Slasher sex

[Future Blob]

  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....

[Law Dog]

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.

[Jay O'Connor]

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



I really hope you're kidding.

[Law Dog]

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.

[Jay O'Connor]

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

[Law Dog]

What ever.

Try to educate the masses and what do you get?

[Jay O'Connor]

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

[Jay O'Connor]

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

[Will]

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.

[pancho]

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.

[Jay O'Connor]

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

[pancho]

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.

[C. Hill]

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.

[Vermin Boy]

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.

[Chadzilla]

C. Hill wrote:
>
>
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> 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.