Slashers
 

What are your thoughts on these flicks. Love 'em? Hate 'em? Bit of both maybe? I'm just writing a article on them and wanna get a picture of what the majority of horror fans think of them.

Love 'em.

I love slashers, but not on a technical scale. They're ENTERTAINING, and sometimes I think folks lose track of what's important. Nowadays people want 'realistic' or 'smart' movies. Great. They're good. But when I just want to sit down and be entertained, what's better than a mindless flick from the Friday the 13th series or something? Nothin'.

Hope that's the kind of input you were looking for EC. Good luck with the article.

Re: Slashers
 

If done well I love 'em(if their campy and corny I still love 'em)and to me thier the first thing that comes to mind when I think horror...zombies a close second.

...I love the formula....but I like to see more hardcore serious slashers...not just the dumb teen slashers...but I like them too....

i think most people know how i think ..

i grew up on them and learned to hate them..
specifically 1980s american slashers.
cookie cutter 'plot', poor acting from minor soap opera
'stars', shit music, dark, impossible to see anything cinematography, total lack of imagination and creativity.


i still dig a lot of the giallo/slashers, and the one or 2 outstanding ones (halloween, black christmas) but i think that for the most part the slasher movie cost the horror genre a lot of respectability... (combined with the home video explosion of the 80's)

No horror genre has fallen victim to the post-modernist clever movement more than the slasher, so this is a rapidly failing theme to provide any real scares or innovation.

Who's seen Kolobos, and remembers the great face-denting-against-the-corner-of-the-bath scene?

i know you hate the Scream, etc films .. but you honestly dont thing there's far more bad than good slashers in the 80's ?
there were a couple that were ok .. had good gore and/or featured other redeeming qualities ...but there were scads of impotent sub par shit that by far tipped the scale on the negative side ..

oh... by the way ...
i didnt participate in that 'who's the asshole' game on the weekend ..

(i cant be the only person who doesnt use caps :D )

Probably... but at least those bad films were down to plain incompetence rather than blowing a load of cash on some interchangeable pretty boy victims and using smarmy self-awareness as a main selling point.

The jagged brutality of some Italian and American low-budget efforts (ripoffs, whatever) often made up for lapses in plot and performances, and I'd rather risk a duff oldie than the latest Kevin Williamson and the like.

And that's OK, ThomasGeorge doesn't use caps either... oh no wait, that's soap.


:D

hey, just out of curiosity - if Scream hadnt spawned a bunch of samey 'self aware' like films ... would you have liked it more if it just stood alone as a fun horror parody made for oldschool slasher film fans ?

I remember catching it accidently at a (non-horror fan) friend's house, and being quite intrigued... yet unmistakebly irritated.

Sure, I'd seen that kind of thing before (The Howling, TCM4) but Scream seemed to trumpet a new kind of smug post-modernism - one that would appeal to the average teenybopper keen to be in-the-know. This was gonna sell, and bound to catch on.

As a purist, this would of course never do :)

The double-killer thing is fine, the action is quite tense in places, the deaths sometimes gory (in the uncut version), the underlying awareness is desperately pandering and rings like tin.

Scary Movie series... now that's how to do it - it's the area between horror and parody I have a problem with.

Unfortunately, the slasher is probably the one sub-genre of horror most likely to fall prey to derivative plots and stupid self-awareness. I really do like giallo films, and some of the early American slashers, but there's far more bad slasher films than good ones, in my opinion.

Scream and Halloween are IMO the best slashers.

I wouldnt go so far as to say that I hate slashers perse, but Im not really much of a fan. Sure, many of them are somewhat entertaining, but that can only last for so long. Im not a Friday the 13th fan in the leat, Ive seen the first 2 and I dont really plan on watching the rest...the first one was stupid, and the second was worse. Though I cant say it was a bad film, Halloween is very overrated in my opinion. So what if it was what made the genre popular/one of the first? Sure, it had some creepy moments, such as the bedroom scene, and Loomis was a great character, but otherwise it was just your typical slasher flick that's been cloned 50 million times. Though many will say it's not a slasher, I did really like the first Nightmare on Elm Street. I havent bothered with the sequels yet, but the first one had such an original, scary plot plus it introduced one of the all-time great horror icons while he was still in his glory...I loved it.

I think NOES is more just plain horror, than slasher IMO.

Thats what alot of people think, but it's a slasher by my definition.

It was sorta 50/50 I guess.. Great gore for 1984

The Prowler, The Burning (raft sequence is a pure classic), The New York Ripper and Nightmares in a Damaged Brain are all top horror movies.

But there is and always has been a lot of dross in the slasher category, by nature of repetition and contempt - so many different kinds of bogeymen can only creep around so many different settings (and the victims are of course always irrelevant).

I haven't been able to track down Nightmares in a Damaged Brain over here. One of the flicks that dissappeared during the whole Video Nastiness era. The Prowler, The Burning and The New York Ripper are up there in my favorites.

Cheers guys this is helping me a lot I'm chugging away at this article and this has jogged my memory on a couple of thing. Keep it comming :)

It's been released in the UK several times now, but each one cut by the BBFC (even the old pre-VRA).

