[Editorial] In Defense of the Modern Slasher and the Female Horror Fan
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Horror, and notably the slasher sub-genre, has endured criticisms of misogyny and portrayals of female archetypes for decades. Films are always inherently reflective of the era in which they’re made, with societal norms changing over the decades, so a valid case could be made about the treatment of women in film in some respects. You could point to many genres from romantic comedies to even Disney movies, and cite the portrayals of females as problematic; but because horror is the genre most rooted in violence, it’s understandable that it’s the one that faces the harshest criticisms. As a horror fan, defending the genre to outsiders unfamiliar with anything but surface-level tropes come with the fandom.
As a female horror fan, it’s often taken a step further as we’re placed in boxes by outsiders, mostly other women, and deemed misguided or worse, stupid, for enjoying a genre where women are gratuitously slaughtered for being sexually fluid, with only the virgins surviving. The latest dismissal of slashers and female fandom surfaced last week on social media that led back to a blog post from a filmmaker who dabbled in the genre previously. The social media frenzy and attention stirred up the usual criticisms of the genre, namely misogyny, and led to old questions that openly pondered why any females could possible be fans. The criticisms, as usual, remained dated and limited.
It’s both blanket statements and open condescension for horror fans that induces rage.
At outward glance, sure, a case could certainly be made against the treatment of women in horror, especially decades ago. Watching Alfred Hitchcock films is likely to raise an eyebrow at the interactions between his leading ladies and men, but the context of what society was like in the ‘50s and ‘60s is vastly different to today, making arguments that all of horror is anti-feminist seem antiquated at best. Halloween is used as an example, namely in how the virginal or “male-identified” female is allowed to survive while girly-girls are associated with sluts and slaughtered in the name of male fantasy. Except, Halloween was produced and co-written by Debra Hill, a remarkable woman in horror. The most fully articulated, fleshed out characters of the film are women; Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles), and Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes).
Even though the good-natured Laurie is the Final Girl, each of the women are fully realized, independent characters we still love decades later; the men are simply accessories to their character arcs.
While Roger Ebert and his critical partner in crime Gene Siskel frequently lobbied reproaches against the genre’s treatment of women, Ebert noted of Halloween, “As you watch, your basic sympathy is ALWAYS enlisted on the side of the women, not with the killer. The movie develops its women characters as independent, intelligent, spunky, interesting people. This movie clearly does not hate women.” John Carpenter has stated in interviews about the film that it was never intended to make a statement on the morality of sexuality; Laurie simply survived because she wasn’t distracted like her friends were. The Golden Age of Slashers, kicked off by Halloween in 1978 up until around 1984, meant an influx of copycats that perpetuated the formula and stereotypes that became intertwined with the slasher, making it easier for outsiders to maintain their disdain toward horror without really understanding it.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has also come under fire as a film where its final girl is chased by a man with a chainsaw. Tobe Hooper’s seminal classic had nothing to do with gender, though, but the political climate of the era. As well regarded as Marilyn Burns’ Sally Hardesty is as a final girl, the reality is that her friends and brother happened to wind up in the Sawyer family crosshairs before she did.
Unlike most branches of horror that offer fantasy reprieves by way of vampires, zombies, and various rubber-suited monsters, slashers are plausibly the most rooted in realism, which in turn serves as fodder to those made uncomfortable by the nature of horror. But its flaws and scope are hardly unilateral. Academic and film study professor Carol J. Clover is responsible for coining the term “final girl” and builds a case for the morally pure woman that outlasts her “slutty” counterparts in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Written in 1992, Clover dissects gender in horror from a feminist perspective. It illuminates valid criticisms in the genre; but, like most who present similar arguments, it’s also narrow in range and somewhat dated.
Never mind that the body count in nearly all slashers are primarily male. Or that most of our genre’s icons are female.
