189. Slashers!

Were we right, Yeah, no, no, we know what we're doing on Zoom. Is only the third week, third episode of using it this way and it's working fun, just totally fine. Hi am Emily, I'm Christine and we're the Famine and Critique. And today on this special Spooky October edition of our podcast, we decided we wanted to take a topic and talk about it, talk it out, argue, maybe fight, become friends. Yes, yeah, the topic of note is Christine.

Uh yeah, So we're gonna talk about slashers, just like in general. But I think the goal is probably to discuss like what our favorite ones probably are, but maybe there'll be more discussion because this is an overly complex thing to kind of talk about. For some reason, it's a really difficult topic because I mean, when you have like you know, you have horror and you have subgenres of horror, and slasher for a very long time was a term that applied to like what the kind of mainstream studios were putting out, primarily in the eighties, and even then. I think there are questions about whether everything we called the slasher was I think it was Ebert, I might be wrong, who kind of also coined the term dead teenager movie, which was often what slashers were.

But yeah, when we kind of said yeah, our favorite slashers, I realized, oh, this is really hard because it's not the subgenre I go to often. It's the one I go to when I want something quick to find and easy to write about, because on Amazon Prime there's a lot of like fairly recent, like more modern, lower budget slashers than end up there, and they're easy to identified right away from the cover, like oh, yeah, this is a this is some you know, no budget slasher, and those I just find very like watchable and easy to sitther and write about because I know what I'm I'm gonna get. But then it gets very complicated when you start looking big picture and say, well, what's your favorite slasher? I don't know what's a slasher?

It's true, and it's not. Once you get into like, well, what's your favorite slasher, then it's like, well, I I mean, but what do you mean, like a riginal like original slasher or like of all time, or like neo slasher or like meta slash, Like wait, what's the question now? And that was where I kind of got stuck. I kept making sub lists. I was like, Okay, well, if I do top five by decade, then I can have a good sense of And that didn't really work.

It's hard hard. I just kept writing my notes for just simply like I would think of movies and write them down and then put a big question mark, question mark mark. Is this a slasher? Uh? So, why don't we first talk about, like, what do you think defines a slasher?

What? What are the rules? What is the first rule of a slasher? Okay, I think what's really funny about this too is Zach and I had a little bit of a friendly disagreement about this maybe a few months before this, this discussion. It can't come up for us.

So I determined then for myself that in addition to having your identity obvious skated in someone, I don't necessarily say mask. Although mask is classed, it could be. A mask, could be a POV where we'd never actually see who's behind you know, the knife. So that to me is part of it, I would say. At that moment, when I was originally discussing this, I decided that backstory was also part of it for me, and I don't know that that is necessarily gonna be something that is required for anybody who's to think something's a slasher.

But for me to think classically slasher, I need my killer to have a backstory, a setup, a reason, a callback. So it can't just be unfocused, I think. Because I initially I'm like yeah, and then I'm like, wait a minute, I'm like, because you take I don't know, Let's let's take the first movie that kind of sort of chronologically people might call the first Slasher Black Christmas right where we actually don't really know ever what the killer's backstory is, but I think you did say something there where it's it could be backstory, it could be legend, but it does have to be like an m and a purpose. Yeah right. It's not just like, oh, I'm in the woods, so I'm killing people.

It's like I'm in the woods and I'm killing adults because my curses that I have to kill adults because they have sinned, right, or I am killing everybody that was involved in the crime that killed my the every now and then I tried to think of exactly how to word I know what you did last summer in terms of the reveal, and it's like I have to kill the people involved and not in killing my son or in killing me, but in killing my daughter's fiance who I actually killed. So on, Yes, so there is a logic to who is. Being killed, and I don't know that. I feel like if you, I don't know what movie you would pull out where this wouldn't be this wouldn't be applicable. But I don't You could say, well, this is a slasher and I'd be like, yeah, I guess, sure you're right.

