A week or so ago, on Friday the 13th, roughly 2 million Americans plunked down their money to see a movie that consists almost entirely of a masked, wordless psychopath with no discernible personality burying his machete in people’s heads. Two days later, Friday the 13th broke the record for the most money made by a horror film in its opening weekend. It’s a tally that comes into even more impressive focus when you consider that fewer people will likely see Milk, The Reader, or Frost/Nixon — three out of five of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture — in their entire domestic runs than saw Friday the 13th in just three days.
The new Friday the 13th has been billed as a “remake” of the original 1980 summer-camp gore-athon, as if the last three decades’ worth of retreads were all bold departures from the faster-psychopath-kill!-kill! formula. Throw in the Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels, the Freddy and Pinhead movies, and all the anonymous grimy knockoffs of those series that have clogged megaplexes, pay-cable channels, and video-store shelves, and it’s no exaggeration to say that hundreds upon thousands of blood slashings have fed the entertainment maw of several generations of moviegoers.
Like comedy, terror depends on surprise. But there is, by design, an almost rigorous lack of surprise, a been-there-gouged-that sameness, to virtually every one of these films. With no more mystery than a fast-food burger (and about as much ketchup), slasher films have become so repetitive that they now do little more than create, and quench, a Big Mac Attack of ersatz terror.
How did we get here? It all began with one film, and with one mythical sequence of bloody murder — the shower scene in Psycho (1960), which slashed a violent line not just through Hollywood, but through 20th-century consciousness. By killing off the main character of a thriller midway through, and by doing it with such out-of-nowhere shrieking madness, Alfred Hitchcock said that the rules of fate no longer applied — that not even God would be there to protect his heroine, or (by extension) you.
Every murder in every slasher film is, in essence, a restaging of the Psycho shower scene, a stab at reviving its indelible insanity. The single greatest horror movie since, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), was literally structured as a remake of Psycho,
only in this case Norman Bates, now morphed into Leatherface, disguised
himself not in his mother’s clothes but in a mask of human skin. Chainsaw,
with its merging of primitive rage and power-tool technology, was a
poem of grind-house dread for the post-counterculture era. And, like Psycho, it has cast its shadow over horror films ever since. In 1978, Halloween was hailed as a new “classic,” but it was really just Chainsaw
reduced to a grimly mechanized formula. When the body of Michael Myers
– a Leatherface with less craziness but a user-friendly backstory –
vanished at the end, the junkiness of the genre was sealed: His
disappearance made no sense at all (it was a bogus corporate plot
twist, driven only by the need for sequels). But from that point on anything,
regardless of how arbitrary, could happen in a slasher film. All that
mattered was that the movie put a new spin on that eternal
knife-slashing moment.
By trotting out Jason Voorhees in his goalie mask, along with all
those bone-severing splatterific killings that arrive like the money
shots in porn, the Friday the 13th series did to Halloween what Halloween did to Chainsaw, reducing the genre to garishly predictable, patterned, market-tested ritual. By the time the Nightmare on Elm Street
franchise was launched, in 1984, slasher movies had become surreal
comedies of gore, with Freddy Krueger emerging as the ringmaster of
mayhem. Yet the repetition of it all had a telling effect: The killers,
in their very familiarity, had ceased to be “the other.” They were now,
in essence, the heroes, with horror fans invited to root for the
slaughter. And that explicit sadism — the audience as ringmaster of mayhem — is what paved the way for the Saw and Hostel series, with their gleeful torture games. It’s hardly an accident that the trash-calorie horror of Friday the 13th, a movie that pretends to be dangerous, even cool, now comes off as safe. The film wants us to have our fear and eat it, too.
Every murder in every slasher film is, in essence, a restaging of the Psycho shower scene, a stab at reviving its indelible insanity. The single greatest horror movie since, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), was literally structured as a remake of Psycho,only in this case Norman Bates, now morphed into Leatherface, disguisedhimself not in his mother’s clothes but in a mask of human skin. Chainsaw,with its merging of primitive rage and power-tool technology, was apoem of grind-house dread for the post-counterculture era. And, like Psycho, it has cast its shadow over horror films ever since. In 1978, Halloween was hailed as a new “classic,” but it was really just Chainsawreduced to a grimly mechanized formula. When the body of Michael Myers– a Leatherface with less craziness but a user-friendly backstory –vanished at the end, the junkiness of the genre was sealed: Hisdisappearance made no sense at all (it was a bogus corporate plottwist, driven only by the need for sequels). But from that point on anything,regardless of how arbitrary, could happen in a slasher film. All thatmattered was that the movie put a new spin on that eternalknife-slashing moment.