My full version is Dutch, and has to be said is one of the first truly ugly films I had ever seen.

From the grim scene in the peep show, through the pick-in-the-back to the disturbing (and oft repeated) dream sequence, NDB is true horror and if there ever was a "video nasty"... this is it.

Damn that sounds really cool. I dare you to make me a copy :)

I dig the vouyeristic side to these films. Some of them have a snuff like quality where you feel like the witness to a random violent crime. This is where the amatuer cinematography/acting becomes a effective asthetic of these films. Definatley the most exploitative of all the subgenres of horror.

ten character minimum...

these are the ones I'm talking about ... heavy hitters..
the ones that actually considered making people feel dread.
All of the ones mentioned were theatrical releases as well.


thats what i'm talking about .. the list is too long to mention. same old thing over and over again ....

they even stopped bothering with inventive kills ...

what the hell, people will rent it anyway.

I like slashers but it's so hard to find the good ones when they're submerged so deeply in a sea of mediocre films and utter garbage. Most are fun to watch for the gory and sometimes clever kills and I can even get into some of the lesser quality ones (although I love campy B slashers). I think the last couple of good slashers I watched were Pieces (ok so this one is ok, maybe not good), Canydman, and Maniac. I also think it depends on what you consider a slasher, I'd consider American Psycho slasher at least in part.

Yes, particularly the 70s and 80s European stuff - far more disturbing that with today's glossy photography and hyper-kinetic, blink-and-you'll-miss-it editing.

Take The New York Ripper for example: the mystery killer lurches forward with his knife... cut to skin-puncturing... cut to hysterial reaction of victim... cut back to knife being withdrawn, where it's as if the killer deliberately moves out of the way so we the viewer can get right in there for a good look at the carnage.

This might sound a bit sick (psychologists could have a field day with the slasher fan), but it really delivers the goods.

Yeah, New York Ripper is a pretty good one. Basically I look for a few things in slasher movies.... well, any movie actually.

#1. Plot (has to be somewhat palatable, instead of aimlessly aiming the camera at nothing in particular and pointless dialog)

#2. Scares (either inventive or the tried-but-true-cliche style)

#3. Atmosphere (dark, gloomy and creepy tones with good 'horror music', not that shitty hip-hop, disco, or popular sound tracks with so many modern horrors)

#4. Gore (if weak/low on 1 through 3 or the complete lack of, massive amounts of vomit-inducing, head pounding splatter)

I don't understand why people dislike Scream sometimes, could someone just elaborate?

I really enjoyed Scream, but in my opinion it's only major flaw was it's attitude. The whole self-referential thing got pretty damn annoying FAST. It went way overboard in places...a good example being the Freddy-styled janior, just Craven at his most bloated.

I love Nightmare In A Damaged Brain, The Intruder, The Burning, The Prowler and of course the wonderful New York Ripper - these are all classics in my opinion.

I though find it hard not to like most horror movies (they have to be insanely bad for me to turn off/not watch again eg. Ghost Lake). I adore the Friday 13th Series, Halloween and NOES.

Scream I thought was excellent...

As for bad or should I say terrible slashers...well how about Camp Blood or the Friday 13th rip off Scream Bloody Murder - these two have to be two of the worst ever slashers.

But for me, slashers are great popcorn movies, sometimes I just wanna see some gorey deaths without having to think too deeply about it. I must also add that whenever I do a film night easily the most requested films tend to be the Slashers. they are just great fun when ya have friends around and you want to take bets on the first to 'get it'.

Actually, Posher, I've been meaning to open a thread on this. I figured you'd be a good participant. I'm just the opposite; I'm not sure why some people praise it so highly. This is, however, EC's thread, and I'll answer his question and save the debates for later.


I've always liked slashers. I appreciate most of them for different reasons: creative kills, campiness, good mystery or brutality to name a few.

I'm a big fan of Argento Slashers. I'm a huge fan of Sleepless. There are some kills in that movie that just make me cringe, not to mention a decent mystery as to 'who done it?'

New York Ripper, as mentioned above, is another great one. I've also a great appreciation for F13, Halloween & the like. I do, generally, prefer my slasher movies to be non-supernatural. The occasional Jason-type makes them fun, however, simply because they can just come out of anywhere with no explanation.

I consider the slasher to be one of the purest forms of horror. They're also the least likely to be a CGI-shitfest nowadays.

Where to begin. Scream is amazing because.....

-Neve Campbell
-Amazing acting, especially by most slasher standards.
-Great plot/storyline
-originality
-Slightly scary (not like, nightmare or something), but laced with humor.
-Fun and easy to watch, in just about any mood.
-Great blood/gore, and kills(even though mostly just stabbings) They looked realistic.
-Neve Campbell
-Hilarious
-The hero didn't act like a slutbag like many horror heros.

What's so great about Neve Campbell? I'm just wondering why you think this, because I don't really see it.

I assume you've seen "When Will I Be Loved"?

If not you may want to check it out.;)