Are slasher movies SCARY.... at all?

Desensitized. That's what we all are.

Hate to say this. Absolutely hate saying this. I never watched a slasher before Scream. The opening with Drew Barrymore was fucking great the first time I saw it...I couldn't sleep. And that was on video.

Now, I watch actual deaths on my computer and barely bat an eyelash.

The 2 slasher films that always get to me are FRIDAY THE 13TH and PSYCHO ... Both films having genuinely creepy murderers who act in that wonderfully bizarre and erratic way that strikes fear into me ......

There aren't many films that actually scare me, and some of the ones that do succeed may not seem scary to others .... The slasher film plays on different emotions, and the ones that work for me have the sympathetic thing going for the character ........ Right now, it's 4am, and I can look out my door, at the dimly-lit staircase that leads up to this room, and even though I've seen 'em both a million times, the thought of Norman Bates in that dress and wig or Mrs Vorhees coming up those steps leaves me with a pit in my stomach .....

Ahhh, I love horror

oh boy. another guy whos into snuff lol j/k i actually watched the Faces of death films at a young age. so now it takes alot for me to look away. of coarse i was also close enough to a suicide jump to get blood splater on my shirt....so like i said..it take alot for me to turn away.

The slasher genre has lost it's impact the formula has been used so many times and the outcome is so obvious that it isin't scary anymore.

I can still remember watching Halloween as a 10 year old kid and being shit scared by it.

I still find the brilliant Black Christmas very frightening to this date.

Are slasher movies SCARY.... at all?

I guess you haven't seen Leperchan 4..........

I'll second that


I remember the phone calls at the begining of that turning me off that film as a kid.

we had a crappy vhs copy (someone at my house made a copy of it and I found it) and I couldn't get past that scene. when the dvd came out a couple of years ago, I remembered that part and went out and picked up the dvd and found it to be one of the creepest films I had seen to date (its still up there)

One of the biggest universal fears is the unknown. A lot of the basic primeval fears are subsets of "The Unknown". The slasher genre hit this on some basic levels.

You aren't safe, in an environment that should be the safest and mundane place you could inhabit (your home or your summer camp or whatever). You are being hunted by someone you don't know. For reasons you don't know. And you have no idea where he is or who is going to die next. Or how they are going to die.

I would be very suprised if anyone on this board watched a modern DTV slasher flick and couldn't answer those questions these days. Hell, after 2 minutes you can usually figure out who is going to get diced, who is going to survive and who the killer is. As was said above, the genre formula has been overused (it was a very simple formula to begin with) so it's become predictable, ergo, not scary.

When I first saw Friday the 13th part 2 I was pretty young, but it scared the shit out of me. There's just something about a deformed mountain man with a pillow case on his head that creeped me out.

I would say that both the original and new TCM had some scary moments, ditto for Halloween. Love them or hate them however, I think slashers are in general not scary, and even if they scared me at one point they can never do it a second time. Although that is true of most horror movies. Few can be scary multiple times.

I think slashers really only scare you if you are young or just the first few times you are exposed to that kind of violence. When I was pretty young I remember watching movies like Mimic, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Scream and being terrified. Now I am stunned that I even found them entertaining.

Most people think of the first Halloween as the original slasher flick,the one that started it all.

It dosen't have much gore in it and relys on shock and anticipation but I don't think you can doubt the fact that Halloween was the precursor to the glut of much more graphic slasher films released in the 80's.

Yeah, if you don't think slashers are scary, go back and watch HALLOWEEN. It's still a masterpiece of its genre, and still incredibly fucking effective.

Halloween is one of the few that are actually effective.

Haute Tension (the French film) was actually better than I expected at upping that level of ..... well ...... tension.

Why not, it's got teens being stalked and slashed by a psycho unkillable killer.
Why is it then whenever someone enjoys a slasher movie they refuse to actully call it a slasher movie. Usually becomes a thriller or something.

I think Halloween is scary still, and I do think that it is very much a slasher flick. Just because it was the film that all the others copied doesn't detract from it being a member of the genre. By this same logic, one could deny that Night of the Living Dead was a zombie film.

There was also a movie called THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN that scared me pretty good as a young kid, but I saw it again a couple years ago and it stank the place up. Still, while discussing the 'masked killer who inevitably gets away' genre of horror film making, SUNDOWN deserves at least a historical mention.

EOD

PS To answer the titular question of the post.....no, I don't think slasher films in general are that scary. I think the intent of slasher film technique had much more to do with a pseudo-sexual visceral thrill that climaxes with a killing than any real scares or tension.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is based on a true story. Bet you didn't know that!

Yes I did know that. That fact was one of the scariest things to me, knowing that he was still out there...........Even though it took place no where near my sleepy little Ohio town, I was sure he was nearby lurking, waiting.

EOD

Yeah, it's definitely a one-trick genre. The two exceptions are Halloween and Psycho. I guess it's all in the direction.
That's what made Scream so good. It deconstructed the genre enough to keep you surprised. That's also why the Scream sequels suck. They got just as repetetive.