By trotting out Jason Voorhees in his goalie mask, along with allthose bone-severing splatterific killings that arrive like the moneyshots in porn, the Friday the 13th series did to Halloween what Halloween did to Chainsaw, reducing the genre to garishly predictable, patterned, market-tested ritual. By the time the Nightmare on Elm Streetfranchise was launched, in 1984, slasher movies had become surrealcomedies of gore, with Freddy Krueger emerging as the ringmaster ofmayhem. Yet the repetition of it all had a telling effect: The killers,in their very familiarity, had ceased to be “the other.” They were now,in essence, the heroes, with horror fans invited to root for theslaughter. And that explicit sadism — the audience as ringmaster of mayhem — is what paved the way for the Saw and Hostel series, with their gleeful torture games. It’s hardly an accident that the trash-calorie horror of Friday the 13th, a movie that pretends to be dangerous, even cool, now comes off as safe. The film wants us to have our fear and eat it, too.
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Hi,
I just wanted to say that I think you write very well. You may already know this, due to the fact that you are working for a huge magazine but I felt it needed to be said. Good job.
This article is nothing more than a thinly-veiled rant about how upset the writer is that the slasher genre simply will not die (as evidenced by the great box office for Ft13th), and that there are many who would prefer to see slashers over the things that EW tells you to like instead.
Also, a very uninformed rant – for the record, “Halloween”, like most of the original slashers was an INDEPENDENT FILM – there was no corporation that expected sequels, the thing cost 200K you hack! The decision to have Michael Myers disappear was John Carpenter’s, and he never expected the film to have a sequel or do as well as it did, he just thought that it was creepy to think that Michael was still loose, and nothing else.
Sorry, the Slasher is here to stay, and while Friday is sure to have a huge drop after it’s big opening weekend, it will still easily make $80 million, and be one of the most successful horror films ever!
Look at what this writer is really trying to say here – he is saying that HE knows how to watch movies, and HE knows what is good and bad – but not those OTHER people, those scuzzy people that still go and see this slashers despite what I tell them to do! Why won’t they listen to me?! Sad and pathetic.
The simple fact is this “Owen”, if you do not like slashers then do not go and see them. No one is forcing you to go to them, so see all the Shakespeare in Love, Frost/Nixon, Milk and other films that you like, but NEVER presume to tell the slasher audience what is good for them, because they will keep going to see them out of affection for the Genre, while critics like you continue to waste your efforts railing against the Genre.
And for the record, I am a student of history and a gay man, can speak German fluently, and probably know a lot more about Harvey Milk, American History, World History, etc. than you could ever hope to, AND I STILL LOVE SLASHERS!
Uh, Owen – do some research next time – ever hear of a movie called “Twitch of the Death Nerve”? That film is the basis of the modern slasher, and nothing else. And the original Halloween is a far superior movie than the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sigh.
part of my personal affection for this genre is the fact that it creates articles like this one lol.
well this isn’t really news, is it? Scream pretty much blew the formulas and conventions of slasher movies wide open. and used them again. it’s all in suspenseful, gory, semi-cheesy fun. i think i even love typical slasher movies BECAUSE of their familiarity.
I can get on board with the general theme of your critique, our horror genre is a been-there done-that joke of it’s self. We should be hanging on the edge of seats desperately wanting cover our eyes in anticipation of getting scared, but we don’t anymore. And not just because alot of are all grown up and too old to do so, but because anticipation has become knowledge. We know exactly what’s going to happen.
Now, having said all this, I have to respectfully disagree on your critique of Halloween. It was a new classic, and the twist, though setting up a franchise, was what scares us the most. Michael Myers is after all the boogyman and you can not kill the boogyman.
Why do critics despise the horror genre so much? I love all kinds of movies, drama, romance, independent, and especially horror. I do not understand why it is such a shock that this movie has done so well. People enjoy mindless entertainent.
