The slasher film is a sub-genre of the horror film genre. Typically, a masked, psychotic person stalks and graphically kills teenagers or young adults who are away from adult supervision (and typically involved in premarital sex, drug use, or other illicit activity). Slashers are often followed by multiple sequels which steadily decline in quality and fan interest.
Origins
The genre has its origins in the early 1960s: Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast (1963), and, most notably, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) all bear the hallmarks of the genre.
Other early examples are Mario Bava's Reazione a catena (1971) (known by a dozen titles in English, including Bay of Blood, Carnage and Twitch of the Death Nerve), Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974).
Glory days
However, the two prototypical films that launched the slasher cycle of the late 1970s and early 1980s were John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), both of which spawned numerous sequels and even more imitators, including Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) which itself generated an enduring series.
The simple plots, minimal special effects and potent combination of sex and violence made it an easy choice for low-budget filmmaking in the 1980s, finding a large audience in the burgeoning home video market in particular. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1980s audiences were tiring of unstoppable psychos and the slasher market began to dwindle.
Revival
The slasher genre resurfaced into the mainstream in the mid 1990s, after being successfully deconstructed in Wes Craven's Scream (1996). The film was both a critical and commercial success which attracted a new generation to the genre. Two sequels followed, and the series was even parodied in Keenen Ivory Wayans' Scary Movie (2000), and its sequels.
It kicked off a new slasher cycle that still followed the basic conventions of the 1980s films, but managed to draw in a more demographically varied audience with increased production values, reduced levels of on-screen gore and better-known actors and actresses (often from popular television shows).
Critical analysis
Critic Roger Ebert has taken to calling this genre the "Dead Teenager Movie", the principal cliché of which is that the only teenager to survive is always the virginal girl who declines all of the vices (pot smoking, etc.) indulged in by those who end up skewered. And some other films in this genre have explored the sexual morality question from the other angle, drawing metaphorical parallels between sexual repression and the acts of the killer (as in William Lustig's Maniac (1980)).
Carol J. Clover, in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, identified what she called the "final girl" trope; the heroic young woman who ultimately survives and defeats the killer (at least until the sequel).
The history of the slasher film has also been explored by Mikita Brottman in her book Offensive Films : Toward an Anthropology of Cinema Vomitif.
Notable slasher movies
- Bay of Blood (1971) a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) - first in the series about a family of cannibals.
- Halloween (1978) - about a masked killer that escapes a mental institution. Started the 80's slasher craze.
- Friday the 13th (1980) - the first in a long-running series. A mother avenges her dead son by killing teenagers at a summer camp.
- Maniac (1980) - explores sexual motivations of the killer.
- Sleepaway Camp (1983) - first in a series of typical 1980s slashers.
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - first in the series that gave slashers a supernatural twist.
- Fatal Attraction (1987) - about a one-night stand with a woman who turns psychotic.
- Scream (1996) - began the 1990s revival, followed by 2 sequels.
- I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) - most successful of the post-Scream slashers, followed by further sequels.
- Scary Movie (2000) - spoof of Scream, followed by multiple sequels
- Freddy vs. Jason (2003) - combined the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.