“What’s your favorite scary movie?”
It’s a question I’m often asked, and, for the longest time, I never had an answer to it. In a genre as storied and diverse as horror, anyone would be hard-pressed for a response. What’s certain, though, is few, if any, casual viewers would pick a slasher film.
Dubbed derogatorily as “Dead Teenager Films” by their critics, slashers have been derided as low-budget cash-ins on lurid horror trends catered to braindead teenagers since the early days of the genre. Growing up in the aughts, I hated being subjected to the remakes of classic slashers when those seemed to be the only films targeting my age group (besides the glut of speculative YA film adaptations released every summer). I couldn’t understand what my peers saw in them, why they had to rush to movie theaters opening weekend to watch what film critics told me was the same cynical formula screened again and again. And when I eventually checked them out myself, I realized, much to my dismay, that film critics were absolutely right about these new releases. Mainstream slasher films released during that era were exactly what they were being called out for, and watching friends pay to see them was like watching someone get their fix of fast food.
In hindsight, that period would be considered the genre’s second dark age—which was unfortunate because, for the first time in my life, I was exploring cinema less as a casual moviegoer and more as an aspiring filmmaker. During this period, I studied the classics and read up on film criticism to enhance my understanding of the medium. Had I been exposed to the classic slashers of that era, such as Mary Harron’s American Psycho, Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, I would’ve reevaluated my assessment of the genre. These films proved to be critical to my later development as an artist. Lectured by professional critics who refused to acknowledge that even the bloodiest auteur-made films could be slashers, I never understood that the genre could be a legitimate medium for artistic exploration while, if I’m being honest, being so much fun. And slasher films are fun for me for the reasons everyone finds these films so immature in the first place.
To this day, older cinephiles snub their noses at slasher films, the genre being treated less like an art form and more like a source of cheap thrills. However, in a world that seems less frightening and more horrifying, we could all use some classic spine-tingling slasher thrills that keep us up at night. It might seem strange that I’m recommending a genre like slasher films as an antidote to ailments associated with struggling in the modern world. But what better escape than watching our final girl barely scrape by throughout the story, her survival a metaphor for our own, even when she takes on the slasher and somehow wins? Getting to such a glorious, gory climax requires navigating all of our favorite vices—swearing, sex, drinking, drugs, and, of course, unadulterated violence. And one franchise, in particular, has been my shameless source of self-aware slasher sleaze.
Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, Scream was a breath of fresh air in the mid-nineties slasher scene. On release, the film was a surprise smash hit, becoming the single highest-grossing slasher of all time up to that point, and, in the process, spawning a successful franchise that would redefine what a slasher film was and, later, what a slasher franchise could be.
Instead of presenting itself as a traditional horror film, Scream served us cynically-comic postmodern meta-pastiches of slasher films and its industry and fandoms. The killers intentionally invoked common slasher clichés; the victims survived by figuring out which tropes were being homaged or subverted. Ingeniously, this approach would be maintained with each subsequent installment, commenting on the slasher genre whose constant evolution helped it survive every slump it experienced while somehow maintaining a streak of cheap thrills that the Scream franchise was always ready on standby to point out, call out, make fun of . . . and then proceed to reenact.
Scream separated itself from spoofs of slashers by actually being a slasher film—one so vicious that you could be laughing one minute only to flinch the next. Kills were fast, brutal, and relentless, just like its humor. No one was safe, not even the audience. Even as you laughed along, you knew these jokes were making fun of you just as much as they were the characters. Its imagery might’ve been too gruesome, and its meta-humor might’ve been a bit too on the nose, but you got an eerie glee watching these films on the edge of your seat.
Over the years, numerous sequels have been released, and I’ve developed an attachment to Scream and its cast that I haven’t with any other horror franchise. Maybe it’s because their awareness of the slasher genre makes them more relatable or that it just makes them more entertaining. It’s not uncommon to watch a slasher film and call out to the characters and tell them not to do something stupid. It’s a whole other experience to watch a slasher film and call out to the characters and tell them not to do something stupid as they themselves called out to the other characters, telling them not to do something stupid. Regardless of how you feel about metafiction, it’s a unique experience to have the characters themselves point out tropes and try to figure out whether to go through with the clichés or not, wondering out loud what commentary the killer is trying to make about modern slasher films while at the same time knowing the creatives are making a commentary upon that very commentary.
It might feel cheap, but in a life that’s become precariously monotonous, I get my thrills where I can find them. Yes, I might be losing it, but there’s a certain comfort in knowing that, as my tastes in horror have evolved with changing trends, the Scream franchise will always be there to poke fun at them and to remind me how fun being scared can be.
