Horror History: Michael, Jason, Freddy and the Final Girl

Let the body count begin! Welcome to WatchMojo’s series Horror History, where we look at how the genre went from being a bump in the night to shaking down the box office! Slasher films hold a special place within horror. For many, they’re the first movies that come to mind when they think of the genre. Villains like Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy, and Chucky have become iconic pop culture figures, instantly evoking the scares, thrills, and bloodshed closely associated with big-name horror franchises. A typical slasher film features several key tropes. Jim Vorel of Paste magazine has put together a tidy definition, arguing that slasher films involve: human villains who choose to kill, usually in intimate ways (such as with knives rather than guns), racking up body counts that are showcased in graphic scenes. They tend to involve a “final girl”, and to focus on the killer and victims, rather than criminal investigations. These conventions have roots in both literary and cinematic forebears. From famed mystery writer Agatha Christie, the 1939 novel "And Then There Were None" is often cited as a jumping off point for the modern slasher. This is due primarily to its structure, where a group of apparent strangers are invited to a remote island and picked off one by one. It's a body count story that requires the reader to do some internal detective work of our own, as we try to decipher what connects the strangers and who is doing the killing. At heart however, "And Then There Were None" is still a mystery story - a genre in which there's usually some grounded and mundane motivation for the killings, like greed, lust, revenge, jealousy, or profit. This focus on psychological motives is also present in proto-slashers like “Peeping Tom” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, both released in 1960. Certainly, these films helped popularize key tropes, although their status as true “slashers” is debated. But while the villains in typical slashers aren’t immune to base desires, they often seem driven by some inhuman and evil compulsion - taking satisfaction in the act of killing. They also tend to rack up a much higher body count than Norman Bates. The classic tropes of slasher films would only really all come together in the 70s. To understand how these emerged from mystery stories and thrillers, we first have to take a trip to Italy, and talk about the giallo. Meaning “yellow” in Italian, giallo refers to the tawdry yellow paperbacks that flooded readers with lurid murder mystery stories. The genre first moved to cinema in the 1960s, with examples like Mario Bava's "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" and “Blood and Black Lace”, and Umberto Lenzi’s "Orgasmo" aka “Paranoia”. The more permissive 1970s would see giallo films amping up the sex and violence and exploding in popularity, in no small part thanks to master craftsmen like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Argento’s “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage” in particular brought new attention to the genre. It's impossible to overstate how much the Italian giallo influenced the modern slasher, to the point where "Friday the 13th Part 2" recreated key bloody sequences from Bava's 1971 film "A Bay of Blood". However, "A Bay of Blood" is still very much a murder mystery at heart, with the villains motivated by simple greed. This definitely was NOT the case when it came to another infamous giallo, "Torso." Sergio Martino’s 1973 film upped the ante to a ridiculous level when it came to the murder set pieces and sadism. Giallo films often worked simultaneously as police procedurals or psychological thrillers. But "Torso" drove home the genre's increasing reputation for misogyny by creating an atmosphere that was almost prurient in its depiction of psychosexual assault. The killer here is committing crimes because he enjoys it, and does so upon a cast of seemingly disposable characters that are there to serve as fodder. In his article on slashers, Jim Vorel points to this moment as the true birth of the genre. "Torso" ticks all of the boxes in terms of the common tropes in typical slasher films. There’s even a “final girl” - a female protagonist, typically portrayed as morally “pure”, who’s the last one left standing to confront the villain at the end. Other early examples of final girls include Sally Hardesty in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, and Jess Bradford in “Black Christmas” - itself often recognized as as the “mother of the modern slasher”. There have been some “final boys” too, such as in movies like “The Burning”. The idea of this "good girl" outliving her friends and triumphing at the end speaks to puritanical attitudes that contrast with the “anything goes” nature of slasher films; nonetheless, it became a staple of the genre in the late 70s and 80s. If you went skinny dipping or had sex in a horror movie, it was virtually guaranteed that you weren't going to make it to the end. If critics and audiences started paying a lot of attention to slashers during this time, then we can thank "Halloween" for changing the game in 1978. Influenced by movies like “Black Christmas”, John Carpenter's masterpiece introduced one of the most iconic final girls of all time, Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, and kick-started slasher mania. The movie’s success convinced major studios to bankroll their own slasher films, striking while the iron was hot. After all, these movies could be relatively cost effective, and virtually guaranteed to bring home a profit. It’s this boom that brought us revered classics like “Friday the 13th”, "Prom Night", "A Nightmare on Elm Street", and “Child’s Play”. The influence of slashers spread out to other horror subgenres too - while Ridley Scott’s “Alien” doesn’t feature a human killer, it’s been described as a “slasher in space”. During this period, the slasher tropes became solidified, and before long you had a conveyor belt of films coming down the pipeline, hitting the same body count beats, nude scene requirements, and predictable sequel-baiting. However, in response to pressure from parents and critics, the MPAA began cracking down on the genre, limiting films from showcasing their star attractions: blood and gore! The "Friday the 13th" franchise seemed to suffer the most from this, with entire scenes hitting the cutting room floor. Moral outrage at the slasher film wouldn't be the only cause for its eventual decline though, as the glut of content did more harm than good. By the late 1980s, slasher films were suffering from diminishing returns thanks to substandard sequels and embarrassing direct-to-video ordeals. The writing seemed to be on the wall. How could a genre that was so new, but already so overdone, find a new lease on life? Enter “A Nightmare on Elm Street’s” Wes Craven with “Scream” ... By the 1990s, fans had basically seen it all, and needed movies to reflect this knowledge to remind them why they loved this stuff in the first place. The advent of self-awareness and meta-commentary made slashers bankable again. Along with “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, also written by Kevin Williamson, “Scream” is often touted as bringing the genre back from the grave. It’s a legacy that’s lived on in other meta horror movies, like Drew Goddard’s brilliant and hilarious “The Cabin in the Woods”. Mind you, on the subject of self-awareness, an even earlier film than “Scream” also deserves attention: 1991's "There's Nothing Out There!" Writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky presents a much looser and more comedic take on the "we're in a horror movie" horror movie. But there are definite parallels in how both feature horror film savvy characters and satirize the slasher film "rules". Today, this idea of being self aware about the slashers we love seems to go hand in hand with an un-ironic appreciation of the classics. The 21st century has seen a veritable onslaught of remakes, reboots, and retconned sequels. A lot of these have been, to be honest, less than stellar. But there have been a few worthy successors too. More promisingly, a whole new generation of filmmakers has brought the genre full circle, with original but old school style slashers like ""You're Next" and "Summer of 84". Blumhouse's "Happy Death Day" series looks back and winks at the glut of holiday themed slashers that, at one time, filled the market. There's a nostalgia now for '80s slashers that drives both filmmakers and viewers alike. But behind those rose-colored glasses, there’s also often a drive to move the genre forward with original ideas and content - with one eye on the past, and one eye on the future!