Directors that have made well known Slasher films are:
- Wes Craven (The Last House On The Left, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream [1-4])
- John Carpenter (Halloween, The Ward, The Thing)
- Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Toolbox Murders)
- Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th, Case of the Full Moon Murders, A Stranger is Watching)
Halloween was directed by John Carpenter in 1978. The film revived horror, despite it being a small budget film that was only meant to be shown for a few weeks, it is the most successful independent horror film of all time. With no advertising campaign the film had great success and many sequels have been made. Halloween was inspired by Hitchcock's 'Psycho,' where a human could look normal but be a monster and deeply disturbed inside. Carpenter wanted the film to be more supernatural, and therefore decided to keep the killer's face anonymous, we only knew him by his name. This sparked a lot of interest with director's and writers as they could keep the killer's identity separate, much like Ghostface in Scream.
Friday the 13th directed by Sean Cunningham in 1980, is about classic idiotic teenager, a plot that many horror films have adopted. Nobody expected the great outcome that Friday the 13th has had, although it was rather mainstream compared to 'Last House on the Left.' After the original, there have been a further 11 sequels, making it one of the biggest franchise's of all time. Friday the 13th was known for its overt violence that was rather over the top. Tom Savini, a special effects and makeup artist, worked on Friday the 13th and without his innovative creations, we would not know Jason to be who he is today. Savini was always trying to further himself create better effects every time. This showed the development of the genre as Savini was pushing the boundaries of his work. Friday the 13th is also known for the 'Suckerpunch,' ending when everything seems fine then Jason comes out of the water and kills the woman. The Friday the 13th franchise has been such a success, but with this, the films have become less scary as Jason has become a more familiar concept, whereas if the film were created over a longer time span, he might have been more terrifying.
Scream is an American Slasher made in 1996, directed by Wes Craven. The film features the typical conventions of modern slasher films, whilst also playing on them. For example in most slasher films if you say you'll be back, 10 minutes later you die. And the most important rule is that if you have sex you most definitely will be killed. The virgin girl is always the survivor. Scream is well known for it's killer, Ghostface. Now a popular Halloween character, Ghostface was one of the scariest killers of the time. Using a phonecall to tell you that you are going to die soon, and letting you hear your final words before he pops up and kills you. He also made the victims state their favourite horror films and answer questions on them. This terrified teenagers across the world, as the killing seemed so realistic. After the success of the 1st Scream, 3 other sequels have been made, the most recent in 2011. In the mid 90s slashers became more of a parody rather than a thrill, this is shown in Scream as it is a parody of Halloween. You were scared as well as mocking the film, which gave a great balance between horror and laughs. Since this, parody films have become a lot more popular. One of the most common being Scary Movie. Scary Movie parodies many slasher films, mainly Scream, The Sixth Sense, I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Blair Witch Project.
Directors would mix fact and fiction into their horrors. This is seen in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' Ed Gein, a real life murderer, was the inspiration for Leatherface in this film. Ed Gein was a serial killer who admitted to killing 2 women, but then stole body's from graveyards. With these bodies, he would create furniture, and decorations with their bodies. For example a woman's lips were used as a pull string for a light, and he made a belt out of human nipples. Gein was the all in one killer, a murderer, butcher and a psychopath, something which is now the prototype for all serial killers in slasher films, especially as he looked like a normal human being. One of Gein's 'creations,' were masks made of human skin, the key piece that Tobe Hooper used in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as Leatherface wore a mask of human skin. Director Tobe Hooper describe the film as being a nightmare story, saying that the true monster is a human. Death is what we fear, we cause death and we are part of death. He also said that because people could relate to the film because they all knew about the Gein case, which helped to establish the franchise.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) directed by Wes Craven, and is known as a 'Stalker Slasher,' as the victims would be followed to see if they were 'suitable.' The film was originally written by Craven from real life, when he saw a man staring at him outside his window when he was a child, who stayed there for ages. This gave Craven the inspiration for Freddie Krueger to be a child molester but after many production crews turned Craven down, he decided to make Krueger a child killer instead. This film made people scared to sleep, as the victims died in their sleep, and therefore viewers would have nightmares of the film.In nightmare 3, Krueger became more loveable and predictable, as he had been shown too much and was becoming familiar. The films therefore struggled to keep up with the high quality of storyline and film that they had previously had.
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