Slasher "Horror" films are classist right wing knee jerks

[Hexen]

For those who watch horror films have you ever noticed in most Slasher films especially from the 1980s that the killers are usually from a blue collared working class background (For example Freddy Kruger being a high school janitor or boiler room worker in life,etc) which they mostly dress in Blue colar attire (miners, truckers, etc) and use worker tools as weapons (pick axes, chainsaws, drills, axes, etc)?

Also not only do the killers from slasher films look like workers but have you ever noticed that most of the victims in these films are usually middle (or high) class suburban teenagers? I think these films were sort of metaphors of the fears of workers (the slashers) rising up against the bourgeoisie (symbolized by the suburban teenagers) hence why these films are actually very right wing deep beneath (apart from subtly advocating right wing Reaganeque morality such as the "premarital sex=death" model and such).

I think I may have realize how classist these films really are that demonize working class people which I also realize that their really subtly demonizing the left wing (communism/socialism/etc) since these slasher films especially from the 1980s are just right wing knee jerks.

[Urban Rubble]

I think you think too much.

American Psycho featured a white collar murderer. Can we all assume it was written by Communists?

[Thirsty Crow]

I think you think too much.

American Psycho featured a white collar murderer. Can we all assume it was written by Communists?
However, that movie does not belong to, nor function within the genre confines of slasher horrors. Genre is something which may easily compound ideological undertones.
That being said, I'm not sure that OP's one-sided judgement stands. All in all, a more comprehensive study of works from that genre and period should be undertaken.

[OhYesIdid]

However, that movie does not belong to, nor function within the genre confines of slasher horrors. Genre is something which may easily compound ideological undertones.
That being said, I'm not sure that OP's one-sided judgement stands. All in all, a more comprehensive study of works from that genre and period should be undertaken.

Well, of course, but it IS and interesting idea, is it not?
Still, weren't there horror movies before the 1980's? I am not being sarcastic: can we assume that classic Universal monster-era horror movies are also metaphors for the known and comforting world being invaded by strange new ideas?

[Thirsty Crow]

Well, of course, but it IS and interesting idea, is it not?
Still, weren't there horror movies before the 1980's? I am not being sarcastic: can we assume that classic Universal monster-era horror movies are also metaphors for the known and comforting world being invaded by strange new ideas?
To analyze cultural artefacts along the line of the critique of ideology is always interesting (and, incidentally, that's what I'm currently doing at the uni).
And yes, there have been horror movies prior to the 80s. As such, the genre is really indicative of what does a potent part of a national imaginary consist (this part being that what is feared and what induces fear). And it is always a comforting, well known and benevolent world being invaded, but it is tricky to pinpoint what exactly is being represented by the fictional threat.

[OhYesIdid]

To analyze cultural artefacts along the line of the critique of ideology is always interesting (and, incidentally, that's what I'm currently doing at the uni).
And yes, there have been horror movies prior to the 80s. As such, the genre is really indicative of what does a potent part of a national imaginary consist (this part being that what is feared and what induces fear). And it is always a comforting, well known and benevolent world being invaded, but it is tricky to pinpoint what exactly is being represented by the fictional threat.

:D
Speaking of which...are`n't brutal slasher ilms meant to be not so much scary as..funny? In a brutish gladiator kind of way, people go to see them because of the blood and the gore, not because of the existential class anguish. Could that be considered a factor in this analysis?
Also, and going back to 1940's monster horror, could it be considered a rural people's (USA) view of globalization? In the sense that the wild forest creatures are spilling over the fence and coming into their precious ittle cut-off world?

[x359594]

The entire question is addressed by Robin Wood in his now classic essay "The American Nightmare" (re-printed in various anthologies and found in an expanded form in his book Hollywood: From Vietnam to Reagan.

Wood draws a distinction between reactionary horror movies and subversive horror movies, and in a later reflection on his original essay he says, "...the evolution of a genre is strongly influenced by cultural-political evolution, at least as much as by the genre's internal evolution, the fact that later films in a given cycle are nourished by and grow out of what preceded them. How else could one account for the astonishingly abrupt shift in the American horror film from the progressive, exploratory, often radical late '60s-'70s to the reactionary and repressive '80s?"

