Hacking through Haddonfield: How HALLOWEEN Gave Birth to a Genre

(Originally Published in 2006)

Though my preferences usually run more in the Classic vein of Horror, every so often I feel the need to inject a little blood and gore into the mix.  Usually, I’ll pull out a Bava or Fulci film, or, depending on my mood, one of De Ossorio’s Blind Dead movies.  The European “Lost Cannibal Tribe” films of the ‘70’s are always good for plenty of blood & guts, though they aren't for most tastes.  For more recent fare, there’s no shortage of filmmakers who tend towards the gorier aspects of Horror.  Takashi Miike, director of the Japanese cult hit Ôdishon —aka— Audition, has developed quite a reputation as a director who pushes the boundaries with his films.  The Spanish filmmaker Nacho Cerdà has repeatedly blown through those boundaries, most notably with his short film Aftermath.

Domestically, the movies of Herschell Gordon Lewis never fail to keep me entertained, even if calling them “B-Pictures” is paying them an undue compliment.  I’ve always had a soft spot for bad movies, and H. G. Lewis would’ve given Ed Wood a run for his money in that department.  Romero’s Dead films are always an option for gore, as are the films of Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and Clive Barker.  Currently, directors such as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie are keeping Hollywood’s manufacturers of fake blood in clover.

Of course, we also have the teen slasher films so popular in the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and ‘90’s … franchises such as Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and the first and best of the Unstoppable Slasher movies, John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Thought of today primarily for being the film that introduced us to Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween should instead be remembered for having given birth to the uniquely American sub-genre of the standard slasher films, a curious sub-genre that I refer to as the “Unstoppable Slasher” movies.  Jason might have gotten the glory, and Freddy the best lines, but Michael beat them both to the punch.  And, in addition to being the first, he was by far the best.

Horror Fans today, long since jaded by multiple sequels, prequels, and even a cross-over, rightfully view each new iteration of these masters of massacre as nothing more than the lowest form of Horror, the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac and fries… in truth, just more evidence of Hollywood’s contempt for the loyal fans of Horror Films.

But that overlooks just how good … just how influential, these films were when they premiered.  Halloween gave birth to a genre, and resurrected the Franchise concept that had been so successful for both Universal and Hammer Films.  Fans today might decry the never-ending parade of sequels that these films became, and not without reason.  But that fails to acknowledge that there is a reason that Halloween, and films like it, became franchises in the first place:  Because the original movie was so damn good.

If Slasher films are the American version of Italy’s Giallos, then John Carpenter is the American Bava.  One of the best directors in Horror today, as he has been since 1978, Carpenter has been responsible for some of the greatest Genre films of the past thirty years.  The Fog, The Thing, Christine, The Prince of Darkness … all have served to demonstrate the range and ability of Carpenter, and Halloween is, at least in my opinion, his masterwork.  Though not as polished and professional in appearance as his later films, the film’s raw, rough edge helped make it one of the most effective Horror Films of all-time, and the best of the Slasher genre.  The minimalist plot; the silent, emotionless killer; the teen-agers trapped in a peril they’re not even aware of, and Loomis’ absolute conviction that his patient is the physical embodiment of evil.  All of these factors combine to produce a truly suspenseful film—one that slowly builds into a frightening climax while not depending on the cheap, throwaway shocks that would become the hallmark of movies of this type.

This soon became one of the most successful films of the ‘70’s, and was, for a long time, the top-grossing Independent film of all time.  Though it gave rise to a series of sequels, none were helmed by anyone with a hint of Carpenter’s talent, and the series declined rapidly.

A year and a half after the premiere of Halloween, Friday the 13^th made its debut.  Directed by prolific producer Sean S. Cunningham, and owing much to Halloween, F13 was nevertheless a tremendously good movie in it’s own right… not up to the quality of the former film, but easily the best of a weak year for Horror.  The film was hugely successful, well beyond the anticipation of the producers, and a string of sequels soon followed.  Friday the 13^th:  Part II, released one year after the first film, introduced us to Jason Voorhees, the champion of the Slasher circuit, who’s still in business 25 years later.  Yet another sequel is currently in pre-production, with a 2007 release planned.