The Slumber Party Massacre– female written, directed, produced and starring females
Women have always been integral to the shaping of horror. From Mary Shelley’s highly influential Gothic novel Frankenstein, published in 1818, to the numerous women who have shaped horror cinema behind the scenes over the past century, women have played a larger role in the genre than the stereotypes would present. Women have been the driving force in horror for over a decade, as well, at least in terms of audiences. An article from EW mentions that the early 2000s theatrical horror owes much of its box office success to female ticket buyers than men, with over 50% of the audience being female every time. It’s something that Hollywood has long taken notice of, as horror leaned even further into its female protagonists and more and more women began to tell horror stories behind the lens. The tropes that were once popular in the ‘80s are now being subverted on a consistent basis.
What does this have to do with the misogyny of slashers? Simply, that it’s a narrow view that doesn’t hold nearly as much water as it did decades ago. There are sound arguments for the stereotypes that exist, sure, but if we’re going to hone in on the problematic areas of horror, why stop at gender? Why stop at horror? Furthermore, why lob criticisms specifically towards female fans of the genre if the critique is anti-feminist? I could spend another 1,500 words on explaining what it is about horror that draws so many of the intelligent people to it, but I think if you’re here reading this you’re already well aware.
Final Girl Sidney Prescott consistently helped break down tropes in Craven’s meta-slasher, Scream.
Billy Loomis told final girl Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven’s Scream, “Now Sid, don’t you blame the movies. Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” Slashers didn’t create misogyny, but they did have a habit of shining a spotlight on it sometimes. To say horror hasn’t been problematic would be a lie, but to say it’s only been problematic is a much bigger lie. Horror, above any other genre, wraps uncomfortable societal truths in a more palatable packaging. It’s easier to swallow Jordan Peele’s critique on race relations if there’s an element of fantasy to it. Meaning, horror is often very progressive as well. Take last year’s Happy Death Day, a slasher that addressed the slutty girl trope head on by making Tree, a promiscuous college sorority type, its protagonist. This doesn’t even begin to cover the element of horror fandom in that we simply are looking for entertainment over allegory, politics, and film theory. Horror as escapism is a whole other discussion.
It’s probably quite silly to address patronizing critiques by those who clearly hate horror and look down on those that do, especially because it’s something we’ve grown quite used to over the years. Even when horror dominates the box office. While the genre definitely leaves room to have conversations on both its meaning and intent, in terms of socio, political, gender, and everything in between, this is my open letter to leave those discussions to those that are open-minded and more knowledgeable on the subject, or are willing to learn.
The great thing about film, and horror, is that different fears speak to different people and that interpretation is in the eyes of the beholder. There are arguments to be made and discussed, but blanket statements disregard everything that is pure about horror (and plain ignorant). It’s also dismissive of so many integral women like Ida Lupino, Debra Hill, Stephanie Rothman, Mary Harron, Jackie Kong, Rachel Talalay, Barbara Peeters, Julie Corman, Karyn Kusama, the Soska sisters, Kei Fujiwara, Mary Lambert, Amy Holden Jones, Carol Frank, and so many more who have contributed and continue to contribute their perspective to the genre.
The biggest thing I’ve learned in my life-long love of horror is that horror fans tend to be more empathetic than most. And personally, I’m proud to be a horror fan, flaws and all.
The great Ernest Dickerson turns seventy-five years old this month, so we’re looking back at his most memorable contribution to the horror genre – 1995’s Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight!
The film hit screens while the Tales from the Crypt series was winding down its run on television, and it stands apart with a story that feels a step or two removed from the franchise norm. That was the smart play, though, as the show’s stories – and those from the original EC comics – work best in short bites. The result is a film that holds up beautifully as a gory good time.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)
Commentator: Ernest Dickerson (director), Michael Felsher (moderator)
1. Dickerson was in post-production on Surviving the Game when he got a call from his agent saying that producer Gil Adler wanted to meet about a Tales from the Crypt feature film. It went well, so Dickerson met with Joel Silver next and secured the job.
2. The original screenplay for the film came to the producers as a spec script wholly detached from the Tales from the Crypt brand. They added the Crypt Keeper (voiced by John Kassir) bookends to make it fit.