[Amphictyonis]

American Psycho?

qQx_AN02XuM

[Pirate Utopian]

I'm actually getting a little into slashers lately. Mostly to see killers do their thing.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think that analysis may be stretching it a little. For example:

Halloween: Michael Myers was not working class.
Black Christmas: Almost nothing is known about the killer.
Friday the 13th: Jason Voorhees was not working class.
A Nightmare On Elm Street: Was Kreuger actually a janitor in the original? If so, this plot element was passed over really quickly. Most know him as just a pedophile.
My Bloody Valentine: The killer in this was a working class kid killing other working class kids in a mining community.
The Prowler: Killer was a veteran.

Those are some of the more famous ones, along with The Burning (which I haven't seen, so I can't comment on.) I think that the phobia of rural people is far more pronounced and obvious in many horror films...films like TCM '74, Deliverance, Just Before Dawn, Rituals, Wrong Turn, Eden Lake and a lot of other "backwoods" horror films in which people from the cities or suburbs wander into rural territory where the normal rules of civilization don't apply.

[Proukunin]

even if it was written by right wingers Id still watch them because they are my favorite films..just because one's political tendency is different doesnt mean it effects the art they are making.

and a lot of exploitation gore/slasher movies were banned by margaret thatcher during the 80's.

[Magón]

Hostel 1&2 weren't very classist. Those movies were just fucked up.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I didn't really like Hostel so much, but I did like Hostel 2. The inclusion of Edwige Fenech, Ruggero Deodato and Luc Merenda appealed to my inner exploitation fanboy/nerd.

(Although Takashi Miike makes a cameo appearance in the first Hostel.)

Plus that set-piece involving the "blood bath" was nothing if not memorable.

[praxis1966]

I'm not sure it's entirely on topic, but there's a certain school of thought that says the slasher subgenre is actually pretty feminist... I'm sure Explosive Situation (if nobody else) will be aware of Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender and the Modern Horror Film (http://www.amazon.com/Men-Women-Chain-Saws-Gender/dp/0691006202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299209887&sr=8-1).

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Hostel wasn't that fucked up. Shit, I would consider it a softcore porn with some violence/torture in the end. I heard it was bad, but I grew up as a kid watching movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th, so I guess the stuff doesn't phase me. The only thing that actually got to me was the part with the ankles!

[Amphictyonis]

ZkCTSn8gcL4

[NGNM85]

Like Freud said; 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'

[Os Cangaceiros]

ZkCTSn8gcL4

I still can't believe that they remade that.

[Pirate Utopian]

Psycho had a motel-owning killer.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre supposedly had something to do with the Vietnam war.

[Dimentio]

For those who watch horror films have you ever noticed in most Slasher films especially from the 1980s that the killers are usually from a blue collared working class background (For example Freddy Kruger being a high school janitor or boiler room worker in life,etc) which they mostly dress in Blue colar attire (miners, truckers, etc) and use worker tools as weapons (pick axes, chainsaws, drills, axes, etc)?

Also not only do the killers from slasher films look like workers but have you ever noticed that most of the victims in these films are usually middle (or high) class suburban teenagers? I think these films were sort of metaphors of the fears of workers (the slashers) rising up against the bourgeoisie (symbolized by the suburban teenagers) hence why these films are actually very right wing deep beneath (apart from subtly advocating right wing Reaganeque morality such as the "premarital sex=death" model and such).

I think I may have realize how classist these films really are that demonize working class people which I also realize that their really subtly demonizing the left wing (communism/socialism/etc) since these slasher films especially from the 1980s are just right wing knee jerks.

From my experience, bourgeois kids tend to dislike films like that while working class people tend to like Sci fi, Action, Zombies and Slashers.

Slasher films were mostly about moralism. The abstinent teenagers always survived, and the sexual act is what awakens the monster.

[Tablo]

I love slasher movies.

[Smoochy The Rhino]

For those who watch horror films have you ever noticed in most Slasher films especially from the 1980s that the killers are usually from a blue collared working class background (For example Freddy Kruger being a high school janitor or boiler room worker in life,etc) which they mostly dress in Blue colar attire (miners, truckers, etc) and use worker tools as weapons (pick axes, chainsaws, drills, axes, etc)?

Most of the US population is in the upper portion of the lower class, or the middle to lower portion of the middle class. Aside, that is, from the list by Explosive Situation.


Also not only do the killers from slasher films look like workers but have you ever noticed that most of the victims in these films are usually middle (or high) class suburban teenagers?

Again, most of the US population is the general working/middle class.


