Can you think of anything scarier than being chased by a maniac with a weapon that will cut you to shreds? Just the very thought of it can make you shudder. Yet, millions of us welcome stories to entertain us with these unthinkable situations.
Why do we do it? What makes it so appealing? Below I discuss 9 great things about slasher movies.
The good versus evil dynamic
Your favorite slasher movie is likely based on the villain at its center. Like notorious true crime villains, we’re drawn to certain slasher villains while simultaneously being repelled by them. We’ll cheer for their introduction on screen but also want them to be defeated by the end of the movie.
You also have to pair them with a great hero. They’re typically teens, but they can also be young children or full grown adults. They’re unassuming and usually undeserving of being stalked and having their lives threatened by some supernatural being.
The audience participation in slasher movies is unlike any other genre. You put yourself in the heroes’ shoes, judging them, and even calling out to them to make different choices to get themselves to safety. It’s like a choose your own adventure where you have no control over how the events will play out, but you can imagine how it would go differently for you.
These villains are also the worst of the worst. They may have a tragic backstory that drove them to this point, but they may also just have been born that way. The genre is known for exploring each villain’s origins through the sequels while still keeping it open-ended, just as with real life evil. A lot of people go through terrible moments and don’t become murderers. So, why them?
In return, what makes our hero worthy of surviving the events of the movie? In the book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws, the author makes the argument that the teen girls who survive slashers are the “good girls” who are smart, not boy crazy, and are aware of their surroundings.
The genre took this theory and turned it on its head in the 90s, and since then, our heroes survive for various reasons. Sometimes they have a special skill set, a mystical destiny, a protector who helps them, or they just get lucky. Like in real life, you can ponder the whys and what ifs of the outcome, but ultimately, they survive because the film wants them to survive.
They have infinite possibilities within a finite premise
Every first film in a slasher franchise starts with a few simple elements, and as the series grows, it becomes more complex and experimental. Sometimes they land and sometimes they don’t. But one bad egg doesn’t usually ruin a series. You can usually skip over them.
Nobody suspected that a film about a mother getting revenge for the death of her son at summer camp would eventually lead to that son, having regenerated multiple times, cutting people up in outer space. You also wouldn’t have guessed that this same killer would meet up with another famous serial killer from Elm Street and fight him on the big screen.
Once a slasher is a hit with audiences, it launches a number of sequels, even if those sequels don’t do well. Fans will get to it eventually, though. It’s pretty much required viewing if you’re going to call yourself a devoted follower of the franchise.
The story doesn’t have to go completely off the rails either. Sometimes going with the tried and true formula is the way to go, even if it messes with the chronology of events.
The Halloween franchise is the perfect example of that. Michael Myers is the unstoppable force in every iteration, yet there are multiple timelines running throughout that franchise, as well as a pair of remakes that stand completely alone from the rest of the films. In this way, you can pick and choose which films to watch, or you can watch them all and just take them for what they are without worrying about how it connects to the one before it. But in the end, he’s out to slaughter some member of the Strode family and will cut down anyone who gets in his way.
The settings
Because you can pretty much plop a slasher villain into any setting and make it work, settings may influence your favorite slasher films. Every villain has a distinct origin story.
The Scream franchise starts in Woodsboro, CA. The Child’s Play series begins in Chicago. If you want to get more specific, Jason’s origin starts at Camp Crystal Lake. Freddy terrorizes a group of kids on a specific suburban street in Ohio. The town of Haddonfield, IL is synonymous with Michael Myers.
However, the sequels do expand their territories. You might even prefer the new settings to the original, or your favorite stories could be in their original locations.
Haddonfield is the perfect setting for the majority of the Halloween franchise, so much so that you feel like it would be terrible to break with tradition. But for me, the private school set against a California landscape in Halloween: H20 works so well, creating the right amount of isolation while still maintaining a maze-like atmosphere to move the characters around in, particularly in its third act.
The Scream franchise is a whole different animal. The villain, or villains, are different in every movie. So, the setting has to reflect their motivations and timing.
