The slasher film is one of the most prolific themes in the horror genre. Depending on how old you are, you might think slashers are only masked killers using various tools to off their victims, and to some degree you are right, but they are also totems of the time. That includes politics, social tastes, generational anxieties, and even filming techniques.
Maybe the most well-known early slasher is the masterwork of Alfred Hitchcock. His Psycho (1960) wasn’t just an example of suspense and mystery; it shook an entire generation, both with its violence and commentary on mental health and gender fluidity. It was shocking to see Norman Bates dressed in a gray wig and a house dress, murdering women. Of course, today we know his schizophrenia wasn’t gender dysphoria; it was the result of years of abuse and perhaps generational trauma. Still on the surface, back in 1960, nobody knew the difference. Hitchcock mastered the idea that violent people could act impulsively, and that was the real terror of the film to both movie-goers and censors.
This idea that men were women’s natural predators went a little deeper in the film Peeping Tom, a movie considered to be the original slasher we know today. It came out the same year as Psycho (1960) and was kind of its British counterpart, like a salt and pepper set of disturbed men. But, whereas Norman Bates tried to suppress his desire for women by killing them, the villain in Peeping Tom took pleasure in stalking them, fueled by his desire to see them die. Peeping Tom also introduced the point-of-view technique, which has been used ever since. Furthermore, found footage films owe a bit of gratitude to Peeping Tom since our killer uses a camera to record his crimes.
But these films are tepid in comparison to what we got a decade later. Tobe Hooper shaped the genre even more with another shocker: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His film asked Hitchcock to hold its beer, getting a whole crazy family of cannibals to dispose of our hapless, road-tripping victims. There was no psychology behind the crimes, no explanation of why Leatherface was using a chainsaw as a killing tool, and no backstory to the murderous patriarchy. They were just hungry. As a side note, both Hitchcock’s and Hooper’s movies were very loosely based on serial killer Ed Gein’s life.
Enter John Carpenter and his onscreen killer, Michael Myers, in Halloween (1978). The term “final girl” was coined (posthumously to Marylin Burns). Carpenter entrusted his lead, Jamie Lee Curtis, to do all the heavy work; Michael was a lumbering shape who walked around with a knife to off his victims. He didn’t talk; he didn’t have any motive; he just liked stabbing people, it seemed. Curtis, as Laurie Strode, was the virginal good girl tasked with outsmarting Michael to avoid being impaled by a large butcher’s knife. Carpenter also added a supernatural element to his monster–he never seemed to die. Halloween was a huge box office success, signaling that audiences were ready for more of this kind of independent movie.
They got it in 1980 with Friday the 13th, which asked all of the films above to hold its beer, because director Sean S. Cunningham gave no fucks about censorship when it came to violence. In fact, he employed SFX master Tom Savini to do all the gore effects, which were extraordinarily graphic but extremely inventive. Cunningham appropriated a lot of the gimmicks from the movies above: a faceless killer, a POV style, a gunless stalker, a final girl, and trauma fueled serial killer. Friday the 13th would also spawn an iconic mascot with its subsequent sequels. The ’80s were the Golden Age of slashers, with one rip-off after the next hitting theaters almost every month.
Then, in 1984, came Wes Craven, and he turned the slasher boilerplate up another notch. This time, a killer who invades your dreams with five knives in one hand! His name is Freddy Krueger, and he’s a coded pedophile with a penchant for revenge. The effects were good, maybe not to the degree of Savini’s work in Friday, but let’s just say, Craven didn’t spare any blood. The slasher was now a profitable part of pop culture. Thanks to Freddy Krueger’s dark humor, he became an icon, generating merch, sequels, and even a TV show. The slasher was now a permanent fixture on the theater marquee almost every Friday.
Leveling off by the ’90s, the popularity of the slasher hit a slump. The formula was shopworn and oversaturated. Some titles managed to become low-level hits, but not to the extent of their predecessors. That is, until Wes Craven stepped in again to revive the genre with Scream (1996). This was a film that paid homage to the genre by keeping all of its nuances. Infusing mystery, gore, and a masked killer seemed like a send-off to the formula rather than an inspiration. But not so fast. Scream’s self-awareness ended up making it a tent pole rather than a grave stone, and a slasher renaissance seemed to happen overnight.
The turn of the century was just okay for the slasher genre. But it was more of the age of remakes and sequels rather than an inspirational period. It was strong in spots such as with Wrong Turn and, arguably, Valentine, but never went beyond familiar territory and established IPs.
Today, desensitization has set in, and the slasher is again on the verge of death. It’s only popular among genre fans who are looking to be as thrilled as they were the first time they saw one. Filmmakers like Christopher Landon, James Wan, and Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are doing their best, but nothing seems to be clicking. Damien Leone is probably the only modern filmmaker who has had a significant impact on the slasher genre with his Terrifier movies, but even that feels more derivative than inspirational.
We will have to see what’s in store for slashers in the future. The cinematic experience is changing. Big movies get all the good screens, the time from theater to VOD has shortened significantly, and studios are considering AI as a writing tool. It seems the Golden Age of the slasher ended a long time ago, and we will just have to appreciate what we have and hope for its strong return.