But for me, that's part of it because when I think of like the really my anchor slashers, I guess they do have a killer with a backstory. And I'm not even talking about my anchor slashers being necessarily like early cycle slashers, but like I think of Valentine and that's got a backstory. I think of something even like The Final Girls, which you could argue isn't really a slasher because it's a parody of a slasher, but that has the backstory cooked in, both in the meta and the traditional narrative. So like it it to me personally, is like an important part of it, I think because it again it anchors this story in this kind of cyclical thing, like there's a reason this is happening, and it happened before and it'll happen again.

It feels for me like a slasher is a bit of like a modern folk story. So when you add like like it could happen at any time, and here are the circumstances and if you're not good to people, they'll come back and get you. There's this like warning to it that I think if you removed it, is you lose, right. I'd agree, yeah, And that's why I think again there's some that don't fit slasher because it's like, no, it's like kills of opportunity or because somebody is in the way and so on where it's like that kind of undes and just to throw out because I think we'll like as we talk probably go back and forth. I'm like, is this a slusher?

Is that a slushure? Like I would argue because I think it's funny. My husband today is wearing this very cool shirt that's like a kind of like a Hawaiian shirt, but it's got like Jason Freddy. Uh forgets the third Jason Freddy. Jeez, who's the third one?

No, I needed to come up with, like, but anyway, the fourth one is Chucky, and I'm like, it's Chucky like, and there's a part of me that says Chucky himself can be called a slasher. I think of the Child's Play series, I think part five, I have no Part six cursive Chuckie. I think that's slasher. I don't think any of the other ones are actually slashers, because it's not this like he's not picking off people in a way that fits like a slasher narrative. It's he's killing people like to get out of his way so he can do the thing he has to do.

But it is not just because he needs to kill, Like I don't know if if that if you agree or disagree on that one. Well that's interesting because obviously I was gonna talk about this with you, of all people. So I aside from just like off the top of my head just typing down movies or thinking about movies, I did like Google search just to see if I was forgetting something, and Wikipedia has a great uh slashers by decade thing, So I was just kind of cruising through that, and like the consistency with which I was seeing Child's Play, I was like, well, I like, I don't I don't know I don't even want to do this thought exercise because it's not a slasher to make. Yes, it's not like I don't want it. I don't want to look.

I looked at it, I said no and kept moving. There were other things where I was. Like, wait, dude, is this a slut? Oh? Yeah, okay, I guess so.

But for me, there's something about it that keeps it from being that. Even though you have your guys like Mike and Jason at a certain point essentially become like possessed entities or like zombiesque kind of like reanimated. Yeah, there's I don't think supernatural makes it yes or no? Yeah, okay, that's exactly Yeah, cause I. Think there's I mean Jason from from movie three, right, he's got to be supernatural because we have seen him die in ways that you could not argue you cannot have a sequel without it being supernatural.

But I think with Chucky it's also that like he's he talks, right, he has a lot to say and it's not a And that's why I think the sixth movie Cursive Chucky, which is like the Haunted House one where I like it's a great one that it's the first one with Fiona, Yeah, and they are in it's you have people that like are getting picked I think that's another thing is that with a slasher, it's not you might have a scene where a lot of people die at once, like the burning, but for the most part, it's you're picking them off one by one or two by two, like however many whoever's there. It's not mass murder. It is sort of serial killing in a really small hour and a half window. I was going back and forth on you need like because I think another difference and why I like to be Giallo is not slasher is because a key element I think of slashers is that it should be confined to a place where you cannot just call the cops and get away, like you are stuck somewhere and whether that is it's raining really hard and you can't get out of this house, or you were on a boat, or you were in the woods and there's no service and so on, and it doesn't have to be there the whole time.

Because then I started, I'm like, well, scream then isn't a slasher because you have an hour where people are dying, you know, throughout the town. But I think it has to culminate in the last act to be in a situation like that. I think that's probably true. I'm trying to think of example where it's not and there might be, and I think what I what I found myself was that it isn't necessarily like there needs to be like a specific formula to make something be a slasher. And I guess this is why it's frustrating and hard to pin down.

It's more it really is kind of like a vibes thing, like yeah, like you said, well, it should culminate in like everybody in a place at the end. Oh, but you know during Scream, we're running around to school, we're in town, and it's like, yeah it now are we Is that a meta slasher? So what is Scream? Because it manages to still feel like a slasher and be a slasher, but maybe it isn't the most classic slashery format, So is it still a slasher? Or because West was trying to play with tropes, do we call it something else?