Moving Sydney from her hometown in Woodsboro to Windsor College in Scream 2 makes perfect chronological sense and also expands the world in the same ways transitioning from high school to college expands any young adult’s. It also sets up the perfect opportunity for a new psycho to put on the mask and come for her, and later the other main characters in the series and the settings and situations that they’re forced to survive.
They are of their time
Every generation from the 1960s onward grew up with a certain flavor of slasher movie. Psycho is credited for starting it all and creating a blueprint for a story where we meet a group of characters and we watch to see who meets their demise and who makes it to the end.
In the 70s, the slashers were still relatively bloodless or at least not gory. But they learned how to set the tension, create effective jump scares, and create the “rules” of the genre which withstood decades of filmmaking. They also began to make their characters super human and immortal. They could be slowed down but not stopped completely.
In the 80s, slasher filmmakers got creative with practical effects. Their villains went from silent oafs to quippy comedians. They developed colorful palettes and really dialed up the supernatural elements.
In the 90s, they incorporated technology into their stories. They turned some of the rules on their heads. They also made sure their final girls were completely self-sufficient. These risks paid off and reignited the franchise, allowing it to keep evolving into the early 2000s and 2010s which incorporated elements of all of these decades while furthering the genre for its target audience.
They are based in reality
When these films get intense, you sometimes have to remind yourself that it’s only a movie, especially when you’re young and just seeing these types of situations play out on screen for the first time. The more you watch them, the more formulaic they become, and you begin to appreciate them for the artistry more than their ability to scare you. It’s how you’re able to watch the same movies over and over even though the initial shock and scares have subsided.
One idea that breathes new life into the films is realizing that many of these stories are based on true events. Scream was inspired by the Gainesville Ripper, a killer in Florida who stalked and brutally murdered young college-aged men and women and then posed them in horrific ways for others to find in what must have been a scarring moment. Writer Kevin Williamson took the seeds of that story and mixed in classic slasher tropes along with his own brand of humor and birthed the defining slasher film of the 90s.
The Child’s Play films were said to be based on Robert the Doll, a little boy’s haunted doll which is currently on display in Key West, FL. Whenever bad things happened, the boy blamed it on his doll. The film took this concept and made it true. Adding in a supernatural element, the fictional Lakeshore Stranger, Charles Lee Ray, whose name is taken from three very famous historical killers, transports his soul into a popular selling doll as he lays dying in a toy store, and he comes back to seek revenge and transfer his body into little Andy Barclay, who is being accused of the horrific murders that his doll is committing.
Even the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, which you’d think would be pure fiction, is based on a mysterious phenomenon where Asian refugees were suddenly dying in their sleep due with no known cause. One boy was so afraid to sleep, fearing that something in his dreams was going to kill him, that when he did eventually fall asleep, he too died from this mysterious phenomenon. This adds a new layer to the story and helps to make it more realistic, interesting, and frightening.
The psychology of the stories
When Psycho came out, both the book and the movie, it introduced the world to a very complex villain who was sometimes misunderstood and was meticulously picked apart based on what little we knew about him. As a result, it became a classic, not just a horror classic.
The other big name franchises that followed, and even the stand-alone slashers like Black Christmas, My Bloody Valentine, and Terror Train were primarily made for teenagers who even the industry didn’t take seriously. However, teens took them seriously, and they maintained their fandom throughout their adulthood. As a result, they were able to really dissect the psychological themes of their favorite franchises which on the surface may look like mindless entertainment for young people, or the deranged, and reveal the real weight they carry in the storytelling world.
One of my favorite horror documentaries is Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. It really breaks down the psychology of numerous horror films and how topical events of each decade, sociological changes, and how fresh, experimental creatives contributed to the vast landscape of the genre.
What’s particularly interesting is revisiting older films either from before your time or your early years and straddling your modern perspective with the perspective of its day. Some elements have aged poorly, others feel prescient, and there are those that only make sense to the viewer after some personal lived experiences. This is yet another reason why fans can keep returning to these films. There’s always a new perspective being brought to them and new themes to explore or old ones to reintroduce yourself to.
