15 Slashers That Are Smarter Than You Think
In the spirit of the latest Halloween reboot, this week’s new Texas Chainsaw Massacre direct-to-Netflix film, which, like Michael Myers’ 2018 film, ignores all in-between films and re-imagines the original’s lead role (in ” Massacre “). case, which includes a remake of Sally Hardesty as Marilyn Burns sadly died in 2014).
The initial buzz seems… not great. But it’s not unheard of for a slasher franchise, and fans, not critics, will have to decide whether or not to return to Texas.
Often regarded as the cheapest of the low-rent subgenres, there is nothing inherently wrong with slasher films. The original Massacre was an impressive piece of bad cinematic filmmaking, believe me. Black Christmas , Halloween , and A Nightmare on Elm Street were intended to be real films made by real directors, not just the cheap money scam that gave the genre a low-rent reputation. Imitators dominated the 80s and 90s, but later waves of slasher films were about subverting expectations and really clever deconstructions of the genre.
Some slasher films are easy to identify, but where it gets difficult, I stick to two criteria: the killer must be human, or at least humanoid); and there must be a sufficiently large number of corpses. (It’s 2022, and one or two pathetic murders won’t even make it to the papers.) Motive is good, but real slashers enjoy their work, and they want you to enjoy it too.