Four years after F13 began its domination of the sub-genre, Wes Craven gave us his take on the theme with the wisecracking, knife-gloved, ghost-of-a-psychopathic-pedophile Freddy Krueger, in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Craven, certainly the most commercially successful of the great Horror directors that arose in the late ‘60’s-early ‘70’s, predictably took the Unstoppable Slasher movies in a new direction with Freddy, and would resurrect the sub-genre 12 years later with the innovative, and much-copied, Scream.

There were other attempts to create similar horror franchises … the Candyman movies, a doll named Chucky, even a Leprechaun and a Genie.  Some of these movies were actually pretty good.  Most weren't.  But none ever equaled Halloween—the night Michael came home for the first time.

High School Horrors

If Horror Films of the 1970’s and ‘80’s were a reliable indicator, then it was a miracle that anyone survived the experience of attending High School.  There were Slashers roaming the hallways, mad killers in math class, even the senior prom might be interrupted by a pissed-off chick with telekinetic powers.  Forget ‘peer pressure’ and SAT scores—you just hoped you’d live to see Graduation Day.  And even that wasn’t a guarantee you’d survive to pick up that diploma.

One of the conventions of the archetypal Slasher film of the 1980’s was that the pool of victims was primarily young, good-looking teens—late high school or college age, old enough to be sexually active but certainly not adults.  Within that pool there would be the stereotypical victims:  The ‘jock’, the bitchy, stuck-up ‘pretty girl’, the ‘outcast’, the ‘good guy’, the sweet, innocent, ‘girl next door’—who, because she didn’t have sex, was often the lone survivor—and other, just as easily recognizable, characters that populated the corridors and classrooms of these fictional institutions.  Most of these were faceless rabble—body count fodder for the Slasher du Jour.

From the beginning of the Slasher craze, the late teen demographic has been targeted, not only on-screen but also at the box-office.  The teen-age male has historically been the greatest fan of Slasher movies, and they adapted early on to give the typical fan of the genre what they wanted to see.  That meant, to paraphrase the great Joe Bob Briggs, “more Boobs and more Blood.”

The earliest Slasher Films, Bob Clark’s BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974) and John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978), were somewhat restrained in terms of blood and gore, particularly in comparison to the films that followed them.  Both films started out with excellent stories, strong directors with clear visions of what they wished to put on-screen, and talented casts able to execute the directors’ wishes.  They were able to build a natural suspense into their movies without relying on an overabundance of cheap scares and easy shocks.

In 1980, however, Sean Cunningham’s FRIDAY THE 13^TH would prove to be the game-changer in the Slasher genre.  Eschewing the reserved, restrained approach (and perhaps in tacit acknowledgement of the weaker script and cast with which he had to work), Cunningham, with the able assistance of make-up effects artist Tom Savini, set out to raise the bar in terms of bloodshed.  Instead of working to build real fear and suspense, they built a body count, with gallons of fake blood used as the mortar.  The fact that this approach worked, to the tune of $39 Million in domestic release, was not lost upon competing studios.

Seemingly overnight, the Slasher Film became the dominant form of Horror.  Before the end of 1981, no fewer than two dozen Slasher Films were released, several focusing their attention on the education system.  The first, and most notable, of these was PROM NIGHT, directed by Paul Lynch and released the same year as FRIDAY THE 13^TH.  Starring the first Scream Queen of the Slasher era, Jamie Lee Curtis, along with Leslie Nielsen and Michael Tough, PROM NIGHT was filmed in Canada and released by Avco Embassy on 18 July 1980, on 1,200 screens nationwide.  On a budget of $1.6 million (CDN), this tale of high school revenge for a sibling’s death grossed nearly $15 million in the US, a very respectable number.  It also spawned three sequels, and was remade (poorly) by Nelson McCormick in 2008.

