The art of the kill: A primer on slasher flicks

Boston Globe

4 days ago

In the past few years, the type of film frowned upon during the Reagan era has become respectable or, at the very least,
more respected
. For example, last year's extremely gory slasher, 'In A Violent Nature,' earned positive reviews from even the most squeamish of critics. This year's '
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More importantly, these movies found an audience, which gave Hollywood the incentive to make (or remake) more slashers. This is why we're getting an inexplicable reboot of 'I Know What You Did Last Summer.' Though the 1997 original was successful enough to earn a 1998 sequel called '
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The Fisherman in "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Brook Rushton/Sony Pictures
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In honor of Jennifer Love Hewitt's return to the psychotic Gorton's Fisherman franchise, here's a short history of the slasher movie. Like the victims in 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' I'm sure I'll get the hook for some of my choices.
According to my pal Danny, whom you may remember from our
The Primitive: Setting the rules
The general rules of a slasher are pretty consistent. There's a group of expendable teenagers (or young adults) representing varying tropes — the hothead, the jock, the horny couple, the innocent or virginal female, and the nerd.
The catalyst for carnage is often the result of a traumatic prior event that bonds the characters in secrecy. It's usually a prank or accident that maimed someone, or worse, killed them. This tragedy may have happened on a national holiday like Valentine's Day.
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in New Line Home Entertainment's horror classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
New Line Productions
Whatever the cause, it always brings out a mysterious stalker armed with an arsenal of sharp weapons. The killer's perspective is seen whenever their victims get splattered with
anything from axes to machetes to power tools. Items you wouldn't expect, like corkscrews or lawn mowers, are also employed as murder weapons.
Gore is plentiful and prevalent, and these 'kills,' as they're called, are the money shots of the genre. The nastier they are, the better.
The identity of the slasher movie killer remains a secret until a shocking, last minute reveal. It might be the scarred prank victim seeking revenge, or a relative avenging the death of a loved one. In many cases, it's the dumbest, most nonsensical outcome you could imagine, one you couldn't have predicted unless you were the screenwriter.
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Jamie Lee Curtis in a scene from the 1978 horror film classic, "Halloween," directed by John Carpenter.
Compass International Pictures
And lest, I forget, there's a 'Final Girl' who must face that killer alone as the sole survivor of the carnage.
Now that we've established the rules, the burning question becomes 'what was the first legitimate slasher movie?' Ask ten people and you're bound to get ten different answers. Did 'Psycho' invent the slasher, with its iconic shower scene and the type of convoluted reveal that has marred many a slasher movie?
Was it Bob Clark's 1974 Canadian horror movie, 'Black Christmas,' with its young women being stalked on a holiday by a mystery man? By virtue of being released first, some theories choose this movie over the most common holiday-themed answer, John Carpenter's 1978 classic, 'Halloween.' Carpenter's script with Debra Hill includes the oft-quoted idea that if you have sex in a slasher movie, you die.
As for sharing the stalker's perspective, the gore level, and the gonzo endings, those ideas originated with any number of giallo movies. Gialli are murder mysteries like Dario Argento's 'Deep Red' — films with graphic violence, stunning visuals, and confusing plots
.
Mario Bava's 1971 giallo, 'A Bay of Blood' (aka 'Twitch of the Death Nerve") influenced 'Friday the 13th Part II' so much that director Steve Miner paid explicit homage to some of Bava's graphic murder sequences.
All of these films added something to the slasher genre.
The Classical: Following the rules
There's a million of these. Practically every sequel to a slasher belongs here. (Even the three 'Psycho' sequels made in this era.) The goal was one-upmanship. How gory are you willing to get with those kills? How far would the MPAA let you go? In order to get an R, movies like the original 'My Bloody Valentine' and Miramax's first movie, 'The Burning,' were eviscerated as if they were slasher victims. Thankfully, unrated home video versions restored all the good stuff the MPAA cut out.
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Jason Voorhees swings an axe in "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood."
Michael Ansell
Part of the fun of the early 1980s
slashers was seeing studio system era actors you'd never expect. 'Mister Roberts''s
The Revisionist: Breaking the Rules
'Happy Birthday to Me' gets a special shout-out here as the only movie I can think of that features death by shish kebob. But the true rule breakers are films like the aforementioned 'In a Violent Nature,' which presents most of the movie from the killer's point of view. Between incredibly graphic kills built for midnight movie audiences, director Chris Nash traps us in the killer's viewpoint. This forces us to revel in ennui as the killer slowly walks to his next victim. The guy gets in his 10,000 steps, and you're there to count each one.
By making death the ultimate murderer, the 'Final Destination' movies belong here, too. Other worthy mentions include 1984's 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and its meta-sequel, 'Wes Craven's New Nightmare,' both directed by Craven. Freddy Krueger, the big bad of the 'Nightmare' franchise, is my favorite slasher movie monster.
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Craven also gave us 'Scream,' which belongs in the next category.
The Parodic: Making fun of the rules
The Ghostface killer - or at least one of them - in "Scream VI."
Paramount Pictures
The first 'Scary Movie' in 2000 spoofed 'Scream,' taking a comic (though still graphically violent) spin on something that was already a parody. The 2020 film, 'Freaky,' mocks the two biggest genres in the 1980s, body swap movies and slashers.
Those are recent additions, but slasher movie parodies aren't new. They've existed as far back as 1981's 'Saturday the 14th' and 1982's 'Pandemonium.' I saw the latter on HB0 7 million times when I was a kid. The film stars Paul Reubens, Tommy Smothers, Carol Kane and Judge Reinhold. Its kills are blatantly comic--one victim is murdered in a tub full of milk and cookies. And the ending makes absolutely no sense. A good parody should be a prime example of what it's parodying, so this fits the bill nicely.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.