I think these films were sort of metaphors of the fears of workers (the slashers) rising up against the bourgeoisie (symbolized by the suburban teenagers) hence why these films are actually very right wing deep beneath (apart from subtly advocating right wing Reaganeque morality such as the "premarital sex=death" model and such).

I think I may have realize how classist these films really are that demonize working class people which I also realize that their really subtly demonizing the left wing (communism/socialism/etc) since these slasher films especially from the 1980s are just right wing knee jerks.

The Reaganequese morality aside, I'm really not seeing it.


American Psycho featured a white collar murderer. Can we all assume it was written by Communists?

American Psycho is a psychological thriller. Related genre, but not the same. And I think I read somewhere that the main character had a different job in early drafts (a more middle management type, more on the blue collar of a blue<--->white collar spectrum)


Still, weren't there horror movies before the 1980's? I am not being sarcastic: can we assume that classic Universal monster-era horror movies are also metaphors for the known and comforting world being invaded by strange new ideas?

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. - H.P. Lovecraft,"Supernatural Horror in Literature"

[x359594]

...I'm sure Explosive Situation (if nobody else) will be aware of Carol Clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender and the Modern Horror Film (http://www.amazon.com/Men-Women-Chain-Saws-Gender/dp/0691006202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299209887&sr=8-1).

Clover's book is something of a feminist re-working of Wood's thesis, and he acknowledged her contribution in interviews.

[x359594]

...Texas Chainsaw Massacre supposedly had something to do with the Vietnam war.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had something to do with capitalism, if capitalism can be defined as a system where people live on other people, here taken literally.

Missing from the discussion so far is the story of real-life prototype for both Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ed Gein.

[Pirate Utopian]

I think that the phobia of rural people is far more pronounced and obvious in many horror films...films like TCM '74, Deliverance, Just Before Dawn, Rituals, Wrong Turn, Eden Lake and a lot of other "backwoods" horror films in which people from the cities or suburbs wander into rural territory where the normal rules of civilization don't apply.

They do really funny subversion of this type of slasher in Tucker & Dale Vs Evil.

[Magón]

Hostel wasn't that fucked up. Shit, I would consider it a softcore porn with some violence/torture in the end. I heard it was bad, but I grew up as a kid watching movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th, so I guess the stuff doesn't phase me. The only thing that actually got to me was the part with the ankles!

The blowtorch eye scene was probably the second thing that got to me, besides the ankles part.

[Fawkes]

In a lot of ways, Nightmare on Elm Street can be taken as being an attack on the farcical purity of the suburbs and the perfect Reaganesque American family, even if it still has questionable sex=bad undertones.


Edit: I haven't seen Hostel in years, but from what I remember, the first 75 minutes looked like a bad version of EuroTrip followed by a crappy attempt at outdoing Saw. I saw it when I was younger though, I wanna check it out again. Also, American Psycho is amazing, but definitely not a slasher.

[johnreedclub]

Hostel 1&2 weren't very classist. Those movies were just fucked up.

Interesting you mentioned those movies I found a really good article about the Political use of horror movies by the Bush administration, to force people’s sensitivity into responding unemotionally to the horrors of war. Quoting the author “an entire political party’s rationalization of torture as an acceptable American activity.”


Also interesting what Turkish director Fatih Akin had to say about this topic:


Bush's policy is comparable with that of the Third Reich. I think that under Bush, Hollywood has been making certain films at the request of The Pentagon to normalize things like torture and Guantanamo. I'm convinced the Bush administration wants a third world war. I think they're fascists.
—Fatih Akın

[tfb]

The Leprechaun movies are leftist.

He's got a big pot of gold, but if some kid winds up with a single coin he'll go on a murderous rampage to get it back.
The tricky wish stuff is like bourgeois elections.
He can't bear to dirty his hands by touching wrought iron.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I thought Hostel 2 was suprisingly good. It's a classic throwback exploitation film, only with really good production values and none of the obnoxious self-conscious nods that some "exploitation revival" films (like the Robert Rodriguez/Tarantino projects) sometimes have. Just a good straightfoward exploitation/horror film by someone who's a fan of the genre (Eli Roth, who, while I think he's something of a buffoon, has my respect as a fellow fan of horror who knows his shit when it comes to the genre), with some nice inclusions of Euro-sleaze legends like Edwige Fenech and Ruggero Deodato. The two main actors (Roger Bart and Lauren German) are both fine performers. I like that Czech song that plays when the two antagonists enter the factory/torture building for the first time.