Does it become something else when we're aware of what it's trying to be? And I mean I think like The Final Girls, it is a self aware slasher. Yeah, And it is a it is a meta slasher. But I think and that's why I like adjusted my rule once I started thinking about it, because there's a lot of movies that end up in that same because what tends to happen in a lot of these movies is it's not everybody dies in one place. A lot of times it is, well, the first couple of things are happening, and it takes a while to put it together to now we're stuck in one place.

I mean Halloween, which is obviously like the you know, the one that you can easily draw in and say, okay, here's your first real like American slasher. Right, this is the movie that and I'm not saying there's not movies before it that sort of do it, but this is the one that you can easily say, no, here it is right. You have a masculer with the backstory going after a particular type of person, but again he's going through the whole town. But then your last like fifteen minutes are kind of st in one place, and this being this inescapable aspect of it. And I think one more thing I think on my side that I think you need that kind of separates a slasher from some other movies, and I can't remember the movie that I was kind of like had thought of where I'm like, is this one?

And it's not because I think the it's something that can be the difference between a thriller or a mystery and a slasher. A slasher is in huge part about the actual kills, right, that has to be And it's not that every movie is done in a way where like, oh, there should be that death that you go and talk about it the next day. Like that's something that I think has become a thing a lot of new movies too, like In a Violent Nature, which is obviously again kind of meta. Slasher worked really hard to have one death scene that's kind of ridiculous, so that everybody would keep saying, all but the yoga scene, and like, anybody who's seen the movie knows what I'm talking about, and yet the fact that you're talking about it is like, yeah, but that kind of it doesn't really fit with the movie.

It just they really wanted to have a crazy kill that people would talk about. But you like, it's like you have to see the kills and you can again not necessarily don't have to see the knife going through skin, but you have to see that people are dying, and usually that is the reason. Like these are like the money shots of these movies, where that's ultimately not why they're made, but more something you have to consider between that verse. Oh, it's a ghost story where the ghost is maybe it's killing people, but it's more about the haunting, like this is about the actual murder. I think yeah, I think so too.

I think so. Killer, victims, kills, and tropes were the top four things that I kept seeing. So the killer, you know, we kind of talked about masked, possibly signature weapon, maybe a revenge plot, and for me, hopefully some kind of revenge. Victims tend to be tropic and are usually young adults that fit specific stereotypes obviously in like neo slashers or modern slashers those That is part of the subversion is to play with the tropes and the expectations, but even then it's still there the kind of archetypical character types. And then kills, which you just talked about, so like bloody set big set pieces, kind of focus focal points, anchors of the of the story would be the kills, and then the tropes would be like specific characters dying first them splitting up, being at a summer camp, or be so like those those are kind of just the ingredients.

And I think instead of getting frustrated with the trying to narrow everything down, I think for me it was helpful to just look at like, these are the ingredients. And I don't know, maybe a movie what's a different amount of each, or maybe it leaves something out or maybe it throws something else in. But if we have enough of those ingredients, I think we get to a slasher. I agree, But and is nothing wrong I think with something being slasher, slasher adjacent or slasher esque and not really hitting all those things, I would agree, like Child's play. M hm yep.

So do you want to dive into like some of your list and some of the ones that speak out to you and then we'll go back and forth. Uh yeah, sure, let's see look at them looking and looking well? I think that Uh I would like to talk about Valentine. Go for it. Okay, So this is the one that I am gonna put.

I'm gonna have a mini category for it where I'm gonna say, like a favorite slasher reveal, like in favorite twist kind of idea of identity and because I think we'll so obviously we're gonna spoil Valentine, which is streamable now and like finally had to be kind of like a big release and everything. I am also gonna probably say that we're gonna spoil three more that I'm gonna throw in that list, which are urban and all the boys love Mandy Lane and Psycho two, so take it away with Valentine. So Psycho two is actually on my list too. But yeah, So I think Valentine came out in two thousand and one, and I think for me that's one of the reasons why it's such a remarkable movie because it is such a fucking slasher when we were already technically in the neo slasher phase, and that's maybe something that I want to talk about after like what even is that even?

