Slasher Films

joe.shearer

November 07, 2007 by joe.shearer

0 votes

As an avowed fan of horror movies as a kid, I've seen more than my share of bad slasher pics. They are unlike most other genres, they polarize fans quite a bit. Many love them, but just as many (maybe more) hate them and call them a bane to society.

They're called masochistic, mysogynistic, and disgusting. In some ways that's accurate, but I think people tend to superficially write off slasher pictures and unfairly judge them.

What slasher films are, essentially, are modern-day fairy tales. The monstrous killers that are the antagonists of slasher films are not much different than many fairy tales. Think about the classics: In Hansel and Gretel, people are eaten by a witch; in Little Red Riding Hood, a wolf devours the grandmother and Red Riding Hood before being brutally killed by the woodsman.

Horror films in that way are simple morality tales, like fairy tales are: they offer dire consequences for improper behavior. The great majority of the victims in slasher films are those who engage in sinful behavior: premarital sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and being cruel to others.

Traditionally the protagonist of a slasher film is a young woman, who is forced to confront her demons (quite literally) and ultimately defeats the killer. She almost invariably represents good in that she frowns on the sinful behavior and rarely if ever engages in it herself. She is usually studious, and is ostracized, or at least teased, because she isn't doing what "everyone else" is doing...namely driving themselves to an early death.

The gore of a slasher film does appeal to the basest emotion, and the gross-out factor does play a big part of the equation. It appeals to the inner 13-year-old inside us, and really what's wrong with that? As adults many of us enjoy films skewed toward younger audiences. I think we frequently get out of touch with our inner teenager because as we get older we are horrified ourselves to find how irritating we were at that time in our lives (because we are now irritated by people of that age who are doing the very things we did at the same age).

I say there's nothing wrong with embracing the inner 13-year-old, and enjoying a good gross-out movie every now and then.

Forum: Movies

Tags: 

movies, Horror films, slasher movies, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers, Gore

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1 comment

Garin
Garin, November 7, 2007
0 votes

I hate the direction it's gone though as of late..the Torture/Porn films..Saw,Hostel,Capivity or the PG-13 route where no one dies and the only thing hurt is some WB star's feelings....I loved the Fridays,Halloween's and Elm Street's...I don't care if thoses go to 50 there's more to those than anyting else out there!

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