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The "lady Bathory" scene was genuinely intense, too, IMO, and I don't say that about many scenes in modern horror.

Didn't much care for the first Hostel, though.

Also, the idea that the Pentagon pays people like Eli Roth to create "torture porn" is hilarious. Eli Roth, overgrown frat boy though he may be, is definitely not taking money from the Pentagon...the films he admires and apes, like "Bloodsucking Freaks" for example, have been around loooooooong before Bush administration.

[Os Cangaceiros]

wow, forgot that I had already commented on Hostel 2 in this thread. Damn you, johnreedclub, for necroing this thread!

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I enjoyed the Wes Craven film,"The People Under the Stairs."

[Invader Zim]

I think you think too much.

American Psycho featured a white collar murderer. Can we all assume it was written by Communists?

However, there is an obvious objection - American Psycho is not a slasher film or even a horror film. It is a black comedy based on a (rather good if very fucked up) book by Bret Easton Ellis, a man who has forged a career inventing characters whose wealth is matched only by their extent of their arrogance.

[EvilRedGuy]

I'm actually getting a little into slashers lately. Mostly to see killers do their thing.


Sure you do. Fascist.


Anyways why are the victims always from working class background? Its fucking unfair, in a socialist/communist society we'll torture the fuck out of those bourgie, fascist, and imperialist feudalist pigs.


:blink::thumbup1:

[x359594]

...Texas Chainsaw Massacre supposedly had something to do with the Vietnam war.

Robin Wood (see above) argued that the behavior of the cannibal family was a metaphor for capitalism in as much as capitalism asserts the right of some people to live off of other people.

[LostDesperado]

Haha Hostel was hilarious. I loved 1 and 2. Honestly I agree the ankle scene was fucked up but worth it..XD Honestly it was so fucked up I don't remember what it looked like just that I winced. Go slashers.

[Aleenik]

I hate horror movies. They scare me, I think they are dumb and also I find them disgusting. I don't understand how people can like movies like say SAW.

[Os Cangaceiros]

...because people have different tastes when it comes to film?

[Commissar Rykov]

...because people have different tastes when it comes to film?

Unpossible.:crying:

[Pirate Utopian]

I hate horror movies. They scare me

Isn't that like hating a comedy because it makes you laugh? Or a drama for making you sad?

[Aleenik]

...because people have different tastes when it comes to film?I realize that, but movies like SAW are extremly sadistic and gruesome. That is why I find it hard to understand why people enjoy them.
Isn't that like hating a comedy because it makes you laugh? Or a drama for making you sad?No. I hate being scared period. I love to laugh and a sad story can be a good one, though I don't generally like to watch sad movies. It just depends on the person.

[Pirate Utopian]

Fair enough.

The first two Saw movies kinda reminded me of Se7en, more focus on the psychology and philosophy behind the killer. Third and sixth movies were okay popcorn movies, it's interesting to see what weird contraptions Jigsaw made, it's kinda like the Peewee Herman breakfast machine of death. The others, especially 3D, were terrible.

[Invader Zim]

I realize that, but movies like SAW are extremly sadistic and gruesome. That is why I find it hard to understand why people enjoy them.

Well, I would agree with the latter ones which become more extreme as the ludicrous depths of humiliation and sadism increase. But the first one was fine. That said I'm terrible at when it comes to really nastly movies. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind gore, violence or sex. It is more visceral cruelty that I just can not handle. For instance I really hated Love Camp Seven. That genuinely upset me. It is one of only a handful of films that have ever actively done so, but that achieved it. Not because it was overly violent (which, incidentally it is), but because of just how unremittingly misognistic it is. It depicts violence against women, not to make a stament against such acts or to make any kind of political, social or artistic point, but to gratify men who are tittilated by the sight of exposed breasts and women's blood. I hated it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I realize that, but movies like SAW are extremly sadistic and gruesome. That is why I find it hard to understand why people enjoy them.

They're not really that sadistic or gruesome, though, compared to a lot of movies I've seen. Like, say, "Mordum". Read a plot summary of that film, then tell me that Saw is gruesome.

As far as why people want to watch the depths of depravity portrayed in such films, well, the best analogy I can think of is hot sauce. A lot of people go out of their way to try and find the hottest hot sauce they can, hot sauce so hot that it's not even enjoyable to eat, it just burns your mouth like crazy. I think that's kind of what it's like with some people and violent films...they kind of want to see what they can handle. Until you get so desensitized to on-screen violence that it just becomes boring to watch such films, and you start to value an actual interesting plotline more and more (that's how it was with me, anyway).

