Having A Slash

Visit and join our new Facebook page!

There's something about the slasher film that makes me think that they're written by the socially rejected. Look at the clichès of it and you'll find it generally involves obnoxious teenaged dicks enjoying parties, having fun and then getting stabbed in the fucking face. The jocks are all braindead dickheads and the cheerleaders are big-titted bitches who we aren't too disappointed to lose. Did you have sex? Then you can fucking die! Did you drink alcohol? Then you can fucking die! Did you happen to be born with good looks? Then fuck you because you can die too you lucky cunt! However, were you not invited to those parties? Is the closest you've ever been to getting laid that time you thought you could smell your friends having sex? Do your friends treat you like a little dollop of poopy dog shit? Then congratulations because you're the lead in the franchise! It's like the geeks have written themselves an idealised world in which everything revolves around them and anyone whose ever made them feel insecure is likely to feel the naughty end of a poking knife.

This might sound a little disturbing I guess but I could be wrong- maybe they're not written by geeks at all, but jocks who have grown up and lamented their old, beer swigging days. Although, what I will say is that the peak of the slasher genre must surely be the 1980's during a period that we British know as the time of the 'video nasties'. These days anybody who feels insecure can't be accused of being responsible for writing a film as they instead tend to just grab a couple of guns and go on a kill-rampage around their school. I hate to suggest that the old horror filmmakers were social outcasts but, is it just me or since our teenagers have actually started killing each other, have slashers become a bit rubbish? What a real tragedy! I could be wrong on this but I think the first real slasher was John Carpenter's Halloween which, to be blunt, is a total fucking masterpiece. I suppose before this, there was the crazy knife-killer of Psycho and the highschool social hierarchy of death in Carrie. But Halloween seems to be the first to have all the tropes of a slasher, and after it came out there seemed to be a marathon of films released that were named after a holiday in which teenagers were split up by some prick in a mask. The other type of movie that was popular during the tacky decade of the 1980's was 'the John Hughes movie' so maybe I'm wrong about slasher films being written by geeks and maybe they're just a reaction to the annoying characters in things like The Breakfast Club. I don't know about you but I don't think Pretty In Pink would have been ruined by a few random knife attacks. 

Anyway, so if you've not seen Halloween, I reckon it's about the exact thing that you imagine it to be. A crazy person escapes from the loony-bin and chooses to spend his free time killing teenagers. He focuses on the good-girl of the town but warms up on her friends who are all fucking each other across the street. Oh, and if you've really not seen the film then I'll politely suggest that you sort your fucking life out. I haven't seen the remake so I can't really comment, but if you've seen that and not the original then we can probably never be friends. The House of a Thousand Corpses is a crappy piece of shit that hurt my head more than brain freeze and anybody who either made it or likes it must be a fucking idiot. John Carpenter however is a genius who has made such classics as Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, and They Live, and they're all really great. Have you seen They Live? There's a car park fight in that film that just comes out of nowhere and lasts about ten minutes. It starts off with two normal men throwing punches and ends with them pile driving each other into the ground. It's possibly only second to that handshake that turns into an arm wrestle between Arnie and Carl Weathers in Predator as the greatest scene in any film, ever! With that in mind, who the fuck is Rob Zombie to think he can remake anything by John Carpenter!

So I've seen Halloween more times than I have my own Gran and as she gets older and fatter, I can't see that changing. One of the things that I always think is quite interesting about it though is just how much of the movie we see from the point of view of the killer. I suppose the closest 'good film' to this is Scream which is essentially just a knowing homage to it, but even there we only see the killer when he jumps out at people like a dick. In fact, it's almost as though Halloween has two leads to begin with as we learn a hell of a lot more about Michael Myers than we do Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode. Myers killed as a child, went to an asylum, is pure evil and somehow knows how to drive. Laurie dresses like a spacker and so must be a good girl... That's all we really find out about her. It's a good performance though, considering that it was her first ever film. She might be the group's token square but I think she's likeable enough and I'd have been disappointed had she been killed. That should be obvious really, but as I get further into my twenties, my jealousy of the youthful teenagers sometimes clouds my sympathy... Saying "Prick" shouldn't be an appropriate response to seeing somebody die.

In case you were wondering how this film owes a debt to Psycho, by the way, I suppose Curtis is kind of the clue. Not only does Halloween involve a headcase killing women with a knife, but the lead actress is also the fleshy discharge that once crawled out of Janet Leigh's lady hole. Oh, and there's also a character played by Donald Pleasance called Dr. Loomis who seems to be named after Sam Loomis from Hitchcock's masterpiece. I actually watched this film with a close friend who'd never seen it before who told me that, as much as he'd enjoyed it, he thought Pleasance's performance was a little rubbish. I'm not friends with him anymore though... the stupid dickhead. I wouldn't mind, but he knew how big of a Bond fan I am and he even knew that Pleasance had played Blofeld. I know I said that my fat Gran will be dead soon and I couldn't give a fuck, but I won't stand for anybody slagging off the Bond franchise. The fact that I can kind of see where he's coming from is fucking irrelevant. Between you and me, I think that perhaps some of Loomis's lines might be a little overly dramatic and therefore come across as cheesy when compared to the more naturalist dialogue elsewhere in the film. But I'd never admit that out loud, so my friend can go fuck himself!

You can visit the blog picture artist at _Moriendus_