I have a great nostalgic affection for slasher movies. You always remember your first.

I'd say the REAL killer would be dead at this stage.

I remember seeing Halloween when I was about 13. At the end I just thought, is that it? Is that what all the fuss is is about? A big retard in a mask, hacking girls?

While I now think that Halloween is a pretty good thriller, I can't say I've ever seen the big deal. To me, slashers are a cheap shot at horror movies. I don't even include them as horror, they are a genre on their own. Since you never give a shit about anyone in them (with the possible exception of Halloween), I just can't invest in them. Seen one, seen a hundred.

I did think Haute Tension was good though.

It's a slasher film, get used to it.

Yeah, the 38 year old me knows that, but the child clutching the back of my Mom's seat at the drive-in in 1970-something in absolute terror was not convinced of this fact.


EOD


PS All this was complicated by the knowledge that if I really acted terrified, they wouldn't take me to the next inappropriate film, so I had to suffer in silence...hehe.

Two words: Black Christmas.

The original slasher film.

Indeed, the phone calls still creep the shit out of me to this date, and I have seen the film a ton of times at this point. They really are unnerving as hell, and show exactly how far removed from humanity the killer is. The foreboding atmsophere is also the most effective I've seen in a slasher film, and the chilling pianist score adds perfectly to the film as well. *SPOILER AHEAD* Then of course there's the fact that we never see the killer or find out who he is, which makes it so much more terrifying.

Anyways, Black Christmas is the perfect slasher film as far as I'm concerned. I think its a shame that it always gets overshadowed by Halloween, which is a film I love, but is also a film that can't hold a candle to Black Christmas in my eyes.

the problem Black Christmas has is that all the ideas it had first were later taken and made famous by other flicks, I won't print any of the for those of you who haven't seen them but in my opinion it was the first TRUE slasher to use certian "rules" and because of this flick movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th had the ground work laid out for them

Halloween was the first the film I ever saw, I was 3yrs old, and more fascinated than scared.
I have to agree the descensitized sentiment, you watch enough of this shit, and the "Nick Berg Video" will probably only phase you for a minute or so, if that. (I've seen it, and I chilled out completely after a few seconds)

As long as we're going for slasher movie trivia...Mario Bava's "Twitch of the Death Nerve" (a rough-sewn, semi-giallo) is the undisputed protoype, "Friday the 13th" part 1 and 2 (especially 2) ripped off several kills from that influential film.
"Black Christmas" created the blueprint (a cast of young people in peril, urban legend roots).
"Halloween" set the table, and "Friday the 13th" set the standard.
You can go further back in history to trace the roots of the slasher, but "Twitch of the Death Nerve" serves up more of the key ingredients than any other film.

No one has mentioned Silent Night, BLoody Night which pre dateds both Halloween and Black Christmas.

I think we all really need to re-examine extactly what defines "slasher flick" here.

I used to think a slasher flick was about <insert unidentified deranged killer here> stalking and killing a core group of people one at a time until there is a final showdown between said killer and the last man/woman standing, where said victim would get the upper hand and destroy the killer. (reference Friday the 13th, Halloween, the Scream movies, etc). Presumably, the term "slasher flick" came from the fact that a lot of these movies use some sort of slashing/stabbing weapon (knife, ax, razor, sword) as the killer's tool of choice.

However, in recent times, it has become a lot more difficult to determine exactly what constitutes a "slasher flick", as there are a lot of movies that follow the same basic "slasher formula", but would be hard pressed to call a slasher flick.

For example, take Alien. In the old days, I would define this as horror, maybe sci-fi, maybe a combination. However it does follow the same slasher formula, the alien (deranged killer) kills a group of people one at a time (the crew) until the final showdown between the last man/woman standing (Ripley), where said victim gets the upper hand and destroys the killer.

So would Alien be a slasher flick? Why or why not? It follows the formula. If not, is the difference the fact that the antagonist is alien as opposed to human? Is it the fact that the killer does not use some sort of slashing weapon in the act of killing (other than claws or stingers or some other twisted alien stabbing device)?

So in answer to the question "Are slasher movies SCARY at all?", being the desensitized horror movie fan that I am, for the most part, no. They're formulaic and predictable. Of course, you can never underestimate the power of a well timed spring-loaded cat to make you jump. However, in answer to another question "Are movies that follow the slasher formula scary at all?" I would have to say some, but only because there are some creative people out there still trying to come up with new ways of scaring you (some effective, most not).

I really LOVE slasher movies (bet you didn't see that coming). I've never really found them scare (bar Black Christmas and Final Destionation bbrrrr).
For me I really like creative kills and drawn out chase scenes. I don't mind the predictabilty to much but I love trying to guess who's going to be next to be dumped off.
Although one thing that ruins ANY slasher... that fucking LESS IS MORE RULE, I laugh as clueless film makers use this excuss for bloodless kills (I'm looking at you Valentine).

slasher movies are an insult to fear