And, as I've said before on this board, the only film that kept me awake at night thinking about it wasn't a super gory/violent film, it was "Spoorloos", which disturbed me more than just about any snuff film could've. It's a testament to the effective use of a horrifying theme to shock the audience, rather than tons of blood and gore.

[EvilRedGuy]

Well, I would agree with the latter ones which become more extreme as the ludicrous depths of humiliation and sadism increase. But the first one was fine. That said I'm terrible at when it comes to really nastly movies. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind gore, violence or sex. It is more visceral cruelty that I just can not handle. For instance I really hated Love Camp Seven. That genuinely upset me. It is one of only a handful of films that have ever actively done so, but that achieved it. Not because it was overly violent (which, incidentally it is), but because of just how unremittingly misognistic it is. It depicts violence against women, not to make a stament against such acts or to make any kind of political, social or artistic point, but to gratify men who are tittilated by the sight of exposed breasts and women's blood. I hated it.

Personally i like hate movies(to a limit), movies that make you hate them and get angry, it gives such an unexpected reaction and that is what movies should be about (thats what genres are for) to give a special feeling you want to feel. Whether its sadness, happiness, scariness, funniness, angriness, etc. No reason to be misogynist though, though i assume after a post-capitalist society there would still be fiction/history about the old days and about how shitty it was under a bourgeois regime.

[magicme]

zombies films = fear of the mob
vampire films = fear of rich people, often changed to fascination with and wanting to be one
werewolf films = fear of nature

i couldn't have thought that up myself, must've read it somewhere. tend to agree with OP, it's the needs and concerns of the bourg. economy informing the culture i think

[piet11111]

You should see boogie its protagonist is a misogynist psychopath that kills for the fun of it.

One part is where a poor black kid asks him for 10 dollars to buy books instead he says he will give him 30 if he works for it and kicks down a door in an ally so the kid kicks down that door where armed mobsters are hiding behind and gets blown to bits and boogie just says that he hates beggars or something like that.

[blake 3:17]

zombies films = fear of the mob

vampire films = fear of rich people, often changed to fascination with and wanting to be one

werewolf films = fear of nature

And then who do you really side with? The origins of modern via the gothic novel are generally conservative, but in different ways.

The slasher flick has usually a Teenagers Don't Fuck message but it's a bit more complicated than that.

[blake 3:17]

For a couple alternative perspectives, Let The Right One In and The People Under The Stairs are interesting contrasts.

[Hexen]

For a couple alternative perspectives, Let The Right One In and The People Under The Stairs are interesting contrasts.

Can you explain?

[Os Cangaceiros]

zombies films = fear of the mob
vampire films = fear of rich people, often changed to fascination with and wanting to be one
werewolf films = fear of nature

i couldn't have thought that up myself, must've read it somewhere. tend to agree with OP, it's the needs and concerns of the bourg. economy informing the culture i think

There was an article I read a while back that drew a connection between Democratic presidents and the popularity of vampire films, and GOP presidents and the popularity of zombie films.

[Pirate Utopian]

In that case, vote Republican.

Zombies > vampires.

[EvilRedGuy]

Ahh, but vampires are better then.

Obvious misunderstood-fascist TASTE MY GODDAMN FIST!!!

[x359594]

Bill Krohn who wrote Hitchocok at Work and The Complete Films of Luis Bunuel has been working on a book on serial killers in the cinema. SK films number in the high hundreds after 1960 (he found about a dozen pre-1960 movies) showing the influence of Psycho (1960) on the rest of the genre.

[danyboy27]

For those who watch horror films have you ever noticed in most Slasher films especially from the 1980s that the killers are usually from a blue collared working class background (For example Freddy Kruger being a high school janitor or boiler room worker in life,etc) which they mostly dress in Blue colar attire (miners, truckers, etc) and use worker tools as weapons (pick axes, chainsaws, drills, axes, etc)?

Also not only do the killers from slasher films look like workers but have you ever noticed that most of the victims in these films are usually middle (or high) class suburban teenagers? I think these films were sort of metaphors of the fears of workers (the slashers) rising up against the bourgeoisie (symbolized by the suburban teenagers) hence why these films are actually very right wing deep beneath (apart from subtly advocating right wing Reaganeque morality such as the "premarital sex=death" model and such).