What does that even mean? But so it's like in the neo slasher cycle, but it's like such a classic fucking slasher. Because another thing we didn't really talk about was the capital is them capitalizing on holidays, especially yes post Halloween, so you have April Fool's Day and you have you. Know, yours, you might which might not be a slasher, but it's the holiday thing, my. Bloody Valentine, which obviously does Valentine's again, and this is this is Valentine's Day again.

But look, we run out of holidays and we still have not. Had an Arbor Day murderer. But give it time one day. This one does the It anchors it in a weird holiday. It has a fun mask.

I think that mask fun. I think that killer is interesting. I think the the red herrings and the mcguffins around that killer is interesting. And I mean, for all things considered, the kills are pretty good, especially when to your earlier point they end up at the party at the end in that nice. Big house, that great house that.

You have all the kills, like the cool hot tub kill is really sad but also very good. And I think there's like the random girlfriend in the shower, like there's like a sauna shower thing, and like somebody gets their neck smashed into glass, which I sound, yeah, it's that for me. So I I like this movie a lot because it does what I want a slasher to do, and it did it in two thousand and one. It didn't do it with like a with like an eighties aesthetic. It didn't do it with a nineties she necessarily.

It did it like rooted in the early two thousands in a really interesting way with like a pretty much all female cast. Yeah, it was cool too well, and it was I mean it was because obviously you can look at it also in terms of like eras and this was the post scream hm, so you had a fair amount of movies that were very much doing the same style and even the amount of red herrings. Like it's not that you didn't have that in some eighties slashers, but like, boy did you have that scream right, and that became a defining part of other slashers. Then from the in the late nineties was like, oh, who's a killer? Is that?

You know? Like that was as big a part of it. And part of it may have been that these movies had to be rated. It still had to be rated R and even occasionally BEG thirteen, So you couldn't have as much sex in the movie, you couldn't have as much like Crazy Kills, so you had to have the movie talked about for other reasons. And I think a lot of that was where you had the constant checking back and forth on who it is.

An urban legend does something very similar and urban legend I think is ninety nine or two thousand, right, it's right around there. I know, I saw it even when I was still in high school. And with that one, it's again very much meta because it is actively engaging with all the urban titular urban legends of not even of slashers, but like in a way that is absolutely a slasher, right, you have young people in you know, yes, there it's again the kills are spread out in different places, but in the end, you have a party, you have it fairly confined, and you have a great reveal, which happens in quite a few movies, which one of my favorite things is when the reveal is absolutely somebody that you're not expecting because and this is different now, but you were never expecting it to be a woman.

An urban legend, we get Rebecca Gayheart who suddenly turns a niacle and has a great backstory and a very very justifiable reason for doing what she's doing. Well, so that's an interesting question. So since we're talking about kind of post scream but like you know, not really modern modern slashers, was if we went back and looked did Scream so successfully introduce the concept of the misdirect or of the killer being someone close to home that that's just what the movies started doing when they were emulating I think so, And I I never really thought about it until you phrased it that. Yeah, but I guess you had it. But I think, you know, Scream is definitely like calling on that in ways that weren't maybe as obvious then, but it became a rule, right, you did not have a slash, a teen slasher without looking through the entire cast constantly and trying to figure out who's the killer.

Yeah, I mean Scream two is the one I immediately think of because for some reason it feels I like Scream two, but it feels a little bit more formulaic in that one, the like who's it going to be among these people that are all suspicious? It felt very calculated that in that entry. And I don't know that I mind that well. And I remember because Scream two came out like when you know, I was, I mean, we were all using the internet a lot, but I remember finding and I don't know if this was a real script or not, but it was an alternate and it was an alternate killer reveal of Scream two, where instead of it being spoiler alert Scream to everybody, instead of it being Lori Metcalf, it's still Mickey, but it's Mickey and the roommate who is also a film student.

