Dissecting The Slasher Movie
The horrifying secret behind the mask
by Reed Berkowitz
Maximum Spoiler Alert: You will NEVER be able to watch a slasher movie the same way again after reading this.
The Deepest Cut
Some people like to keep it light. My guy, it’s a slasher movie. “It’s fun.” Analysis complete.
I get it, but I’m totally not that kind of person. When I like something, I like to go deep. I start digging and trying to figure it out. I’m desperate to get behind the curtain. Sometimes I come up with nothing, but not this time. Actually, I found something pretty cool and I’d like to share it with you.
Is it really possible to pry the mask off this genre and see what’s behind it?
If you want to come along for the ride, I think we should take stab at it.
Me as a little psycho
I was a little 11 yo slasher fan who grew up in the “Golden Age of Slashers”. I saw Jason and Freddy in the theaters and I had to sneak in, or convince older brothers, parents, and even strangers to smuggle me in because there was no VCR and I wasn’t old enough to buy a ticket.
I’m one of those horror fans that, as a kid, used to love to see people mangled and killed in horrifying ways by a supernatural killer that they really can’t do anything about.
It never bothered me. It made me feel better. I’m not generally violent in real life, however in the movies, watching one bloody death after another, I was in heaven. It spoke to me. But WHAT was speaking to me?
I knew it was weird, but also… those theaters were packed and my friends were often right beside me cringing and laughing hysterically. What the hell was wrong with us?!
I moved on, but the question did linger as I grew up. That question about why a shy 13 year old kid would risk getting in serious trouble, just to watch some older teens get their heads cut off! Was it just entertainment? Honestly, if it was, again, what the hell was wrong with all of us 😅
As I got older and started down the rabbit hole of analyzing why and how we engage in fiction, slashers were on the top of my list. Not necessarily because they were so formative, but because, they’re a perfectly compact little genre. A Goldi-locks genre. Not too big. Not too small. Just right and full of really interesting tropes.
At my company Curiouser, we have developed a unique method to figure out how to analyze what is useful about a genre and what it’s doing for people psychologically. And it works great for slasher movies.
Are you curious?
I’d like to invite you to a little cabin in the woods where all of your friends, representing the entire spectrum of social cliches in your age group, are gathered for no good reason. If we can’t figure out why we’re all here, we’ll probably split up and be murdered by an un-killable being stalking the woods outside also for no good reason. I can hear it slinking around outside the cabin. Is it getting closer?
I think we better get to it!
The Curiouser System
Here are are the rules. They might be a bit strange, but just go with it. I mean, if you don’t we’ll all probably die, so just give it a try please.
Fiction is important
Adults in America are watching just shy of 5 hours of tv a day.
That doesn’t even add in video games, books, etc. That’s almost as much as we work a week. There are only two ways to interpret this information. We’re entertaining ourselves to death, or it’s vitally important.
We go with the important route.
Sure, some entertainment is junk, just like some food is not nutritious, but we also couldn’t live without it.
We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t important. It FEELS important.
This simple belief is crucial to the rest of our inquiries. It’s going to feel weird to say out loud, but say it anyway. “Fiction matters.” Ok, now “Slasher movies matter.” They matter enough that billions of dollars are spent on them. Millions of hours are spent watching them.
Let’s say it one more time. “Slasher movies matter.”
Fiction is not about what is on the surface
Here is probably the most controversial part of our belief system. It’s hard to explain why. We can, but we have a killer outside, so we’ll have to make it brief.
I have some good news for you. Even though your parents binge watch murder mysteries, they’re not interested in becoming a serial killer. (Well, most of them?🔪) You’re not really obsessed with child wizards and zombies. These are symbols and tools to make us feel something. That’s really what it’s about. Sinking deep into our subconscious, like a dream. The images and situations make us feel the way we need to feel. Like as children we need people we love and trust to tell us we’re good and important to give us the confidence to face the challenges of our life, fiction is how we change ourselves. It’s about ego development and maintenance.
There is a hidden world beneath the symbols on the surface. And that’s what we have to reveal. That’s the key to analysis.
