, and many others : dressing an exhaustive list would be an impossible task, but we can cite some of the most well known franchises of this period : Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), Prom Night (1980), Slumber Party Massacre (1982) , Sleep-away Camp (1983).

The genre then dies in the the late 80s and early 90s after a plethora of mediocre slashers that invaded the theaters and created a fatigue for this very codified genre.

Resurrection of the slashers:

Scream, Wes Craven (1996)

Like its villains, the slasher genre is never quite dead. After its disappearance, it came back stronger with Scream.

Based on a screenplay by Kevin Williamson and directed by Craven the movie revitalize the slasher formula by completely acknowledging it.

The director knows what you think will happen and he makes every effort to comfort you in this thought. So when something else happens, you’re actually surprised.

The movie reaches the « meta » status with the character of Randy, interpreted by Jamie Kennedy. Randy is a movie buff, a genre savvy (type of character that doesn’t know their in a movie but knows stories like the one they’re experiencing throughout the movie).

He actually states the rule of the genre (no sex, no drugs, only virgin survive) inside the movie. He does so while watching Carpenters’Halloween on a couch. The rules are acknowledged intra-diegetically.

It allows Craven and Williamson to subvert our expectations in creative ways. Because it is clearly stated that sex and drug will get you killed, will it actually ? In a universe where those things are nothing more than movies ?

It goes as far as a sequence where Randy yells indications to Laurie Straude on the TV (the final girl of Halloween) that are directly applicable to himself. « Look behind you » he says to Laurie, while the killer is actually behind him.

Knowing everything about those movies won’t save you, this time, the rules have changed. No need for an isolated setting, you can get killed in the middle of a party, in high school in broad daylight and more importantly, it doesn’t only concern the teenagers. Adults are now targets too. Teenagers and their parents will have to join forces in order to save everyone.

Spoiler in red : The meta element goes as far as getting one of the killer killed by the movie Halloween ! His head is smashed in a TV playing Carpenter’s classic. Showing that no one will ever surpass Micheal Myers.

The movie, like Friday the 13th, mixes the slasher with the « whodunnit » but takes it to the next level. It feels like playing Cluedo.

You know that it’s someone close to the heroine, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). And absolutely everyone’s a perfect suspect. You will, along with Sidney, try to discover who is Ghostface (the killer). All of this culminates in an amazing revelation sequence packing twists, violence and humor.

The movie is very funny. It has straight-up comedic scenes, where humor is not brought by the characters but the filmmakers : from the use of dramatic music and tension at times where it doesn’t fit, to an ever lasting third act that brilliantly plays with the « not quite dead » trope (again and again and again…).

Another, more subtle example of this humor, brought by the distortion of common slasher tropes would be the one of the umbrella. At the end of every slasher, the final girl arms herself with a weapon that she finds in the closet she’s hiding in. Knife, axe, machete, mass, ect… Here, she’ s in a random living room closet. The only thing she finds is an umbrella. And it’s even more fun when she actually uses it, effectively.

This film plays by the rules of the genre but ultimately twist them in a very satisfying way.

It could almost be seen as satirical because the movie has an interesting commentary on its own audience. It points out the sick morbid fascination the public has for the serial killers.

Those franchises were never built on the final girl’s name, but on the villain’s one. Ultimately, it’s him we’re rooting for.

We want to see more of him. The only common denominator between every Halloween movie is Micheal Myers (except 3), for Friday the 13th it’s Jason and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies all have Freddy Krueger back.

Those same killers inspired the ones in Scream who at the end, overtly state that they need to survive in order to plan the sequels.

It’s also a commentary on our weird voyeurist tendency of watching people being hunted and murdered. This is shown in the movie by the role of the media, symbolized by the character of Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) that always wants to have the scoop even if it means risking her own life and the life of her cameraman.

This commentary is taken even further in the sequels with the fake franchise Stab. Stab is a franchise of films inside the Scream universe, inspired by the events of the previous Scream movies.

They are movies based on what happened to Sidney Prescott in the previous Scream film. For example, the first sequence of Scream 2 is a couple going to a screening of the first movie Stab which relates the murders of Scream 1. A beautiful mise-en-abîme as said in French. A film within a film. But here the film within the film actually show the story of the previous real film.

It allows Craven to reshow the same events we have seen in previous movies in a fictionalized world, thus permitting a heavy commentary on the Hollywood filmmaking industry and on the gratuitous nudity of the slasher genre.

Scream is pure genius. You’re watching a slasher that has a commentary on both the genre and on you as a viewer but still manages to have a tense story with fun murders that respect the rules of the slasher films. You will find everything you’re looking for in a slasher, and way more.

Second death and third rise

Scream was a hit. The movie had a budget of $14 million and brought more than $170 million to the studio. It resurrected the whole genre. Old franchises came back with Jason X, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later and new ones appeared with I Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Urban Legend (1998), Cherry Falls (2000), Ripper (2001).