I think I may have realize how classist these films really are that demonize working class people which I also realize that their really subtly demonizing the left wing (communism/socialism/etc) since these slasher films especially from the 1980s are just right wing knee jerks.
Since most people are workers, the best way to play with the imagination of the public is to show them things that they can relate to, same goes for the background of the killer.

Its much more interesting to go see a movie and while you are leaving the theater to think that the guy who sat next to you or your coworker could be a psychopath like the one in the movie..

Its not so frightening to see rich people killing poor people in movie beccause this is what they are doing in real life, and everyone know more or less that.

[blake 3:17]

Originally Posted by blake 3:17
For a couple alternative perspectives, Let The Right One In and The People Under The Stairs are interesting contrasts.
Can you explain?

I'd see the former as a youth empowerment film. What gentle bullied boy wouldn't want a murderous vampire as a girlfriend? PUTS is pretty good satire. I would need to watch it again to say anything much more intelligent than that.

I just the remake of Last House on the Left for a second time. I remembered it as gruesome, but not so drawn out. Yikes!

[x359594]

Last House on the Left is a loose adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring.

[RED DAVE]

Any genre in which large numbers of young people are killed can't be all bad!

RED DAVE

[piet11111]

Any genre in which large numbers of young people are killed can't be all bad!

RED DAVE

I like zombies because they eat the elderly first ;)

But seriously most slasher movies have kids that are total dicks its rare that i see a horror movie where i consider the people sympathetic.

[Rafiq]

ZkCTSn8gcL4

Love that movie

[Pirate Utopian]

I like zombies because they eat the elderly first ;)

But seriously most slasher movies have kids that are total dicks its rare that i see a horror movie where i consider the people sympathetic.

Watch Nightmare On Elm Street III: Dream Warriors. IMO the best of the series.

[Hexen]

Actually what I was trying to explain all along was that Slasher films are nothing more than morality plays disguised as horror genre films.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/801389/killing_for_christ_slasher_flicks_as_pg2.html

http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/slasher-films-modern-day-dark-morality-tales/

http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/analysis-horror-movies-as-modern-day-morality-tales-%E2%80%93-the-silence-of-the-lambs-and-se7en

http://www.helium.com/items/465290-are-modern-day-horror-movies-morality-tales

http://hopkinscinemaddicts.typepad.com/hopkinscinemaddicts/2010/02/fairytales-of-a-darker-nature-slasher-films-as-morality-tales.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

Watch Nightmare On Elm Street III: Dream Warriors. IMO the best of the series.

That movie is awesome. By far the best of the ANOES sequels.

[tir1944]

What is "classism"?

[Blackscare]

For those who watch horror films have you ever noticed in most Slasher films especially from the 1980s that the killers are usually from a blue collared working class background (For example Freddy Kruger being a high school janitor or boiler room worker in life,etc) which they mostly dress in Blue colar attire (miners, truckers, etc) and use worker tools as weapons (pick axes, chainsaws, drills, axes, etc)?


Oh come on, would you really go see a slasher flick where the murderer staples people to death? Maybe pokes them with a dull letter opener? They use "worker tools" because it's only blue collar workers who use tools, white collar workers use devices and gadgets. Any nobody wants to see someone beaten to death with a blackberry. Axes and chainsaws are scary because they're big, heavy, and sharp, not because the guy holding them only has his GED.



Maybe there IS classism in these movies, I don't know, but I think that this was a weak point.

[Os Cangaceiros]

although there definitely are some elements you can analyze in slasher films, weapons among them. For example:

http://criterioncast.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/slumber_party_massacre_final_dvd_cover.jpg

hmm, I wonder how this would be analyzed in gender studies class?

I don't think that most slashers are morality tales, though. Many of them are just cheaply produced films that some joker packs with boobs and blood over a disposable plot in an effort to turn a cheap profit.

[thefinalmarch]

Any genre in which large numbers of young people are killed can't be all bad!

RED DAVE
I did not expect this from red dave at all.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Red Dave is old and grumpy and wishes those darn kids would get off his lawn.

[piet11111]

Red Dave is old and grumpy and wishes those darn kids would get off his lawn.

vYXHdjKrF1g

[Pirate Utopian]

although there definitely are some elements you can analyze in slasher films, weapons among them. For example:

hmm, I wonder how this would be analyzed in gender studies class?

That movie was written by a feminist as a satire of slashers however the producers wanted the movie done seriously.