Here’s an example. When Darth Vader says to Luke Skywalker “I am your father.” I’m pretty sure half the kids in the audience were already using Darth as a stand in for their fathers subconsciously. The shocked faces! I’m also guessing that’s why it was one of the most satisfying kid-cine lines ever delivered. I mean, not every kid, but you can see how the structure of the story just leads to it being an easy stand-in.
Don’t believe it? I get it, but stick with it. I think I can convince you by the end of this article.
If not, I’ll probably get killed…
Fiction is a verb
People don’t “consume” fiction, they interact with it. They use it. They use it to create new psychological states inside them and deal with… stuff. Real and important things.
In our philosophy, a story is only half complete when the author finishes it. It matters much more how people use it than the intent of the author actually. People “do” fiction. Fiction is a scaffold upon which we can lay our psychological burdens.
So when we analyze fiction, what we’re looking for isn’t a simple answer that works for everyone. We’re looking for psychological shapes and patterns that people can use efficiently.
A romantic comedy is pretty obvious. It helps us navigate ideas and feelings related to relationships. It helps us laugh at our problems, persevere through adversity, and helps us feel better. Everyone has a different life, but we all have relationship problems which is why they are so popular!
I mean, you might watch a romantic comedy just because you’re depressed and it will cheer you up. Or because you love a specific actor. However the “general idea” of a romantic comedy is that they help us with relationships or the lack thereof.
That’s not weird right? We’re all on the same page here?
Now let’s take it one step further. It’s the same for a slasher movie.
It seems more obvious for a romantic comedy, because we have relationships. Or want them. But a slasher movie is no different than a romantic comedy. It must also address something specific in our emotional life. Something as real as our feelings about relationships. Now not a lot of us are serial killers, but remember our rule above? A movie is not exactly what it seems to be about. There is a mystery. Slasher movies are actually about something as immediate and mundane as relationships.
They just wear a mask.
Like a romantic comedy, people don’t necessarily ALL watch it for this reason, but I think you’ll agree it’s pretty good for dealing with…
What was that noise! Oh, probably just the wind. Whew… where was I?
Anyway, what we’re going to do is take a look at the slasher genre and try to figure out what the heck it’s meant for. Why is it so precise? Why is the formula so specific? It’s weird right?
No, it’s absolutely necessary and we’ll see why.
Describe It
It’s important to describe the genre in simple, easy, definitions. All the tropes. All the things that work and don’t work.
Here are the rules.
- It has to be a trope. It has to be what makes the genre recognizable. It has to be in “most” of the best most genre defining movies. If you can’t tell for sure, take a look at the parodies.
- Small things matter. If it has to be there, it goes on the list.
- Don’t defend the genre. Be impartial. Record it as it is.
- Check each trope and see if the movies that don’t do it are still successful. Are they successful in the same way, or does it change the vibe?
We’ll be describing the “classic” slasher we all know and love. There are many other varieties and attempts to twist it into something else. We’re talking the OGs here. The dense dark heart of the genre. Remember, the things people make parodies of. Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, etc. The kind of slasher movies that are already basically a dead genre. Tucked away safely in the 80's.
The tropes are very well defined and crystal (lake) clear.
Key Qualities
Adult behavior attracts death
If you engage in adult behaviors you die. Often in the order of how many adult behaviors you engage in. If you are a jock who has a girlfriend and a car and has regular sex, your days are numbered. You probably don’t even know there’s a killer at all. You are blissfully ignorant and you won’t be around long. “Adultness” is the number one predictor of how fast a character will be killed. All the way down to the virginal, innocent, protagonist. The “final girl” who is the only one to survive.
The killer is inescapable and/or indestructible
The killer is inevitable, over-powered, and usually supernatural. Nothing the characters do seems to kill it. Jason and Michael Myers are basically immortal. Freddy kills you IN YOUR DREAMS where he has complete control of “reality”. It doesn’t matter what you do. You die. Sometimes it’s not even a person at all (Final Destination for example). This is an interesting one. Literally Death is coming for you. Death! This is so strange right? A movie where we watch every single character get killed by an absolutely over-powered killing machine reaping everyone. What is the point of a supernaturally strong indestructible force? Wouldn’t it more more interesting if the killer was fragile, avoidable, stupid, weak? Made mistakes? If people escaped? No. The killer must be, and is, unavoidable at all costs. More on this.