Far better in terms of quality, though not as widely popular, was THE PROWLER, released in 1981.  Directed by Joseph Zito, and featuring make-up special effects by Tom Savini, this was a tale of a mad Slasher carving his way through a small college’s student body, dressed in army fatigues, gas mask, and helmet.  The film starred Farley Granger as Sheriff George Fraser, a man with a secret in his past, along with Vicky Dawson and Christopher Goutman as Pam and Mark, two young lovers who are stalked by the killer.  THE PROWLER was released in November of 1981, with little fanfare or notice.  Though Savini has stated that it contains some of his best effects work, it remains something of a ‘lost’ classic of the Slasher genre in comparison to it’s more famous brethren.

Another early ‘80’s entry in the crowded Slasher Film arena was Herb Freed’s GRADUATION DAY, released on 1 May 1981.  The story begins with the sudden death of a young female track star during a meet, and the return of her sister, a US Navy officer, to their small town, just as its preparing for the High School graduation.  Starring Christopher George, Patch Mackenzie, and Michael Pataki, the genre’s conventions are already in place less than a year after FRIDAY THE 13^TH defined them.  The unseen, unknown killer; the large body count; the inventive, if impractical, death scenes; the “Sex equals Death” motif—all are present here.  Once the formula for Slasher Film success had been discovered, it was copied—slavishly.

In 1984, Wes Craven, the director who had risen to prominence with films such as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, decided to reinvent the Slasher Film.  Craven avoided the silent, stalking killer that typified the movie Slasher.  His creation was instead a wisecracking spectre, the ghost of a pedophilic child-killer haunting the dreams of the children of those who killed him.  That killer’s name was Freddy Krueger, and the movie was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

Boasting an excellent script (by Craven), superb photography, and Craven’s usually strong direction, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET became the template for a new direction in Horror over the next decade.  Less a Slasher than a supernatural demon, Krueger, played to perfection by Robert Englund, was the prototype of a new class of screen monster.  Englund was backed up by strong performances from a cast composed of veterans and newcomers, people such as John Saxon, Ronee Blakely, Heather Langenkamp, and Johnny Depp, in his first screen role.

The influence of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET continued to be felt on the genre for the remainder of the decade.  Similarly-themed creatures, hellspawns, and demons, from THE LEPRECHAUN, to THE WISHMASTER’s Djinn, to Pinhead, the leader of HELLRAISER’s Cenobites, began to push the traditional Slasher Film aside.  While they retained many elements of the Slasher Films, their victim pools typically skewed older than those for the Slashers.  As the Slasher Film waned in popularity (though never disappearing completely) through the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, High Schools and Colleges became somewhat safer, though not totally safe, from the predations of masked killers and silent stalkers.

By 1996, the Slasher Film genre was ripe for reinvention, and once again it was Wes Craven, working with a script from Kevin Williamson, who called class back into session, with the hip, witty, self-aware Slasher hit SCREAM.

Starring Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and Matthew Lillard, SCREAM stood the conventional Slasher genre on it’s head, poking fun at the form while still managing to be a very effective Horror Film.  Released on 20 December 1996, it got off to a slow start, earning just $6.4 million of its $15 million budget in that first week.  By the end of it’s third week in release, however, it was approaching $40 million in Box-Office receipts, and, much as A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET had done twelve years previously, had redefined the Horror Film.  Almost overnight fans were witness to what I refer to as the “Dawson’s Creek meets Freddy Krueger” School of Horror Films, movies which introduced a new paradigm to the Slasher Film.  Gone were the old stereotypes of the Slasher Film victims; now new models were introduced.  The average Slasher Film victim was no longer anyone most of us would have been familiar with when we were horny, stumbling, mumbling, pimply-faced youths surviving the daily pain-in-the-ass that was secondary education.  They were uniformly good-looking, uniformly wealthy, uniformly cool—and uniformly boring.

The few characters that existed outside the paradigm, be it due to lack of money, lack of looks, or lack of cool, were there to serve one of two purposes.  One, they were there to provide early fodder for the killer, and would quickly find themselves chopped, hacked, sliced, and/or diced into body count stew.

