Slasher Genre
GENRE
The slasher genre started in the late 70’s as a sub-genre to horror. It began with a very specific target audience: teenage boys who were able to experience safe, vicarious thrills through the consumption of slashers as a media product. However, this relationship between the slasher genre and its demographic has since greatly evolved thanks to concepts such as post modernism, gender neutrality and audience sophistication. With the introduction of a female demographic, the relationship has morphed to incorporate their larger audience.
Slasher films were first designed as a ‘safe scare’ – in which their audience could experience the rollercoaster of fear of a crazed killer massacring sinful teenagers without any of the danger. A set of conventions were developed, creating a formula for slasher films to follow, including stereotypical, gendered roles – the male psycho murderer, the virginal final girl, the promiscuous best friend. There was also the constant of the ‘peaceful setting’, such as a quiet neighbourhood, where the masochistic murders would be carried out. Slasher films as a genre play on the common demonian of society’s morbid curiosity and their audience’s fascination with brutal killings. They also play on the audiences fear that this could be my neighbourhood’, and worked at making the films directly relatable to their target audience. For example, in Wes Cravens ‘Halloween’ of 1978, the final girl and her two best friends are babysitters, a role to which many teenagers can relate. Slasher utilise the idea of person identity, and the ways in which their audience can relate to the genre. The success of this choice of audience relationship can be quantified through the commercial success of the genre – especially in the first 20 years of the genre, production costs were low and box office returns were considerably higher. For ‘Halloween’, a slasher from cycle 1, while production costs were only $320,000, $70 million was made overall. These
The slasher genre started in the late 70’s as a sub-genre to horror. It began with a very specific target audience: teenage boys who were able to experience safe, vicarious thrills through the consumption of slashers as a media product. However, this relationship between the slasher genre and its demographic has since greatly evolved thanks to concepts such as post modernism, gender neutrality and audience sophistication. With the introduction of a female demographic, the relationship has morphed to incorporate their larger audience.
Slasher films were first designed as a ‘safe scare’ – in which their audience could experience the rollercoaster of fear of a crazed killer massacring sinful teenagers without any of the danger. A set of conventions were developed, creating a formula for slasher films to follow, including stereotypical, gendered roles – the male psycho murderer, the virginal final girl, the promiscuous best friend. There was also the constant of the ‘peaceful setting’, such as a quiet neighbourhood, where the masochistic murders would be carried out. Slasher films as a genre play on the common demonian of society’s morbid curiosity and their audience’s fascination with brutal killings. They also play on the audiences fear that this could be my neighbourhood’, and worked at making the films directly relatable to their target audience. For example, in Wes Cravens ‘Halloween’ of 1978, the final girl and her two best friends are babysitters, a role to which many teenagers can relate. Slasher utilise the idea of person identity, and the ways in which their audience can relate to the genre. The success of this choice of audience relationship can be quantified through the commercial success of the genre – especially in the first 20 years of the genre, production costs were low and box office returns were considerably higher. For ‘Halloween’, a slasher from cycle 1, while production costs were only $320,000, $70 million was made overall. These