There is a survivor
There is almost always one survivor. One virginal, traumatized, beaten, brave, survivor. Almost always a virginal, young girl, but not always. But someone must survive and often the least likely one will make it out alive.
It’s scary
Duh. But think about it. Why is it scary? It is. Why will millions of people go do something that terrorizes themselves. It’s important. It’s all important.
Secondary Qualities
There is a sense of humor
Yes, the humor is there. It’s gallows humor to be sure, but it’s there. The over the top deaths, the campy violence, and the in-jokes. There’s a child-like sense of play involved here. A gross out sensibility. A kid’s goofiness amid the splattering blood.
Sex
Come on. Do you have to get into this? There’s always some sexual tension in these movies. Yeah? I hesitate to put this in because it could just be the demographic, but it seems connected.
The friend group is diverse
Another weird one. Most of our HS friend groups were all clicks. It took a Saturday detention to get the Breakfast Club together. Every slasher movie has one of each click hanging out together. I think it’s worth noting.
They go one by one. Alone.
Each character gets highlighted. We see them separate, and then we see how they deal with their death, but no one else sees it. We see how they interact with the inevitable with their tools and their personality. And then we see them succumb anyway. (Maybe two at once if they’re a couple or similar.) The point is, it doesn’t happen to all of them all at once or usually in front of others (though sometimes).
The Killer Doesn’t Care
The killer doesn’t have any emotion, or much emotion. Michael and Jason aren’t angry, or sad, or crazy. They just are there to kill you. They’re almost always behind a mask. If you think about this, it’s very very weird. For instance, in a thriller, the villain is a character. The crazier they are, the more scary it is. But here, the killer is dispassionate, removed, even unseen. They are methodical, remorseless, and show no mercy. There are a few alterations here which is why I put it in the secondary traits. I’m thinking of Freddy’s maniacal taunting. But that’s really just to scare them more. His burnt face is very mask-like. His “emotions” are cartoonish. He likes scaring and killing kids. That’s pretty much his one note. And it’s pretty close to other exceptions.
Nothing like the creepy as hell Hannibal Lecter who’s personality dominates the movie. Or Jack Torrance in The Shining. Slashers are cyphers, sometimes only revealed at the end of the movie.
Demographics
Who watches Slasher movies? I don’t have great numbers on this, but it’s teens. I’d suspect younger than we’d think. Between 11 and early twenties, mostly clumped in the high school years. If I’m wrong, let me know in the comments.
Describe It Again
Let’s describe it again now with the tropes and definitions we’ve collected that can define the genre.
There is a group of teenagers representative of the microcosm of teenage clicks. Each person in the group is at a different stage of entering adult-hood. For no (good) reason, a supernatural, indestructible, inscrutable force is hunting them. The killer hunting them has very little emotion or motive. It can’t be stopped, even though sometimes they think it can. It will kill each of the teenagers separately in the order of how adult they are acting. It is scary, and they can’t get away from it. Some don’t even know its coming and seem determined to do nothing to save themselves. Other clearly see the danger and are desperate to get away from it. No matter what choices they make, death comes. One by one everyone disappears. Finally, the only person left is a single, innocent virginal character who, even though they are the least likely to escape, does. They escape, frightened, battered, and traumatized, but alive.
The killer comes back, mostly unchanged, in a sequel and it happens all over again to the next group of teens.
This is a story that is important especially for teenagers.
Now we can clearly see the slasher. It’s broken through the door and it’s standing there in all its campy horror. Are we going to run?
It’s probably a stupid move, but let’s try to rip its mask off instead!
Apply it to the real world.
So far this all might seem a bit ho-hum. “We know what a Slasher movie is.” But do we?
Here’s the magic trick. We need to tie it back to real life.
This is the hardest part in my opinion, but in this case it kind of leaps out a bit.
Let’s reverse the description. Let’s assume that the “feelings” of the movie are accurate and literally describe something very specific and very real that is a challenge or a desire of the target audience. Just like a romantic comedy. Even if it sounds crazy. Remember, the movie is just a metaphor. A sign pointing to signifier. A vibe. A feeling. Death isn’t death. Killers aren’t actual killers, but they map, psychologically to something important in the lives of the viewers. Of the fictioners.