3. Dickerson was more familiar with the original EC comic books having read them as a kid, but he had watched a few episodes of the HBO series, so he knew what the current vibe was for the project.
4. Adler directed the film’s wraparound segments, meaning Dickerson never actually got to work with the creepy puppet. “Gil and the Crypt Keeper had a great relationship,” he adds, “they worked together for years.”
5. While he was new to the Tales from the Crypt family, Dickerson had previously worked as a director of photography on the Tales from the Darkside anthology series. That show is underappreciated in my humble opinion, and I will go to bat for both it and the equally underloved Monsters.
6. A big appeal of the horror genre for Dickerson is the idea of dark mysteries that challenge our imagination. For this film, that came down to the mythology being created between the characters.
7. Five executive producers are listed in the opening credits, but Dickerson says the only two he had dealings with were Silver and Richard Donner. The other three were Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and David Giler.
8. Dickerson had only ever seen Billy Zane in movies with a full head of hair, so he was surprised when Zane showed up on the first day with a bald head. “He had this case, and he opened up the case that he had all these hair pieces in, and he says, ‘So which one of these do you think I should use?’” Dickerson looked at him and suggested he just go bald for the character.
9. While the bulk of the opening exteriors were filmed in a desert just outside Los Angeles, the shot of the old church at 11:26 was created on a warehouse hangar soundstage where the film’s interiors were shot.
10. When he had read the script, Dickerson pictured the character of Jeryline (Jada Pinkett Smith) “as a little, tough lady.” He had recently seen Smith in Menace II Society, and while the producers had someone else in mind for the role, he fought to get her instead.
11. Just as Zane surprised Dickerson with his hair (or lack thereof), Smith arrived on the first day with her hair dyed platinum white. He “liked the idea” but asked her to please get it tweaked so it looked more yellowish blond. “It’s definitely a statement.”
12. He had seen Brenda Bakke in the 1989 sci-fi/action film from Japan, Gunhed, and thought she’d be great here as Cordelia. The rest of us might recognize her from Death Spa or Trucks.
13. Felsher comments that the film’s setup does a good job not telegraphing who’s going to live or die, and he uses the “nice guy” (Charles Fleischer) and “the kid” (Ryan O’Donohue) as examples. “You don’t play by those rules here,” he says, and Dickerson replies that he wanted to subvert those rules. That extends to Smith as well because she’s Black, “and usually in movies like this they’re the first folks to die.”
14. Dickerson says they had forty days of filming, “which, the way I’m used to working, was a very generous schedule.” It was budgeted at around $10 million.
15. This probably won’t surprise you, but Zane improvised the bit at 26:25 after he jumps out the window and says, “Fuck this cowboy shit! You fuckin’, hodunk Podunk, well, then, motherfuckers!”
16. In the original script, the demons that The Collector (Zane) raises from the dirt actually looked more like the people they used to be. “They were more human,” but the very smart decision was made in pre-production to make them look far more unique instead.
17. The demons are killed by shooting their eyes, but Dickerson felt there should be one more element to it. “Shoot out their eyes, you gotta duck because the souls come shooting out, and if it hits ya, boom, it can kill ya.” This is a fun touch.
18. He’s been asked more than once if these demons are where Peter Jackson got the idea for how the orcs would look in his Lord of the Rings movies. “They do look like orcs.”
19. He recalls having seen Ronny Yu’s The Bride with White Hair shortly before going to work on Demon Knight, and he hoped to bring some of that staged style into his own film. An example of that in practice is Brayker’s (William Sadler) brief flashbacks to Christ on the cross.
20. Character deaths were mostly based on the idea that “each person’s downfall was going to be predicated by their weakness.” The Collector discovers someone’s weakness and then uses it against them. Cordelia wants to be loved, Jeryline wants to travel, Uncle Willy (Dick Miller) is a horndog for both liquor and ladies, Danny loves horror comics, etc.
21. Dickerson says that plenty of genre classics were in the back of his head while making the film, including Assault on Precinct 13, Alien, Aliens, and more.