So it's very like, oh, we were doing it too, and I don't know if that four oh it is totally yeah, and it comes back in Scream four. Scream three, I am pretty sure had to get completely like rescripted because I think scripts leaked where people were because I think Emily Mortimer was supposed to be one of the killers, but then it got out, which is kind of why her death sort of doesn't make any sense. Yeah, So I mean that ends up getting so tangled that it's a fun aspect of a movie, but you don't need it like you needed it and Scream, and I think you still do because I think that's that is something that defines that franchise. But yeah, I think I think it did direct the like the late nineties, early two thousands to you constantly, like as much as you know, because obviously with like Freddy and Jason, you know who the killer.

Well we'll talk about Freddy. Freddy is a killer slush or not with them. You know who the killer is. It's never a question. No, that's that's so interesting.

So it's is, so do you think in this let me try to let me try to get this out of my brain in a way that makes sense. So do you think that the proliferation of the killer is someone close to us? The killer is someone already known versus the killer is some weird guy in a mask that has like a revenge plot that we're very distant from. Do you think that's because of Scream embracing that or do you think that it might also be some kind of reflection of the times they were made in versus like the eighties. So I'm gonna say it's both, because I think Scream made it popular and made it the thing that you're that they know audiences are expecting to look for.

I think the other part of that is you had in the early nineties, right, you have the supernatural creatures as your villains. You have kind of Jason winding down, you have Freddie winding down, you have Chicky sort of also winding down, and so it kind of I think you had a different audience that was very like I don't know, and I don't know if it's so much it was if it was the audience or if it was pill makers or studios or what. But I think the supernatural horror moved in different directions so that you did not really have a killer that was, you know, unkillable. It was. If it's a slasher, then it's a human being.

And the interesting thing is that it's it could be anybody, so you can't trust people and that's what we're watching for, or it's a conjuring or an encius where it's a ghost in a different type of movie, like you didn't And I'm sure I'm missing some and actually I mean one. Well, no, I'm trying to think now of like more supernatural slashers from the last like twenty years. I think you just had a lot less of them. Oh totally when you were just just looking at like more modern slashers. The majority of them are either really like straight up homages or send ups like in a Violent Nature which is clearly doing something, or like it's it's part of a franchise like Halloween that is still persisting from that original stuff.

So I it makes me wonder, like does the genre need to be reborn into something else or is it just kind of falling out of favor or is there nothing else to do. I refuse to believe that there's nothing else to do. There's always something to do. So yeah, it's weird when you think of the last you know, ten years, let's say, of slashers, and you had again, like I, you had in a violent nature. As one example, you haven't had a friend of thirteenth in a really long time.

Okay, quick side note is that right Elmstreet a slasher? So I want to say no, But then if you were like but ABC, I'd like, well, I guess, but I guess to answer your question in a way that's not confusing. I don't think of it that way. Yeah, I think it hits again. It's usually about young, pretty people dying in horrific ways, and there's a backstory and there's a final girl, and like, there's a lot to it.

But also I think because of the because of like the absolute supernatural aspect of it and dream nature of it, it feels like it always sits in a different place. So as much as like you put Freddy and Chucky in the same category, it's kind of similar where it's like, yeah, but they're not. Their movies I think are just more in and like not to insult, like, but there their stories are more complex. Then it's a slasher. It's about killing young people until one of them out smarts the killer and gets away and we get a sequel.

Like I think that's and not insulting. I think it's it's valid, but that's I guess where why I think that. But we also haven't had a Freddy in fifteen year's. It's it's been a minute, and I guess maybe I'm showing my ass a little bit when I say, like, there aren't any modern SF so I don't watch The Terrified. I'm gonna say it's I think that's what you have to look at.

So like I because I clicked into again the very helpful Wikipedia by decade of twenty twenty, and it's like it's either something that I I don't think Malignant is a slasher. I mean at all. I mean I guess maybe if you want, but it's other things way before that to me. And then I'm looking and I see Abigail the Vampires. Yeah, no, I saw that one on I guess because you have everybody in one place for a while and there is one killer after them.

