The 'Slasher' sub-genre.‘Slasher’ is a term used in the horror film industry and is a sub-genre of horror. Slasher films usually involve a psychopathic stalking and killing their victims in a disturbing way, often using weapons such as axes and chainsaws, knives, blades and cleavers. One thing you will hardly see in a slasher film is the use of guns by the killer.
Although many may categorise horror films which have blood in them as slasher, slasher usually had a main character and has its own set of characteristics in which makes it different.
The slasher industry was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ (1960) in which the killer stalked his victims and killed then in brutal ways. Although this film started the slasher sub-genre, the killer only killed 2 of its victims. What made it notorious and a good film was the fact that the story was well done and revolved around a more complex story line.
That film was followed up by ‘A Nightmare in Elm Street’ which proved to be a big hit and was remade in 2010.
New 2010 release poster.
Old poster for 'A Nightmare
on Elm-Street'
A lot of slasher films include senseless teenagers that engage in sex and drugs. They usually begin with the death of a young girl and then a particular group try to avoid death, then one by one, they all die until one, usually a girl, is left alive. Sometimes, the killer is found and “killed” or they have managed to escape, making the audience feel that that is the end of the killer, until the sequel to the film comes out and your find out that the killer did not die and is still out to kill more victims.
Also, a frequent storyline for slasher films is that the attackers taking revenge for something that has happened in their previous life.
Every slasher has a killer. He's usually male, and his identity is often concealed either by a mask or by creative lighting and camerawork. If his identity is known, for example, Michael Myers, he still tends to mask his face. This, combined with the fact that he's usually mute and seemingly unstoppable, unlike Freddy Kruger, in which he even sings twisted little children’s nursery rhymes, this heightens his threatening nature. His back story often includes a childhood trauma (atomic wedgies and the like) that turned him into the maniac he is today, creating a level of sympathy in the viewer.
The slashers sometimes only victimise people in which to teach them a lesson.
New 2010 release poster.
Old poster for 'A Nightmare
on Elm-Street'
A lot of slasher films include senseless teenagers that engage in sex and drugs. They usually begin with the death of a young girl and then a particular group try to avoid death, then one by one, they all die until one, usually a girl, is left alive. Sometimes, the killer is found and “killed” or they have managed to escape, making the audience feel that that is the end of the killer, until the sequel to the film comes out and your find out that the killer did not die and is still out to kill more victims.
Also, a frequent storyline for slasher films is that the attackers taking revenge for something that has happened in their previous life.
The slashers sometimes only victimise people in which to teach them a lesson.
There is also usually a back-story to how the killer got like that.
For example, when Freddy Kruger was a child, he was obsessed with killing insects and animals, but one day, he (accidently) killed 2 little girls. The people in the neighbourhood learned of this and thought as well as child killer, he was a paedophile. They stalked Freddy and carried out a man-hunt chasing him through the neighbourhood into an old run-down warehouse in which Freddy locked himself in. One of the fathers of the children in the area set a firebomb off and threw it through the window of the warehouse, burning Freddy and the warehouse down. The background information of the killer is not really ever shown in the movie.
Some slashers have been criticised for not ‘having a storyline’ and just killing everyone however and whenever they like.
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