Slasher Genre: Information and Critical Responses

As a genre the ‘Slasher’ horror receives a wide range of positive and negative criticism, a quote coined by the famous film critic Roger Ebert described ‘Scream’ as a ‘typical dead teenager movie’, but referring back to the original ‘Halloween’ film Roger Ebert gave the 1978 production a very favorable review mentioning “bids fair to become the cult discovery of 1978. Audiences have been heard screaming at its horrifying climaxes”. I believe I need to achieve the ‘screaming audience’ level in my film trailer in order to make my slasher film a success.

A problematic issue with the sub genre is defining what is and isn’t a slasher film, in a critical debate Vera Dika strictly defines the sub genre in her book ‘Games of Terror’ which was popular in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s as her discussion suggests a ‘generic form is organized to speak a cultural text.’ This book had an impact on the genre and the universal slasher now had a new spin as a stalker/slasher film. There was an argument that the reason the Slasher genre was picked upon so harshly in this book was down to the fact that Vera Dika approached her opinions in a very feminist point of view. In the book she theorizes the often-formulaic plot structure in the following ways:

Past events

The young community is guilty of a wrongful action.

The killer sees an injury, fault or death.

The killer experiences a loss.

The killer kills the guilty members of the young community

Present events

An event commemorates the past action.

The killer's destructive force is reactivated.

The killer identifies the guilty parties.

A member of the old community tries to warn the young community (optional).

The young community takes no heed.

The killer stalks members of the young community.

A member of some type of force like a detective etc. attempts to hunt down the killer.

The killer kills members of the young community.

The hero/heroine sees the extent of the murders.

The hero/heroine sees the killer.

The hero/heroine does battle with the killer.

The hero/heroine kills or subdues the killer.

The hero/heroine survives. But the Hero/Heroine Is not free.

This basis received a lot of negative reception for over generalizing what Slasher films can produce and making the genre out to be predictable and dull. But in my personal opinion I can treat my film on the 1 to 13 numbers because admit tingly I see that guide as a way to produce a concrete slasher film. Vera Dika goes on to further define what the audience’s gratifications are from a slasher horror film, she suggests three definitions that are the following:

Catharsis—Through a release of fears about bodily injury or from political and social tensions of the day.

Recreation—An intense, thrill seeking, physical experience akin to a roller coaster ride.

Displacement—Audiences sexual desires are displaced onto the characters in the film

Picking up the feminist point once again, another theorist Carol J Clover defined the final girl in her book ‘Men, Women and Chainsaw’s’ published in 1992 Although these films seem to offer sadistic pleasure to their viewers, Clover argues that these films are designed to align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the female victim the who finally defeats her oppressor, certainly this seems to follow in films like Halloween, the Wrong Turn franchise, The Last House on the Left, The Virgin Spring and many more. This however tips on to the Rape/Revenge genre, which is another issue as you see women exploited sexually. A study was focused on this very precarious genre, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and her study stated against a simplistic notion of the term 'rape-revenge' and suggests a film-specific approach in order to avoid generalizing films, which may "diverge not over the treatment of sexual assault as much as they do in regards to the morality of the revenge act."

Other theorits on the matter of slasher films include Cowan and O'Brien (1990), Weaver (1991)and Molitor and Sapolsky (1993).