Jessica Robinson - Life Lessons from Slasher Films

Preface

I havent always been a horror fan. I used to watch them when I was little, but it was always from between my fingers. It wasnt until I was in college that I developed a genuine interest in the genre. My husband was the first to get me excited about slasher films. His birthday is on the thirteenth, and it occasionally falls on a Friday, so he had a vested interest in the Friday the 13th films. We watched them for enjoyment, and it wasnt until I began working on my thesis that I looked at them with a discerning eye. I have always enjoyed slasher films, and no matter how many times I see them, parts still make me jump. When I started reading articles written about Friday the 13th , I found that a lot of authors believed these films were misogynistic and reinforced the ideas of patriarchy. The two greatest champions for these notions are Carol Clover and Vera Dika, who claim that women are objectified and picked on in these films just because they are women. They argue that womens deaths are lingered on longer than mens and that they are killed more often. They explain the Final Girl as being nothing more than an incredibly masculine female. But by looking at these films through the lens of feminism, important social commentary is disregarded. It irritated me that these authors dismissed the films because of antifeminist ideals, which arent necessarily present. There were a few ideas Clover and Dika had that I agreed with. But mainly, their arguments made me want to figure out what these films were highlighting if it wasnt antiwomen sentiments.

This book is an extension of the work I did for my masters thesis. When I was trying to decide what to write, my first topic was to look at demons and their role in society. I wasnt quite sure which specific demons I wanted to look at, but I knew I wanted to do something with evil entities and their role throughout history. I was just getting into the genre of slasher films at the time, and my committee chair, Bob Torry, actually suggested that I write on the Friday the 13th films. I had seen them before, but I didnt really know what I was getting myself into.

Introduction

Slasher films are considered to be the bastard children of the horror film industry because of the content and techniques employed to make them. The original films rarely had a large budget to work with and were generally done by independent filmmakers. The violence in these movies was exceedingly graphic and has been readily picked apart and condemned by critics. Yet, despite all of these odds, the films have endured, and many of the originals were bought by large production companies because of the revenues they produced, and they have been remade within recent years to appeal to a whole new generation of moviegoers.

But what makes a slasher film?

In Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, 19781986 , Adam Rockoff outlined seven basic elements that the films must incorporate in one form or another to be classified as a slasher. These include

1. An evil entity inflicting tragic deaths upon the characters
2. The killers weapon of choicea sharp, penetrating object, such as a butcher knife or machete
3. Graphic special effects to shock viewers
4. An isolated setting or location in which the intended victims are hunted and slaughtered
5. A traumatic event that triggers the killers spree
6. A Final Girl who wages battle with the killer at the films climax
7. The use of the killers point of view

While not every slasher film features all of these elements, the majority of these can be found in most slasher films.

Every slasher film must have an evil entity inflicting tragic deaths upon the characters. Although the killer is usually a male, this is not always the case. In the very first Friday the 13th , the killer is a woman: Mrs. Voorhees, an upset mother who seeks revenge from the camp counselors who allowed her son, Jason, to drown (in the sequels, of course, Jason returns from the grave to inflict more carnage, taking up where his mother left off). The killer does not have to be indestructible, but in some way affected by a trauma, which becomes the motive for all of their murders. The killers are never depicted developing a plan for their murders, but kill with systematic precision, uncaring, emotionless and unmerciful (Rockoff 6). This, as Rockoff claims, classifies them as homicidal maniacs. They are usually more concerned with exacting revenge than they are with lingering on the victims agony. The murders are usually quick and painless.

Rockoff envisions most killers as epitomizing masculinity to ludicrous extremes (6), and he also classifies the killer in most films as being asexual. Despite the overt sexuality that occurs in these films, the killer never participates in, or is incapable of participating in such acts. The killer has moments of voyeurism, but these usually occur right before a murder. The killer feels no pleasure during these peeping episodes, only the need to kill those within his gaze.

Rockoffs second category for these films is the killers weapon of choice. As the label slasher film suggests, the victims are murdered with sharp, penetrating objects. Generally, a knife or machete is used, but objects such as spears, arrows, axes, or harpoons work just as well. Anything that pierces flesh is employed as a weapon. Occasionally, when such objects cannot be found, brute strength is used. These types of killings, unlike those in many action films that use guns, make the deaths much more personal for the audience and the killer. Both have to get close to the victim.