But that's not even true for that movie, so I would not I would need. Yeah, So I like, to me like, okay, so is it an ingredient thing, because there was that ingredient the tropic characters being stuck in a place getting killed one by one. But to me, again, you're missing the killer is literally a vampire girl and you know who it is the Yeah, I don't know. But but then obviously something like Terrifier sticks out and thanks Thanksgiving, which I would see. Yeah, so is it now?

Is it? Am I? Am I the problem? Am I the drama? Because I don't like the current landscape of slashers?

So now I'm pretending like they don't exist. Yeah, that's fair because I think you I guess. I here's the thing. I think the style of what is actually getting made broadly and put out in front of people broadly is now very particular. It is, lets you shocking wild kills, right.

People are coming to terrifyer to see really gnarly effects and really ridiculous violence. Yeah, it's I don't like, I don't know how you not to say, I don't know how you compete with that, But how do you make a good Michael Myers movie, because they certainly have and in the last fifteen years, that competes with that because that is now your audience. If somebody is going to see Terrifier, that's your targeting for the next Halloween movie. And like you kind of have to meet that in terms of the violence of it, because that's what you're expecting there, and you don't and not every movie is that, right, you have the Conjurings, which I also don't really care for, but there doing something very different they're doing They're they're pulling the same crowd.

Right, It's Okay, what horror movie is out this week? Are we have a conjuring? We have a Terrifier? Okay? There no, Granted not every person who's gonna spend money on both of them, but a lot of horror fans will.

Yeah, And so how do you you know, do you just have to do that again? Do you have to? Okay, we're gonna do another Halloween, but it's gonna be like gorrier than Terrifier. Like I don't I don't need that. I also kind of goes against the very first Halloween, which was not really but like Friday the thirteenth is a response to Hall is a direct Okay, Halloween work, so we're gonna do the same thing, but we're gonna have more boobs and blood and that's what you get.

So I don't know. I don't think the slasher will ever die. It's always easy to make on a budget. That's why again, any given day, go to Amazon Prime, go to the horror section. You were gonna see dozens of titles you've never heard of.

Some of them will be okay, some of the will will not be. But plenty of slashers there. Yeah, which is I mean comforting, I guess, And I think it speaks to like, again, how these kind of play like modern fables or foek tales, because maybe not with the with the best of intentions, you know, like the having sex gets you killed, the slutty one dives first kind of stuff, not the coolest messaging. So I guess that's cool that they can grow and change. And I think that part of that kind of oversimplification is why the genre is so ripe for parody, subversion, change, like just morphing and changing.

Yeah, Like it was really based in a very myopic, small view and like we can blow it up a little, like like a movie like The Blackening, which keeps popping into my head and I wanted to say out loud, feels like an interesting take on I don't know, like I didn't watch The Blackening and go like, oh, look at this slasher immediately because there were other elements just definitely obvious skated it. But when I thought about it plot wise and like, yeah, it has a lot of those beats. And yeah, they gave you the setup, the fact that you have my favorite Jason X, which yeah, right, Like you can argue like it's a little less of a slasher that, but it's still technically it still is. Yeah. But the beauty of it is it is within its own series, referencing the fact that we know what the tropes are now so we love premarital sex.

Like it has a scene that is absolutely acknowledging. Oh yeah, here's here's everything that attracts Jason, and this is the series and now we're telling it a different way. But here you go, like you can when you can like actually fall back on it within a franchise, I think it's very speaking to like what it is, all right, So give me another one of your favorites, oh boy of all time? Well, just what else was on your list? Whatever?

I have so many, I know what I'm saying. Let's see, let's see. Okay, I have a lot of ones that are like question Mark, but that's not as fun. Oh okay, So I like, I don't know why I'm picking more modern ones. So I think one of my favorite modern movies that has a slash or framework is Strangers Pray at Night.

But I break my own rule kind of because there's no fucking reason why they're doing it. And truly, the. Ethos of the Strangers is because you were home, so like, there is no point. Well, but you could say my bully Valentine is essentially the same idea. It's not I'm going after everyone.

It's like you're in my mind, you're in my town. And that's a good point. That's a good point. So the Strangers really truly, uh, they they kill anybody in their purview that like kind of gets in their way that they find fun. So I guess like they have.

