History of Slasher

A ' slasher ' is a sub-genre that originated from horror. They are similar to Horrors but they typically involve more graphical violence and gore. For instance not many slashers will have a clean kill involving a gun, they will have more gory kills including weapons like knifes, axes, chainsaws and many others that do not offer a quick easy death. Slasher movies have been around since the 1930's and you could say that ' Thirteen Women ' ( 1932 ) was the first ever slasher movie.

Halloween was a very successful slasher movie that was made in 1978 and directed by ' John Carpenter '. The film was seen as an inspiration and was said to have revived the genre of horror. This was surprising as the film had a very small budget and it was only supposed to be shown for a few weeks. Halloween was the most successful independent horror film of all time and as a result of this many sequels have been made of it. Considering the fact that there was no advertising campaign, Halloween did very well and has seriously written its name down in history. One thing that made Halloween so successful is the sense of reality in it, because the ' monster ' never showed his face, this really scared the audience as they dont know if there could be someone that they know like that. The concept of the movie was inspired by Hitchcock's ' Psycho' were the monster in the movie looked normal but was deeply disturbed inside.

Another of the most famous slashers of all time is ' Friday the 13th ' which was directed by Sean Cunningham in 1980, Friday the 13th is one of many classic slasher movies that have a plot that involves some sort of 'idiotic teenager '. The movie was a great success and this came as a surprise to many. There were also 11 sequels made and it became one of the biggest franchises of all time. The special effects used in this film were one of a kind and this was due to Tom Savini's work, he was the special effects and makeup artist for this movie and it is him we can thank for the memorable 'over the top' violence and images. Savini was always trying to improve his skills and for this he is known for pushing the boundaries of slashers. 'Friday the 13th' was also known for having a 'suckerpunch' ending, This is because at the end of the movie, jason jumps out of the water and kills a woman.

The next movie that i am going to talk about is 'Scream'. Scream was made in 1996 and it was an american slasher that was directed by Wes Craven. Scream was a very successful slasher and it followed the typical conventions of a modern day slasher. In scream, there are almost rules that have been passed down from slasher to slasher. Rule number one, dont say your going to be back and wonder of on your own, your going to die. Dont have sex because you will also die and it is always the innocent virgin that lives. These 'rules' have been passed down from slasher to slasher and they are still very noticeable in slashers made today. The bad guy in this movie was 'ghostface' his mask is now a very popular sight around Halloween time as he has made such an impact in the industry that he has become one of the scariest bad guys of all time. One of the most scariest things about this movie is that the killer does not just kill randomly, he choses somebody and toys with them before they die. Before the killer kills his victim, he calls them on their phone, when they pick up he asks them what their favorite horror movie is, when they answer he asks them question about it and if they answer incorrectly, they lose their life. This was one of the firs movies with this type of psychological effect and as you can imagine, this scared teenagers around the world because of the realism that this could happen to them. Three sequels have been made of scream and parodies have been made too. both slashers and parodies of slashers have become allot more popular since.

The texas chainsaw massacre was based on a real life killer, Ed Gein. Leatherface, the bad guy in the movie, scared everybody all around the world simply because of how disturbed he was. He was known for digging up corpses from graveyards and using their body parts to make furniture and to make items of clothing. The memorable mask made of another humans face was scary enough for most teenagers. This movie also did so well because it had already been advertised due to everybody already knowing about Ed Gein and what he had done.

A nightmare on elm street was made in 1984 and was directed by Wes Craven. This movie was considered very scary because the bad guy would not only kill his victims, but he would stalk them before to see if he wanted to kill them, this was considered very scary because it brought to light the possibility of stalking and showed how easy it would be. This movie was based on one of Wes's own memories, the idea came about when Wes was a child and he said that a man was standing outside his window staring at him for ages