The humor
Comedy and horror are constantly pointed out as being two sides of the same coin. As bleak as slasher movies can get, there is also humor that is sometimes intentionally or unintentionally sprinkled throughout the film that provides a necessary release and heightens the entertainment.
The humor can be as innocent as a funny line reading by an actor (I typically think of Deputy Hunt crying out, “One of them was Annie!” to Sheriff Brackett in Halloween II). It can also be intentional, such as Freddy Krueger riding on a broomstick in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and taunting his victim with the line, “I’ll get you and your little soul too.” It probably wouldn’t be funny if it was you he was saying it to, but having spent five prior movies with him and watching him develop from more of a straightforward monster to a quippy cartoon character, you can’t help but laugh at the corniness of his threats.
The first slasher I ever watched was the original Scream. And had there not been so many comedic moments in the film, I don’t know if I would have been able to get through it. It’s a lot to ask a 12-year-old to remain in a panicked state for nearly two hours without some sort of release. Even after the killers are revealed, there’s still a fear that Sydney is not going to get out of this alive, so, Matthew Lillard’s hamming it up in the final battle not only elevates the scene but also makes it more bearable to watch.
The design
The set and costume designs in these films are huge contributors to the success of a film. What seem like simple choices end up becoming timeless looks. They feel like obvious decisions, but it takes skilled visualists to really make what’s on screen look good and stick out in audiences’ minds.
The looks of the villains are first priority. Sometimes the look is arbitrary to the story. Other times, it’s part of the plot.
Jason doesn’t get his iconic hockey mask until the third film, but it sticks, and now, you can’t do a Friday the 13th movie without it. Meanwhile, Freddy’s red and green striped shirt remains a staple throughout the franchise. So is Michael’s jumpsuit, though the mask has gone through many iterations of the white face and slicked back hair, some of which work better than others. But it’s still a fun discussion topic despite being such a small element of the film.
Where the kills take place are also important to the success of a film. Child’s Play 3 takes place at a military school, yet it makes its way to an amusement park for its final battle. Nearly half of the original Scream takes place at the Macher house and the surrounding area, but there are also attacks at similar remote homes throughout the town.
The setting also inspires the creativity of the kills. Again, this is not something that most fans would want to see in real life, but knowing the artistry and effort that is put into the effects, particularly practical effects and stunts, it’s awe inspiring to see what a unique blend of situations that filmmakers can cook up to elevate the lethalness of their villains.
The kills also have to fit the brand of the killer. Chucky is dealing with a significant height disadvantage. So, he either has to attack from very low or very high. Freddy is attacking in dreams, so he is nearly limitless in how he’s able to torture and eventually desecrate his victims. Then, sometimes, just popping out of a corner with a knife at an unexpected moment is effective enough.
A guidebook to survival
Most of us will never come up against a killer in the woods or a serial murderer in a small town. But real world danger is a likely possibility, even if it’s in the middle of a crowded city or an isolated building at night.
Women in particular know the dangers of not being hypervigilant. And this may be why so many women are drawn to horror, particularly slashers. We learn from the characters on screen who aren’t looking over their shoulder or are running the wrong way.
There’s also that doubt that plays in your mind that you could be as brave, if not braver than the characters on screen if faced with a similar situation. You don’t know what you’d do in the moment. Because even the fear you’re feeling while watching the movie isn’t nearly as strong as true fear in a real world situation. How do you keep your wits about you, especially when danger comes out of nowhere?
It’s comforting to know that, if a supernatural being can be killed, at least for one movie, maybe you can survive an attacker in a dark alley or overpower someone who sneaks up behind you. These heroes can be inspiring, and these villains can give you an idea of how to identify true evil and the things they are capable of.
What are your favorite slasher movies? Who are your favorite heroes and villains? Leave your answers in the comments below!
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