Horror Genre

Slasher Movies

Critical thinking….

"at the bottom of the horror heap" (Clover)

"the most disreputable form of the horror film" (Pinedo)

"unartistic and reactionary generic manifestations" (Williams)

Yet….

Yet the legacy of the three major horror characters to emerge during the 1980s, Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th series, and Pinhead of Hellraiser, lives on as the virtual definition of film horror today.

Because of their immense and enduring popularity with adolescents, and because their messages differ from mainstream cinema

Origins

Many date the birth of the Slasher genre, or certainly its defining moment, to the shower scene in Psycho.

Characteristics being the vulnerable female who is

sexualised (she is naked)The masked killerThe weapon (knife)

Examples

Halloween Scream I know what you did last summerProm Night Nightmare on Elm St.Friday 13th and all the associated sequels

Conventions

These films are defined by repeating cycles - sequels.

There is a strong sense of voyeurism in these films and a high amount of POV shots.

Replicating the act of the audienceVoyeurism: Act of looking

Women In the Slasher Genre

The primary rationale for the slasher film's status as low culture within academia is its consistent depiction of targeted female victims:

"explicitly about the destruction of women" (Sharrett).

Women are repeatedly killed, apparently in conformance to the monster's attempt at repressing the dangerous sexuality they exhibit (during the obligatory nude scene)

Final Girl

The most consistent element in slasher sequels is the Final Girl

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (she eludes Leatherface until she is ultimately rescued by a passing truck driver)

Laurie from Halloween, who, in the last sequence of the film, ceases to run and retaliates against Michael Myers, matching him in violence.

The Final Girls are masculine projections Final Girls are usually desexualized, either

unavailable for relationships or reluctant while in them

Youth

Another consistent theme in these slashers is the depiction of youth subjugated to an adult community that produces monsters.

"unaware or ineffectual adult community" (Heba)

If the families are present, they are either unsupportive, or disbelieving.

Institutions of Police and Psychiatry are ineffective

The ‘monstrous other’

The killers are the rejected, marginalized underbelly of society, those that suburban America represses and denies.

Their threat "lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated" (Kristeva)

The films express a "world where safety in every sense of the term is a fiction" (Pinedo)

Ideologies

Horror movies (esp. the slasher sub-genre) are ideological texts.

They contain values and messages which the audience are free to interpret as they wish

Audience readings consist of Dominant Negotiated Oppositional

Ideologies

In slasher films the characters that are interested in sex / sin are killed. There always remains the ‘final girl’ who is typically a saintly virgin.

Sins Include?Final Girls?

Ideologies

Not only are the films voyeuristic, they are also very misogynistic. The death sequences of the females are almost always much more elaborate / detailed / torturous than the male characters.

Misogyny: a hatred or dislike of women

Narrative Pattern

Essentially these films follow a very formulaic narrative pattern.

This may in some way account for their success

It also allows for the numerous sequels which are inevitable

Two time zones are often present in Slashers, past and present.

Narrative Pattern

Past Eventperson / community is guilty of wrong

doingkiller sees thiskiller suffers loss killer kills

Typically Halloween and I Know What You Did Last Summer

Narrative Pattern

Present EventEvent commemorates past actionKiller’s impulses are reactivatedKiller stalks community and killsHeroine sees murders and murderersHeroine subdues murdererHeroine survives but is not freed

Iconography

As with many genres, there is a strong sense of iconic images and motifs associated with the slasher genreKnivesSuburban communitiesTeenagersMasksEtc. etc.

A Changing Genre

Successful genres follow a changing patternEstablishment

(defining the main characteristics)

Change(adapting in order to remain successful)

Reflection(They understand themselves and

become a parody / pastiche – they are post-modern)

Post-Modern Slasher Movies

Movies such as ScreamWes Craven’s A New NightmareScary Movie

Are all post-modern versions of the slasher genre. They are reflecting upon themselves / their rules and are essentially films about slasher movies

In the late 1990s, the slasher series in some senses made the leap from low culture to high culture

‘Monster’ has returned to the Halloween mode of having a ‘real’ killer rather than a supernatural one.

Nearly every conversation or discussion in these films becomes an analysis of the other characters' possible guilt.

Suspects become those who are even slightly different from the well-adjusted group.

Post-Modern Slasher MoviesPost-Modern Slasher Movies

Finally

"before Thelma and Louise there were Nancy and Stephanie and about a hundred other young women who fought back in the excoriated slasher film" (Pinedo)