Especially when you incorporate violence, gore, naked chicks, and Jason Voorhees. I am going to see it this weekend. Rock on Horror Movies!! Critics only seem to like movies that are destined to win Oscars, why?
Owen Gleiberman… i think you are waisting AIR of this planet. Get a gun and take your own life… just shootya brains, will ya?
I thought this EDITORIAL was well worth my time and was pleased to read it. Thank you.
I love how everyone here feels the need to dog-pile OG. Don’t you see what he is saying? He has such a great affection for the horror genre (Psycho is on his top ten best list of all time!) that he wants the genre to stop retreading material and send us something truly frightening. No where once does he say that he doesn’t like the horror genre. Don’t be an idiot. I agree with him completely. The Strangers was a great example of something that could have been derivative (ie the first forty minutes), but just turned into every other horror movie ever (ie the last forty minutes).
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I would still like to watch this movie anyways
Really? Are you serious? I mean, I understand the complaints about the glut of modern day horror remakes that wallow in gore without even trying to be scary. But slamming “Halloween” as a crappy retread of “Texas Chainsaw” is an overly simple and unfair assessment of both films, and makes it pretty clear that you are not very knowledgeable about the genre you’re assessing. Go to Roger Ebert’s website and read his original review of “Halloween” and maybe you’ll gain some sorely needed insight. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you give good reviews to both the “Hostel” films in this very magazine?
A worthwhile subject for an article, Mr. Gleiberman, but I wonder if your conclusions are correct.
To begin, you imply that Psycho is the progenitor to the slasher film, and there is merit in that theory, but when you consider that it took another fourteen years for that one slashing to mold itself into anything resembling a formula (Texas Chainsaw in your eyes, Black Christmas from my perspective), it seems that few people were consciously aping Psycho. Therefore, it’s more likely that the mid-to-late seventies rush of genre exploitation, which culminated with Halloween’s box-office domination, was the true source of the slasher formula.
Additionally, it seems too reductive to call Halloween a “grimly mechanized formula.” When you consider the film’s absence of gore, the grace of the camera, and the fact that most of the violence is relegated to the final act, it’s clear that the slasher retained little of Halloween’s carefully calibrated elegance…
…also, the “bogus corporate plot twist” is the logical conclusion of a story that’s building its main villain from sociopath into legend. Remember: the doctor, failing to describe Myers in traditional terms, calls him “evil…absolute evil.”
By the way, the slasher film (and by proxy, the horror film) went dormant for six or seven years in America, between 1989 and 1996, so the link to modern gore-fests like Saw and Hostel seems tenuous. More likely, these modern “gore-nography” films are an American response to the genre-busting directors of Asia (specifically, Miike Tikashi and Park Chan-Wook). This is made pretty explicit when Miike even cameos in Hostel.
One last note: why not conclude this article by praising the horror films that are not getting the audience that Friday the 13th received? Recent imports like The Orphanage, The Host, and Let the Right One In, which ennoble the genre. Or great modern horror directors, like Brad Anderson, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Neil Marshall
These horror movies are for idiots.
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The slashers of today are in many ways the offspring of the classic Universal Studios monsters of the 1930’s and 40’s. Instead of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman we get Michael, Freddy and Jason. They even seem to be following the same formula with crossovers(Freddy vs. Jason) and remakes. I wonder how long before we get “Ferrell and Stiller meet Freddy” ?
Owen has shown himself to be a good writer with this piece but a poor journalist. He should have done more research on Halloween. John Carpenter has made it clear repeatedly that he had no plans for a sequel as he was making Halloween. How could he have? He was making a small, independent film and he had no idea it was going to be a huge financial hit. Also, I have no idea how he could leave out Black Christmas in his analysis. That film came out after Chainsaw and is a slasher film that influenced Halloween in several ways (being set around a holiday, a killer whose motivations we don’t know and whose POV we see repeatedly as he dispatches female victims, a dark ending where the killer is shown to be still alive, etc.). You could make the argument that it’s Christmas, not Halloween, which has been responsible for all of the slasher films we’ve gotten since the 70s.
I agree!
Just to add a little more to my post, it’s ridiculous to call the ending to Halloween a “corporate plot twist”. There was nothing at all “corporate” about Halloween. It was guerilla filmmaking on every level (the friends of John Carpenter and Debra Hill even provided the “catering” for the cast and crew).
