HISTORY OF SLASHER
Since the beginning of film, directors and producers have thrived off of scaring and striking fear into their audiences with a genre of film named horror. This genre of film contradicts all enjoyment of romance and all thrill of action with the replacement of fear, the ways in which the audience watching a horror film feels throughout allows for adrenaline and fear that will otherwise not be present. Within the genre of horror, many sub-genres exist to attract different audiences and to strike tension and fear in slightly different ways. The sub-genre of slasher relies on gore, blood and violence to intimidate its audience as well as scare them in terms of the outside world. Over the history of horror, the slasher sub-genre is one of the most anticipated often with the killer being someone close to the victims, from Psycho up to modern day examples, the slasher sub-genre has captivated audiences more and more.
The famous slasher movies, 'Bay of Blood' (1971), 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (1974) and 'Black Christmas' (1974) are most often said to have started the genre's foundation. 'Halloween' (1978) by John Carpenter became one of the highest-grossing films of all time, providing a cinematic template that would be re-used over and over again in other slasher. This became more popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s. One of the main elements of successful slasher films is the role of the 'final girl'. This term was created by Carol Clover in her studies from Men, Women and Chainsaws. Casting a final girl was very important for famous slasher films, such as Scream. Traditional slasher films would begin with a tragic incident, such as Freddy Krueger killing kids on Elm Street or Michael Myers slashing up his sister on Halloween. This would then shift ahead to when its main characters had blissfully forgotten about the nasty and haunting past. As the movie progresses, the body count of victims increases and only the audience is aware of what is going on. This is because most of the killings are done in secret, until the final girl begins to suspect something is happening. For example, Halloween features a scene near the end of the film where the heroine discovers corpses of her friends. The shock helps to give her strength and fight the killer at the very end. Once the killer is unmasked or defeated the movie has to end to make it memorable and as effective as possible. A slasher isn't a slasher without a formidable villain, however some of the best slashers contain the most unsettling killing machines, such as the insane minor is My Bloody Valentine, the deranged Santa Claus in Silent Night, Deadly Night and the camp caretaker in The Burning. These small scale killers proved to come across as more unexpected and creepier, appealing to the audience's masochistic desires and fears.
Early slasher movies were criticised for their extreme violence, but for horror fans, this was a huge part of the appeal. Blood-gushingly great kills that make the audience jump and scream were no longer a big interest for teenage movie fans in the 1980s.
Freddy Krueger became a joke-slinging parody of himself and people were beginning to lose interest in slashers. However, like slasher villains, the slasher genre wouldn't just stay in the grave. In 1996, Scream managed to become both scary and self-referential. This formula ranked in enough box office purchases to inspire a full-on splatter revival, including the slashers, Urban Legends and I Know What You Did Last Summer. In further recent years, the slasher genre has taken the form of remakes, however the very best were the ones that broke completely new ground. The film, It Follows, was inspired by slasher films past but created its fright from fresh, contemporary terrors, based more heavily on psychological torment than gore. This suggests that the old-school slasher tale is no longer capable of offering big-screen scares after being repeated, revived and remade over and over again and that new and unseen before slashers are much more exciting and appealing to horror lovers.
Freddy Krueger became a joke-slinging parody of himself and people were beginning to lose interest in slashers. However, like slasher villains, the slasher genre wouldn't just stay in the grave. In 1996, Scream managed to become both scary and self-referential. This formula ranked in enough box office purchases to inspire a full-on splatter revival, including the slashers, Urban Legends and I Know What You Did Last Summer. In further recent years, the slasher genre has taken the form of remakes, however the very best were the ones that broke completely new ground. The film, It Follows, was inspired by slasher films past but created its fright from fresh, contemporary terrors, based more heavily on psychological torment than gore. This suggests that the old-school slasher tale is no longer capable of offering big-screen scares after being repeated, revived and remade over and over again and that new and unseen before slashers are much more exciting and appealing to horror lovers.
Into the 21st century and the slasher sub genre has only been made stronger not only through the more innovative and extreme ideas but the resources in which production companies have at their disposal. This large amount of resources with the increasingly plump budgets in which companies have within this century have lead to modern chainsaw classic "Bloody Murder" and knife slashers such as " Cherry Falls" and "Cut". As history has developed, the slasher concept has remained the same of multiple kills from those who are initially innocent looking, with a few exclusions, and the blonde "final girl" who usually survives into trilogies if not more. In the very most modern of eras, as previously stated, horror directors inspired by innovative works by Craven and Tarintino are now keen on making remakes of classics, giving a modern twist to a film that scared one generation into scaring another, more resilient generation. The way in which you can take a classic such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and turn it into something not only of brute gore but a form of elegance and style with it. The ways in which modern audiences can now interpret horror as well as not be scared by it means that these once fearsome classics now need to be redone with sophistication and justice to scare the new breed of audience with effects, actors and an overall store of resources in which production companies have under their belts.