However, their sequels didn’t have the luxury of getting a theatrical releases and were direct-to-dvd, signing the second death of the genre.

But the slashers were granted a third life with a wave of remake after 2005 : Halloween by Rob Zombie (2007), Prom Night by Nelson McCormick (2008) Friday the 13th by Marcus Nispel (2009), A Nightmare on Elm Street by Samuel Bayer (2010).

In the 2010s we saw the apparition of slasher tv-series with MTV’s Scream and Fox’s Scream Queens.

Halloween by David Gordon Green, a sequel to the original and not a remake, is playing right now in the theaters near you. For an estimated production budget of $10 million, the film has multiplied its budget by more than seventeen times with an estimated gross of $174,546,510… So far. This is enough to spark a new murder spree in the seventh art. Bringing back, once again, the Slasher genre.

How to survive?

This brings us back to the matter at hand, if they’re back: how can we survive ?

I tried to dress a list of the most important rules to observe, based on the four terrible example of Haddonfield, Camp Crystal Lake, Elm Street and Woodsboro.

Preventive warfare :

As Nancy proved it, it’s never bad to have a copy of Booby Traps & Improvised Anti- Personnel Devices with you, just in case.
Pay close attention to urban legends, they could be useful in critical moments. As the saying goes : « One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, gonna stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again »

Common sens :

If there’s an active killer on site, don’t have sex or take drugs.
Never say you’ll be right back.
If you hear a voice screaming for help in the dark, don’t go.
If you’re alone in your apartment at night, don’t answer the phone.
If you do answer, and the person asks you what’s your favorite horror movie, barricade yourself and grab a weapon.
If lights go dark, don’t go to the generator alone. Or just don’t go at all.
If an old crazy guy on a bike says you’re about to die, trust him and run away.
If you’re fooling around in bunk beds, always check the upper bed, you never know what you could find out.
If people in your neighborhood start dying at night, but you there are no trace of a killer, don’t fall asleep.
Unless you’re a girl, don’t try to fight the villain directly.

This brings us to an important principle. Men are expandable. Sorry guys but we’re screwed. Still, there are specific rules for the girls, the only one who truly have an opportunity to survive. Since the 90s, being a virgin is no longer enough to survive. So better know the following :

No one’s off topic when it comes to the killer’s Do you really know your boy/ girlfriend ? Do you really know your parents ?
If all of your friends are dead and you’re hidden in a closet, just know that the killer will find you and break the door.
There is no bad weapon, used efficiently, even an umbrella can become deadly.
If you survive, you’ll probably attract legions of copy-cats and other creeps who will try to torment you again, changing identity won’t be enough. Only training will be useful.

To go further:

Behind the mask: the rise of Leslie Vernon, Scott Glosserman (2006)

If you want to know more and be further prepared, you can always watch Behind The Mask : the Rise of Leslie Vernon by Scott Glosserman. This mockumentary embarks its viewers on a spiritual journey. You will follow the killer’s perspective of the events and see how he prepares himself before each murder spree.

The movie has some very interesting ideas. First, the killer explains how he’s going to do it, documentary style, and then you see the action as if it were a normal slasher film. It has creative ways to play with the history and the tropes of slasher films but unfortunately the third act abandons the documentary style and becomes a straight up slasher.

The innovation was suppose to be that the victims knew they were in a slasher and could avoid the stupid mistakes they usually do. Unfortunately, it falls flat by using the same clichés that every slasher film uses.

More importantly, it’s not very well written. The twists are highly predictable and the jokes don’t land. It’s not very funny nor scary which is disappointing because the movie displays interesting ideas that toy with the slasher tropes.

This movie really is for the viewers that have already seen all of the good slashers and don’t really know what to do with their afternoon. If you’re simply looking for really good meta writing in horror movies, go watch Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 4.

Conclusion

Our corpus was composed of four movie that I can’t recommend enough. Halloween is an all time classic and a must watch for every cinema lover. It is a true masterpiece. Friday the 13th is an interesting example of the moment when it all changed and every movie started to outbid each other in the grandeur of the gore. So far it had been pretty restrained and most of the murders where not shown on-screen or only parts of them. Here, you’ll see it all, in what can only be described as a quintessential slasher. A group of teens smoking, drinking, having sex in the middle of the woods, killed one by one. A nightmare on Elm Street has a very well written final girl and a terrifying concept. It is also in that movie that you will see Johny Depp’s first role. It sparked off a cult franchise that is now deeply rooted in pop- culture. Finally, Scream. This movie is amazingly well written and features some of the best use of meta-jokes and genre self-referencing I have ever seen. In a very weird way, it is reminding of what a writer like Dan Harmon can do today. Scream is a true subversion of the classic slasher tropes but will still deliver you the spectacle you wanted.

I hope it helped you understand what slashers are and shed some light on their history. More importantly, I hope it will help you pick a movie the next time want to give yourself a good scare.

Happy… No. Safe Halloween everyone. He might be coming for you.