Slasher movies and body horror/Gore in the 80s and their

descent into post-modern parody

Jack Taylor, Chloe Wilks and Kiona Fuller

Origins of the Slasher genre:

The genre of Slasher was introduced in the late 19th Century in "Le Théâtre du Grand Guignol" plays. These featured many of the well known horror conventions seen in today’s horror movies e.g. torture, early gore special effects and murder. These sort of plays were extremely popular for years up until 1945 when cinematic violence in films became more graphic and widespread.

And thus, the Slasher genre was born!

Disclaimer: Do not even ask how Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers made Jason Voorhees. This is just

a theory.

Early Slasher:

One of the earliest examples of Slasher movies is ‘Thirteen Women’ (1932). Despite first being described as a psychological thriller, it still falls under the Slasher sub-genre by today’s standards. It tells the story of a sorority house who are killed one at a time by a college student they once bullied. The films features many plot devices which would be used in future Slasher movies. For example: Crossing out yearbook photos of the deceased (‘Prom Night’ 1980) and the climax taking place on a train (‘Terror Train’ 1980).

Hitchcock, Carpenter and Craven:

A classic example of an early Slasher movie is Alfred Hitchcock’s classic ‘Psycho’ . At first, when Hitchcock decided to create a film adaption of Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, he was unable to receive funding from Hollywood Studios. This was due to claims that the content seen throughout the film would not be acceptable with audiences e.g. transvestism, murder, and multiple-personality disorder.

Hitchcock, Carpenter and Craven:

In fact, this proved true after its release in 1960. The audience was shocked and sent into hysterics at the sight of the various murders which took place, especially the infamous “shower scene” which would become an inspiration for other horror films that would be released later on. Due to her mother’s role as Marion Crane in ‘Psycho’, actress Jamie Lee Curtis was specifically cast by John Carpenter as the lead heroine in his cult classic ‘Halloween’. And Wes Craven drew inspiration from the “shower scene” by killing off the lead cast member when directing ‘Scream’ e.g. Drew Barrymore.

Decline, Reboots and Remakes:In 2002, the Slasher genre was almost extinguished due to low budgets for movies and subject matter diversifying. However, with the 2003 remake of ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, the Slasher genre was thrown back into existence, bringing to light a new variety of modern Slasher movies (‘The Strangers’, ‘The Descent’ and ‘Creep’) and remakes of popular horror franchises (‘Curse of Chucky’ and ‘Scream 4’. However, a few remakes ended up receiving extremely negative reviews due to the major differences between the remake and the original source material.

Where are they now?In today’s culture, the best of the Slasher genre usually appears on television shows. Not only that, but Alfred’s Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ was the source material for a prequel series entitled ‘Bates Motel’, detailing the life of Norman Bates and what lead him to becoming the main antagonist of Hitchcock’s classic movie. And other classic Slashers have provided inspiration for such critically acclaimed serials such as ‘Dexter’, ‘True Blood’, ‘American Horror Story’ and even the upcoming series based on the well-known horror ‘Friday the 13th’.

THE END