The second purpose such characters served was to provide a few red herrings as to the identity of the killer, who in the new paradigm wasn’t some escaped lunatic or mutant son of an insane camp counselor.  The killer in this new model Slasher Film came from within.  This new paradigm soon dominated the Horror genre, with SCREAM giving birth to two (soon to be three) sequels, along with numerous take-offs, such as URBAN LEGEND, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, and the most original of these, FINAL DESTINATION.

However, lest one believe that the only danger to be found in the hallowed halls of academia were hook-handed Slashers and machete-wielding maniacs, in 1998 director Robert Rodriguez took us on a field trip back into the 1950’s, the heyday of the Alien Invasion movies such as IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and INVASION OF THE BODY-SNATCHERS, with THE FACULTY.

Starring Robert Patrick, Salma Hayek, Josh Hartnett, and Clea DuVall, this story of a High School where the faculty has been taken over by alien invaders was scripted by the same Kevin Williamson who had previously written SCREAM for Wes Craven.  While it did moderately well at the Box-Office, it failed to become the genre-changer that SCREAM had been two years before.

Another High School Horror Film failed at the Box-Office, but became a cult hit in video release.  2001’s GINGER SNAPS, a Canadian Werewolf movie directed by John Fawcett, and written by Karen Walton and Fawcett, saw only limited theatrical release in the US, though it did well in its native Canada.  It was also well-received by critics, and soon developed a solid fan following.  It stars Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabella as Brigitte and Ginger Fitzgerald, teen-age sisters struggling with feelings of depression and alienation while growing up in the small town of Bailey Downs.  The girls are obsessed with death, to the point of photographing themselves in staged ‘death scenes’ for a class project.  One night they encounter the “beast of Bailey Downs,” a creature the townspeople believe is responsible for a rash of mutilated dogs that have been found in recent days.  Ginger is bitten by the beast, and soon it becomes obvious to her sister that puberty isn’t the only change Ginger’s undergoing.

Though the genre had been trending away from the High School Horrors for several years, the recent spate of reinventions of many of the 1980’s Slasher Films has reinvigorated it to some degree.  HALLOWEEN, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, even PROM NIGHT have been remade lately, with varying degrees of success.  The audience for the Slasher Film hasn’t changed, demographically speaking, to any significant degree since the 1970’s, and in truth, neither have the long line of on-screen victims.  Both keep going strong, and that, I’m happy to say, shows no sign of changing.

DVD Review: FREDDY vs. JASON

Title:  FREDDY vs. JASON

Year of Release—Film:  2003

Year of Release—DVD:  2004

DVD Label:  New Line Cinema

As a confirmed fan of the FRIDAY the 13th series of films, (less so of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. movies) I’ve been hearing rumors, and rumors of rumors, of this project for a full ten years, ever since the rather obvious clue at the end of JASON GOES TO HELL:  THE FINAL FRIDAY (yeah, right… where’s truth in advertising?).  When it became clear that it was finally coming to fruition, I must admit that I felt no small amount of trepidation; Hollywood does not have a sterling record of managing such projects either wisely or well.  While the two franchises had admittedly fallen into disreputable circumstances long before this was a gleam in Sean Cunningham’s eye, they had, more or less, managed to remain true to their core fans.  The thought of the potential disaster that this could become certainly wasn’t a pleasing one.

Those feelings were amplified as the early reviews of this film began to come out.  Though there were scattered positive opinions out there, most of the fan reviews I saw were decidedly harsh, doing nothing to improve my outlook at this movie.  But the box office numbers were very impressive, and I felt that there just might be something worth checking out.  As soon as the DVD was released, I quickly, though with some measure of reluctance, bought my copy and sat down to see just which camp was right.

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I must be totally honest.  I did not expect to like this movie.  In fact, I expected to hate it.  I had myself all worked up to deliver a true grade-A rant about this one.  But I won’t be delivering that rant, because something unexpected happened while I was watching it.

I enjoyed it.  And not just a little—I really liked it.

