Badmovies.org Forum

  This is a question that's been bugging me for a while, and I wonder if anyone here could help me answer it: What's the deal with sex in slasher movies? I know Halloween started the tradition, but why? And why continue it? It always p**ses me off, I feel sorry for those poor kids who get killed directly before or after. There's just so many weird moral messages in there, I really don't understand it....

Isn't the act of slashing just a substitution for penetration in the first place?

The slasher movie is mostly a Freudian representation of the sociatal and personal fears of sex.

The slasher movie is mostly a Freudian representation of the sociatal and personal fears of sex.



I really hope you're kidding.

Actually, I'm not. It's basically nightmare personified. Where do you think all the urban myths and folktales come from? The whole concept of taboo in general is usually at the heart of a horror movie and for that matter, even good drama. That is what makes the horror more personal and allows you to at least empathise with it. Watch a movie where something bad happens to somebody without cause (I'm not saying they deserve it, but without the person demonstrating some trait that society can point at in general and label as bad.) It's jarring as hell. It doesn't tend to make good cinema because it's so out of place with the usual formulaic presentation we are used to in stories. Ever see Assault on Precinct 13? There is a scene where adorable little Kim Richards goes back to the Ice Cream Truck she just got her cone from to exchange it for the correct one. The scumbag who just killed the Ice Cream Man doesn't even look at her directly when he shoots and kills her. It's a really f***ed up scene. This little girl did nothing wrong and yet she is dead. It leaves you feeling odd. Jason killing teens who are out behaving outside of sociatal norms doesn't leave you with the same feeling.

Why do you think that in most cases where a serial killer has used a knife, he hasn't sexually molested the victim? I don't expect you to be able to grasp the nuances involved, but you definitely have to be able to see a pattern.

Well I've had my daily dose of psychobabble for the day, thank you very much

What ever.

Try to educate the masses and what do you get?

I'll grant you that there are some aspects to movies that are 'acceptable' and some that are 'taboo' and breaking the tbaoo gets more of a reaction, but to equate a killing slashing someone up with a carving knife as a an expression of fear of sex is absurd.  That's like saying that a movies about spiders is really about a fear of flying.  The slasher with the knife is a very real threat; you don't need some psychobabble dribblings to say it means a fear of something else

What's the deal with sex in slasher movies?



Sex sells.  Throw a little T&A in a movie and it bumps the viewers, for any type of movie.  Slashers aready operate on the fringes of acceptible material anyway so they have an easier time throwing more borderline material in for the sake of getting people to watch it.  Having the slasher off the coupling couple just gives them an excuse to put it in



If a movie has any success, anything it does will be repeated by all the copycats trying to duplicate the success.  They usually have no clue why the original work so aare just copying the formula blindly (see two whole threads on movie cliches going on).  Sex worked once in a slasher, so everyone copies it and it becomes

Jay has a point with the lowest-common denominator, in terms of t&a boosting rentals, but Law Dog is correct, I think, with his cultural analysis.  A good book on the subject is "Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film" by Carol Clover.  I read it while doing a paper back when I was in college on cultural impacts implicit in horror films.  The producers don't necessarily consciously use the slasher motifs to indicate certain attitudes, but the are both influence by and have an influence on cultural attitudes.

Ok.  Law Dog does have a point if you lean towards Freud.  The knife is a common phallic symbol and the act of stabbing somone is often representative of sexual penetration in a dream.  However,  I doubt that film makers are avid readers of Freud so any connection is most likely subconcious.  Jay is also right in the fact that what makes money is going to be copied over and over again.  Also it's probably thrown in to appeal to teenage males more,  if you lose the story line just have a nude scene and every guy in the theatre is paying attention.  The subconcious fear of sex is probably why it originated and the fact that it pays off is probably why sex is still in slashers.  Yup,  you all thought i was some punk 16 year old but i'm really i punk 16 year old who reads Freud and Jung.

I would suggest that equating a knife with a phallic symbol says a lot more about the one making the comparison than  it does about the one holding the knife

Thanks Jay....... I honestly agree with you.  I said if you're a Freudian thinker.  I'm personally not.  Finding things that remind me of penises isn't my idea of fun.  All i was trying to do was find a middle ground for this argument.  Think what you wish of me but i was just hoping to inform you where Law Dog was coming from in his view.  By the way,  i'm more of a follower of Jung's theories so i personally don't equate the knife as a phallic symbol,  I just understand and accept Law Dog's opinion.

Freud thinks every frigging thing is about sex though.  I'm more inclined to believe that the horror in these movies comes from people who are really really afraid of being stabbed to death by some un-killable psycopath in a hockey mask rather than really afraid of sex.

And while I'm at it, this post represents a butterfly, which represents a bowling ball, which represents man's deep-seeded hatred of ranch dressing.

You might be on to something with the cause/effect theory, but something about it still troubles me. Wouldn't the filmmakers want to jar the audience? It is, after all, a HORROR movie. I think you're probably right, but I do have to wonder what the people who don't want to make people squirm are doing making horror films.

