Slasher+Movies


 * [[image:http://comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jasonVorheesFridaythe13thRemake.jpg width="360" height="243" align="right" caption="Jason Vorhees, possibly the most well known icon of the Slasher Genre." link="@http://comicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/jasonVorheesFridaythe13thRemake.jpg"]]Slasher Movies **are a sub-genre of horror movies that were made popular in the 1970's and the 1980's. These movies usually involve a cast of characters being hunted down one by one by a psychopathic killer. The killer usually does this in a graphically violent manner, using weapons that cause untold bloodshed. Thus the term "slasher" comes about from the weapons used such a a machete or knives.


 * Early Exploitation Films **

 Early in the 1970's exploitation films were very popular. Movies such as Wes Craven's //The Last House on the Left//, and Tobe Hooper's //The Texas Chainsaw Massacre// became prime examples of the exploitation genre. These movies shocked the world with its black-sploitation, drug use, nude and sex scenes, blood and gore, and all the rest. All of these were uncommon to movies and never used until the 70s as an attempt to "renovate a dying genre". They were highly controversial as they were unlike any movies seen to date. Influences date back to the bloody Hammer films, movies that included murder, gore, and rape. //The Texas Chainsaw Massacre// highly built on the idea of a slasher movie, as it had a single killer who used a weapon to draw blood. This however was more of a side thing in the movie, as opposed to the main theme of it. (Normanton) Exploitation became an entire genre heading into the future. Much like zombie movies, these movies helped a lot of filmmakers get careers in the big leagues. They were "low-budget and easy to make, meaning anyone could do it." As seen with Romero's //Night of the Living Dead// it helped to let people become famous by making these gritty films.


 * Early Slasher Films **

 Awkwardly enough the movie, //[|Black Christmas]//, became the one of the first slasher films in 1974, alongside //The Texas Chainsaw Massacre//. The movie was based around a group of people in a lodge being killed off one by one during Christmas. Unfortunately, this movie failed to bring the genre to the popular culture, and can be looked back onto today as a cult classic. (Normanton) However, those who did see the movie were intrigued by its used of old cliches and POV shots. One of those who saw it was John Carpenter and he would be the man to spiral the slasher genre out of control.

 Carpenter's first film was made independently and was named // Halloween // in 1978. A simply title that would change the horror world forever. Taking from the original Universal's Frankenstein Monster, the slow moving and silent monster Michael Myers was born. (Harper) Carpenter used elements from classic horror movies such as // Frankenstein //, // The Thing from Another World // , and the Hammer Films. Things such as the simple creaking stairs were used to his advantage in creating a heavy, foreboding atmosphere. Using music during chase scenes and silence when in the house were used exceptionally well. (Harper) It made it so people would not know when or when not the killer was coming. Universal and Hammer once again had been the ones to build the structure of this classic horror movie. This movie would pave the path for the 1980's when the top two killers made their first appearances in the film industry.


 * Slasher Films in their Prime **

 Slasher films were never more popular than they were in the 1980's. In 1980 the first slasher film of the decade was released. Our magnum opus for the slasher movies in the eighties was none other than //Friday the 13th.// (Normanton) This movie perfected the formula for the slasher mix, with tons of blood and gore. This perfection of movie violence would influence action movies and other horror movies in the future. The villain was hard to figure out until the end, and remains the only slasher film not to star it's primary killer in a franchise. Using the elements of Halloween, we had a movie where the main characters were secluded off and would be picked off one by one. Thus, the slasher films would be produced like an undying menace throughout the 1980's. (Harper) Almost every year in the eighties there would be a new Jason film waiting audiences. Meanwhile, there was a certain man murdering out on Elm Street.

 //A Nightmare on Elm Street// became the second movie franchise to take the reigns of the slasher genre. Whereas Jason and Myers were silent, masked killers we were introduced to Freddy Krueger. He was a talkative and actually funny kind of character, if you subtracted the fact he was a killer. (Normanton) The movie made improvements on //Friday the 13th// by further secluding the main characters into dreams as opposed to an outdoor area where they might have had a chance to survive.

These movies are very much the most innovative when it comes to the movie industry in general. People could pretty much get away with anything in these movies. People who saw them wanted to see more, as it launched the idea of a long-running series of films. These are seen further in //Star Wars// or even simple trilogies like //Back to the Future// or //The Godfather// films.

People loved these kinds of mind-numbing movies. Movies today like //Identity Thief// are movies that have no inspiration and are made only to sell, yet people go out to see them. They make money and that's what the slasher genre started. The slasher film was built upon the structures set up by exploitation and Hammer. They were innovative for their time, however, these movies began to decline as conservative parents began to ban their children from such movies, solidifying a rating system in order to keep the young-ins out of R-rated movies, whether they be horror or not. In the 1990's the slasher film was no longer as prominent, but was still alive. Movies such as //Scream// and //I Know What You Did Last Summer// are just some of the few famous ones of the 90s. (Normanton) These movies are iconic in their own right, but they prove the innovation of early monster films by not only applying things such as creaking stairs and music/silence to create atmosphere, but turning monsters into real monsters: humans. Many movies take advantage of the human monster outside of horror, such as in //Terminator// or //Resident Evil//, where the villains are huge human corporations of the such. However, despite the fact that the 90's were pretty much the end of theater opened slasher movies one sub-type of slasher movie made it through though. A sub-genre that was killed by the over saturation of how many were made. The 2000's were overrun by an undead menace.

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