Ok, so it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before.  The story is very good, though, better than the norm for both series.  Though Freddy’s dialogue sometimes goes a pun too far, it’s nothing that we’re not used to by now; indeed, Krueger’s wisecracks are as much his trademark as his glove or ratty sweater.  The plot is tight, coherent, and logical, for the most part.  Though there are holes here and there, it’s certainly not your average Campers go to lake; have sex; get drunk; get slashed… style of plotless, formulaic, stock-footage montage of murder that the last few examples of both these series (barring WES CRAVEN’S A NEW NIGHTMARE, which I felt was a tremendously original concept, very well done) provided.  The story actually serves to lay new foundations for both characters, especially Jason.  To discover new ground in characters this long-established is amazing, something akin to discovering an unexplored island in the middle of Lake Michigan.

The casting, though decent, is about average for the F13 series of films, and actually below par for the NIGHTMARE… franchise.  The actors show up, and do their jobs, but, with one exception, there are no standouts among the supporting cast.  That lone exception is Katharine Isabella, late of GINGER SNAPS fame.  She has a unique, intense look that really comes through on the screen, and a gift for being the ‘bad’ girl.  The rest are standard, typical “central casting” stereotypes, adequate, but not impressive.  But let’s be honest.  They’re only here for Body Count fodder.  Everyone knows who the stars of this film are.

Though he’s stayed very active in the genre apart from the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. films, Freddy Krueger is as much Robert Englund’s signature role as Dracula was Lugosi’s.  And Englund was at the top of his form in this outing, his eighth as the wisecracking, throat-slashing ghost of a sadistic child-murderer.  Not a likable character; Englund has, nonetheless, made him a thoroughly enjoyable one to watch.  Though this series never captivated me to the same degree that the F13 series (or even more, the HALLOWEEN franchise) has, I’ve always enjoyed the character of Freddy Krueger, one of the true icons of the modern Horror Film.

Perhaps the most recognizable Horror icon of the past thirty years, however, is Jason Voorhees.  Almost a direct antithesis of Krueger’s garrulous style, the ever-silent Jason has hacked, slashed and carved his way through eleven films (though his appearance in the original film was admittedly brief).  While he’s been played by several different actors, and though his look has altered over time, this is the same living-dead unstoppable slasher that we first met in FRIDAY The 13^th: PART II (1981).  Sure, he’s aged, he’s been to Hell and back, with a little detour to outer space, maybe he’s mellowed a little, right?  Wrong.  He’s still the silent, relentless, killing machine, out to punish teen-agers for indulging in sex, drugs, and/or rock and roll.

Yu’s direction, though very good, is nothing too original.  He manages the action very well though, and doesn’t let the flow of the film bog down too much.  Some of that is inevitable; very few films can maintain a frenetic pace for long.  But the pauses are kept to an acceptable minimum, and the pace doesn’t suffer.  Some of his directorial choices aren’t what I’d have liked, but that’s not totally bad.  It would be difficult to be specific without revealing too much of the plot; suffice it to say that he leans a little too much to the safe, conventional side of the coin.  While that’s probably for the best, it would have been nice to see something really daring for this movie.

The Special Effects are good, about average for a medium-budget film like this one, though nothing about which to get excited.  They are well done, though, and the CGI effects are blended smoothly into the physical shots, making for very convincing FX sequences.  No Academy Award nominations here, but you won’t feel cheated, either.

The DVD is superb, packed with extras, including interviews, commentaries, deleted scenes, behind-the-scene segments, and more.  While I seldom make use of all those extras, they are nice to have, and do make recommending the purchase of the DVD easier.

To sum it up, this is one of the best movies of 2003, and is a definite buy.  A lot of you may have the same preconceived notions that I had; abandon them, and give this movie a shot, you won’t be sorry.  Your opinion of the ending may depend upon who you’re a bigger fan of, Freddy or Jason; but give it a try.  While nothing, in my opinion, can beat out HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES as the Movie of the Year 2003, this one runs a close second.