C. Hill wrote:
>
>
>
> And while I'm at it, this post represents a butterfly, which
> represents a bowling ball, which represents man's deep-seeded
> hatred of ranch dressing.

As long as it ain't blue cheese I'm happy.

C. Hill wrote:
>
>
>
> And while I'm at it, this post represents a butterfly, which
> represents a bowling ball, which represents man's deep-seeded
> hatred of ranch dressing.

  Yeah,  but for it to be true Freudian symbolism it needs to have another sexual symbol.  Freud musta been a horn dog

Oh it does have sexual symbolism man, you're just not going deep enough.

And as for the ranch dressing, your id may tell you that you like it and want it, but your superego is telling you that you shouldn't.  Subconsciously you hate ranch dressing with an undeniable passion, just like every other normal healthy human being.  Also you want to have sex with your mother, but that's ok because every normal healthy human being wants that too!!!  Freud, you had lots of problems.

Anyway, what was this thread about again?  Ahh yes, why all the sex in slasher movies.  It can all be summed up thusly:
Sex Sells.  Violence Sells.  Sex + Violence sells even more than these two things by themselves.  Observe this equation:
s= sex v=violence T= teenagers, which most of these movies are aimed at :) = the fact that most teenagers enjoy this stuff.

   sv [ T/ :) ] = $$$$

Now follow this simple formula and you will find that I am probably a crackhead for posting all of that.  Any attempts to disprove or add to this formula are welcome.

I can't disprove your formula since it's correct I just wanted to show the variation of this formula used for action movies.   S=sex V=violence M=males T=testosterone.  M+(SVT)= Money squared.  However to find the amount of money it makes from females who aren't being dragged along by their spouse you simply use the same formula and set the money to zero.

  So, in conclusion sex and violence were put in for money's sake in the most logical order. And Freud was, to a large extent, a nut. (If you don't believe me, consider his belief in the power of nostril sex.)

In other words, lets all jump on psychology, there's blood in the water.

I would agree that the reason that most slasher movies include all the gratuitous sex and nudity is because sex sells.  Who is it that said that "once you've already got the R rating, all the nudity is free"?

It's when you get into the reasons why the combination of sex and violence hits such a chord with audiences that all the interesting psychological issues fall into place.  You're not really talking about the movies, but about the way the human mind responds to the movies.  That's why you can talk about the most inane movies (Friday the 13th series) and still come away with insight.  So while the basic fear of being killed by somebody with a knife is the main fear in the characters mind, there is also the all the repressed sexual stuff going on in the movie.  They're both happening at the same time, just on different levels.  Films tend to work this way.

Some filmmakers are aware of these psychological hot buttons, and they incorporate these motifs into the film.  David Cronenberg has built a career on finding increasingly more bizarre metaphors for sex.  (Not that they are what you'd call slasher films.)  And somebody else said that the less creative directors, hacks, copy the better ones.  Also, just because it wasn't intended doesn't mean it isn't in there.  Humor works that way too.

And of course your slasher film is often based on the activities of real life serial killers, whose minds are rife with all sorts of bizarrely misfired sexual ideas, frustrations and perversions.  Penetration of the flesh with a knife could very well be a terrifying inversion of the sexual act.

Anybody interested in the psychological and social ramifications of horror movies should check out a documentary called AMERICAN NIGHTMARE.  It was shown of IFC a few times, and featured most of the classic horror movies from the sixties and seventies.  It's also got a great soundtrack by Godspeed You Black Emperor.

As for Freud, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Remember, he did all of his work in a time and society where sexual repression was rampant.  It's no wonder it takes such a prominent role for him.

I think it's a ploy of the Catholic church to enforce the no-nookie before marriage rule. Notice how none of the coitus-interuptus killings occur to married couples? See....you have sex before marriage and you will be smited or smote...probably by some freak with a power tool or a harpoon gun. It's not worth it kids....abstinence really is the only way to prevent disease and decapitation!
So please...for the love of all that is holy...wait until marriage...or someone in a mask will jam a javelin up through your bed and impale you and your wanton hussy. This message brought to you by the KofC and your local crazed slasher.

What do you know. A thread where everybody is at least a little correct. Including the horror cliche, that if you have sex you die, but, if you are a vrigin you survive. (Tell that, to that little scout kid in "Lair of the White Worm," or the kids in "Cherry Falls," or Sergeant Howie in "Wicker Man." ) Which started with "Halloween." And I thought that cliche began with "Friday the 13th," which came two years after "Halloween."
But sex in horror films, did not begin with "Friday the 13th" or with "Halloween." As far as I know , it started with the original "Nosferatu" in 1922. Where a male vampire's obsession with a woman led to his death. Moral of the film: If you are a male vampire, don't have sex with a woman. They're killers.
Actually, if one is interested in sex in films, slasher or otherwise, heterosexual or otherwise, then look to horror films. They probably did it first, and did it earlier then any other type of film.
Maybe because horror films were not as regarded as highly as other types of films, they were able to fly low under the censor's radar and get away with more. That is, until they started mixing sex with graphic violence in the early '70's  or thereabouts. That's one for Freud. Enjoy!