22. Cordelia is possessed into a demonic form, and Dickerson’s idea for how she’d look was originally a bit different. “Since Cordelia was a prostitute, I thought that her mouth should actually be a vertical slit that was in her stomach… which would open up with teeth and a tongue.” It was nixed, he says, when “the wife of one of the producers read that and said ‘no way you’re putting that in the movie.’”
23. The key makes an appearance in the followup, Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood, but it wasn’t originally meant to. Apparently, early test audiences expected it to be a more connected sequel to Demon Knight, so the filmmakers added it in to appease them. This is where I go on record saying that Bordello of Blood is a fun time. Can’t touch Demon Knight, obviously, but it’s more entertaining than its reputation suggests.
24. They had to film Uncle Willy’s bar scene “dream” twice, once with the women topless and once with them in bikinis, to have versions for both theaters and television broadcast. “Dick’s a pro.” (To be fair, Dickerson says this in regard to Miller having to endure the makeup application, but the sentiment fits both situations, so…)
25. Dickerson says he’s “always amazed at the love that people show this film,” and adds that fans bring it up to him incredibly often. This is great to hear, as we should always be telling artists how much their work means to us while they’re still alive and able to hear it.
26. Zane also suggested the gag at 1:08:21 with the sponge coming out of his mouth. The beat reminds Dickerson to praise the actor even more, adding that he was an “ally” to the director when “bad ideas” came down from the studio suits.
27. He didn’t get any pushback on killing little Danny. He did insist on one added element, though, as he wanted to immediately follow the boy exploding in the air with a shot of his bloody and torn sneaker hitting the ground below. “And the sneaker had to be a hightop.”
28. Dickerson says there’s “something kinky sexy about” Smith being covered in blood, and then the two commentators go quiet for almost two minutes out of respect for the scene. It’s a good opportunity to reflect on how Dickerson had previously mentioned Alien and Aliens as films being in the back of his head during filming, and how two scenes here reflect that – Jeryline stripping down to her underwear for the final confrontation feels like a nod to Ridley Scott’s film, while an earlier scene with Irene (CCH Pounder) and Dep. Bob (Gary Farmer) realizing they’re surrounded and choosing to blow themselves up alongside some of the demons is something of a callback to the air vent sacrifice in James Cameron’s film.
29. Asked about the film’s critical reception at the time of release, Dickerson says it received good reviews from horror-loving critics and then talks about the importance of horror in general. “Horror has always been a great way of putting out ideas, of talking about some of the things that affect us as people. Some of the best horror, like the best science fiction, talks about what it’s like to be human. Some of the best horror gets very political.”
30. The original ending would have featured The Collector showing “his true self, which is a demon made of fire.” They spent a lot of time trying to make it work, but it was “extremely difficult… back in the day of analog effects.” It was rewritten into the faceoff between him and Jeryline featuring the dancing, the crotch fire, Zane’s attempts at saying “love,” and his eventual demise from her bloody spit.
31. They both agree that a direct sequel to Demon Knight could be a lot of fun, but Dickerson says he’s unaware of any talk on the possibility.
32. Dickerson was super excited about this new Scream Factory Blu-ray in 2015, and he mentions that before its release, he had imported a Blu-ray from Germany presumably to enjoy the film in HD. He’s just like us! (Or am I the only one here who’s imported a German Blu-ray of the much maligned werewolf flick Big Bad Wolf…)
Quotes Without Context
“I was so happy to get Dick Miller for this movie.”
“There was a time when guys used to put ketchup on everything.”
“I’m a big student of Hitchcock, and the best way to make a moment of horror work is to lull the audience into a false sense of security.”
“A villain should always be the most interesting person in a movie.”
“They were a really great bunch of performers who were performing on these little leg-extension stilts wearing a diaper that had a radio-controlled tail that was being manipulated by a special effects tech right out of the frame.”
“It’s hard to direct air; it doesn’t do what you want.”
“The only censorship problem came from the producer’s wife, who didn’t want the vagina dentalis [sic] in the movie.”
“One of the executives wanted to know why the devil didn’t try to have sex with Jada.”
“It always starts with the script.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
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