Reverse description
There is something in a teenager’s life that is unknown, frightening, and coming for them. Something that affects every single kind of teen regardless of their social status or abilities. In fact, this “death” or whatever it represents, will happen to all of them and each will go through it as a personal experience.
You won’t see how it gets the other kids, but you will know it has happened to them somehow. They won’t be “with you”. You may discover some evidence they have been taken, but they are no longer in your world for sure.
It will “get” or affect kids in the order of their closeness to adulthood. The ones that are the closest to growing up will be the first, then down the chain to the last, most child-like individual. The thing that affects them is something they know very little about, but it’s relentless, unavoidable, will affect everyone, and has absolutely no compassion, or anger, or malice. It just takes you. One at a time. Until you’ve all been erased.
Only one child-like member will not be completely affected or “destroyed”.
Creeping up to the answer
Ok, now, does something jump out at us here? Can we think of something that might be stressful to teens? A big change? A change that could be represented as a death of sorts. Something that they might want to avoid, but can’t? Something they can already see happening to their friends especially their older, more advanced friends? Something that they know is going to happen to every one of them. Even them. No matter what they do? Something dispassionate and unchangeable?
Cabin in the Woods came sooooooo close.
They presented the slasher movie as a ritual sacrifice of youth to age to appease an ancient evil. Wow. Missed the landing by a hair.
Yes, a ritual sacrifice of youth to age, but come on! Do you think teenagers go to slasher movies because of some ancient trope of ritual killing? What the hell do adults get out of sacrificing teens. Kind of trying to do the opposite if I’m honest.
No there is only one sacrifice of youth to age that we care about, and that is ours.
Everyone must grow up, and a child must die to allow it to happen. Everyone must sacrifice their own childhood to create the adult they will become.
In a way, we’re the slasher. The adult we’ll be is behind that mask.
Imagine you’re 14, and some of your friends are getting jobs, girl/boyfriends are getting serious, they’re taking college exams. Maybe your older brother doesn’t have as much time for you and some of your friends are slowly “disappearing” over the horizon of adulthood where you too will go. Inevitably.
You will go kicking and screaming, or bravely fighting, or hiding. But you will go.
Adulthood is coming like an unstoppable force and you don’t really know what it’s going to be like. Will any part of you survive? Any of your humor, your love, your sensitivity, your innocence? Growing up doesn’t always look like a good thing. But whether you like it or not, you will leave this world. The kid you are now, will not survive intact.
If slashers were about virginal sacrifices of youth to age, the final girl should be the first to go, but she survives. She survives, and so does the villain always after her. Coming for her.
Why? Because something of our youth survives. Something precious. Something we know we have to fight for.
A witness from our past selves will survive the future adult coming for them.
As an adult, I get it. I have saved a part of my old self too. At great cost. Always threatened and beat up but still hiding and fighting to exist here in this adult world. Trying to figure it out so they can make it to the sequel, never safe.
We don’t just watch slasher movies because we have stress about growing up
It’s basically a stress dream about growing up.
Life is scary. The future is scary. Growing up is scary. I know I wouldn’t have admitted in a million years back then that I had, errr… some stress about growing up, but I did.
A slasher movie is a fun way to address something scary without having to admit we’re afraid. Instead, we can go to the movies, and be brave. Face it, giggle about it, and get used to the idea.
A lot of slasher movies are about the action, special effects, the inventive deaths, the chills and spills, and the black as night humor. Maybe just an excuse for a date. But whatever the reason, there’s no doubt that they are solidly placed in a young person’s world of anxiety about the coming of adulthood. Whatever the plot is, it takes place in a milieu of stress and uncertainty familiar to every teen.
Or it did.
I have a sad feeling that the reason the slasher movie is dying is because maybe kids are more afraid of being kids these days. Maybe the future seems like a way out instead of something to fear.
With school shootings, pandemics, global unrest, and uncertainty all around us, maybe the next wave of teen horror movies will be about an escape from terror to a hard to achieve safety. Maybe the unknown won’t be scary at all compared to the brutal present.
I don’t know.
But it’s scary to think about.