While I disagree with some of the comments in this editorial,(mostly those made about the original Halloween), I do believe that the writer does hit on one very important truth. Horror always works best when it surprises. Killing the “star” of Psycho early on. You are not safe in the funnest of places (the shark at your beach in Jaws). These zombies run (Dawn of The Dead remake, 28 Days Later). The “villain” may now be one of your friends (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing). Too many horror films try to carbon copy the formula of previously successful films. The problem is that now in the copies, the element of surprise no longer can exist. We need more innovative writers to turn this genre on it’s ear and again catch us off-guard, do the unexpected, trap us in the moment and return us to the fantastic fear and dread we miss so dearly.
Owen, I am on-board with you for almost everything you’ve said regarding horror movies. I do disagree with your assessment of the ending of Halloween. I don’t think it was a cooperate decision. Regardless of whether it was planned or not, it has now become a de facto ending to all horror movies, which is very much a cooperate
decision.
I also believe that American movies have turned horror in the cinematic equivalent of Big Macs. For the most part, they are teen junk food and nothing more. For truly transgressive horror movies you have to look to Europe with films such as ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Inside’, ‘Cache’, ‘Haute Tension’, ‘Martyrs’ to name a few…
First of all, are you a horror movie fan. Then you would know that horror is alive and well. The french have Inside,Them, and Haute Tension. Spain has Rec, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labrynth. Japan has Audition, Cure and Happiness of the Kitakuras. Korea has The host, The Isle, and a Tale of Two sisters. Britain has The Descent, Dog Soldiers, and Donkey Punch. The Mist, Midnight Meat Train, Shaun of the Dead, 28 days later, Land of the Dead, Let the Right One In, The Ring, The Blair Witch Project,The Sixth Sense, the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Session 9, Doppleganger,Bubba Ho Tep, American Psycho, Cube, sometimes David Lynch is considered horror. So Many great films.
Great essay, Owen. I really enjoyed it.
While I do agree that horror works best when suspense takes center stage, there is nothing wrong with going to see and loving a slasher picture. I love the $50 steak that is Frost/Nixon, but I also love the $1.50 hot dog that is Friday the 13th part 6. The reason being, I know what I’m in for and I enjoy mindless slasher goodness.
The comment about Halloween bowing to The Man with Michael’s disappearance is irresponsible. Anyone who has seen Carpenter’s films knows that he never goes the easy route and ties everything up in a nice package (The Thing, The Fog, etc.) Halloween was always meant to be a small-budgeted shocker. Sequel talk did not happen until the profits started rolling in.
Furthermore, I agree wholeheartedly that Psycho showed the first signs of the slasher genre, but Black Christmas fulfilled that promise to the full (and note-perfect) extent.
Well, it’s awards season, time for critics everywhere to wash themselves in the glory of Oscar contenders and dismiss horror movies as derivative trash. Sure, horror movies are cheap to pump out and Hollywood is often a copycat town, but the good ones offer us an opportunity to explore our fears and escape from the real horrors of political wrangling and economic woes. Slasher films in particular offer us an opportunity to take sides in issues of morality, choice, revenge etc. We can put a face on our true fears in the safety of a theater or living room. Most cultures throughout history have traditions of horror storytelling, whether orally or on the written page. These stories are ‘trash calorie’ dense and formulaic in nature because they hit the right notes in our psyche and affect us in a way that many times we cannot explain. It’s as cathartic as one of the Bard’s best tragedies. Oh and by the way, they are fun.
I have enough to worry about keeping my clients on an even keel while they watch their retirement funds dwindle because of the real monsters of this world. So forgive me when I clap as the rich, pompous punk who treats everyone around him like worms screams like a little girl when Jason drops a body on the hood of the car.
Owen, you’re right — horror movies nowadays (at least the ones made in the U.S.) aren’t that good. But you need to get over “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Outside of the scene with the poor victim at the dinner table with the dessicated father and the last ten minutes or so, that movie isn’t very good. I know it’s a “classic” and I’m sure it scared the hell out of people back in the day, but if you watch it now it’s sloppy, slow-moving and the acting is terrible. There’s nothing frightening about that movie besides the ridiculous script and lousy acting.