I don't want to talk about the new ones. I haven't seen them, heard nothing that makes me even me who again watches some very bad movies. It feels like when everybody's telling me it's a really bad movie, then that's when I'm like, I know, I shouldn't. I shouldn't even give it my time. But if the third one is, like, if people like the third one when it comes out, because he did make three at once, then maybe I'll, you know, take an afternoon and get through all of them.

But maybe so. But so this is specifically Pray at Night. I think that because if you get into the location. The Kills, yeah, you're stuck in one place, you can't get a hold on, you can't call the cops. Yeah, my kills are pretty well done and interesting, and it.

Looks really cool. It's very fit pacy like that kind of like so quick. It's so short, it could be longer, but it doesn't have to because it moves so well. It's just a really good example of for me, like the stuff that a lot of people dig into with the Slashers, like the Kills specifically, it's it's kind of like a brutal, unrelenting kind of trapped movie, which felt like slashery. But I don't I don't know if I would have ever thought like, oh, yeah, the Strangers I think the Strangers franchises are Slashers, but like they follow the tropes.

Yeah they do. I don't know. I don't know. It's it's interesting to think about. I think it shows how like influential, just like the slasher formula has been on horror because it the beats show up and stuff that maybe isn't really even classically.

Trying to mm hmm, what else free? What do you? What do you have? What's a more modern one for you? Oh?

A more modern one? Okay, I'm looking at a all right, so here, so one that I don't actually know how modern it is at this point, because I don't. You and I are both in that that camp were like when we really we think something came out last year, When it's two thousand and eight, that's great, so what ear did it? But this is one that I've met. I almost wanted to watch again before today because I have a feeling it doesn't I don't.

I have no idea if it holds up or not. But I felt like it was a really interesting when it came out. Uh, and yes, I'm saying, oh, yeah, it's a modern movie. It's new. It came out in two thousand and six, which is now nineteen years ago.

I was gonna mention all the boys love Mandy Lane. Yeah, you had mentioned that. So I haven't seen it since because if you were around at the time, which we both were, it was, yeah, notoriously hard to find. Like yes, it did not have a US release. For like the longest time, so I saw when it first became readily available.

So I don't know when that is regarded in like regards. It was still probably like two thousand, It was still probably fifteen years. Ago, but I don't remember a lot of it. I remember being fine with it, but probably being a little underwhelmed because of the bit it had been hyped. Yeah, yeah, and it was one of those things like only like seven people at like two different festivals have been able to see it, and it was the most amazing thing they'd ever seen, and it was like okay.

And I think thinking back on it, because again I have a feeling if I watched it today, I would I would find it like lah. I don't know, but I think the reason it felt so fresh in two thousand and somewhere between two thousand and six and twenty ten was that you kind of had in this after kind of the screen bubble burst, you didn't have these movies so much. You went back to a lot of PG thirteen type remakes. Right, you have that big chunk of time where it was either torture porn or it was PG thirteen remax. And again not that there wasn't plenty of interesting films being made at lower budgets or not the United States, but for a while, if you like, if you walked into a room and like looked for new horror movies, you were finding those styles which and Mandy Lane is a slasher, is absolutely a bunch of young hot people go like, you're celebrating problems somewhere and somebody is picking them off.

And it was really violent. I feel like it was really well made in terms of the violence and in terms of how it was just filmed. And it has a really great reveal and it has a good twist that kind of reframes everything and it makes you want to want to go back to it. So again, I don't know that it's actually if I would enjoy it today, but I think it was kind of a breath of fresh air because it felt like a sort of like attitude return to a more like grungy style Slasher when they had been so pristine for a long time. Yeah, yeah, that I can see that because I've never been one of obviously, like one of those people that had a problem with the scream movies or like like teen Horror or like however you want to talk about what happened in the nineties, but I know a lot of people were a lot of people.

There are people who are just watching the screen movies for the first time because they had such a big problem with them in the nineties. Well, because it felt like if you were a video store kid, which like I was, and I was a horror kid, and suddenly I was excited because horror was popular and I could never get my friends to watch horror movies, and now they wanted to go see movies because they starred people they knew and recognized. And when I was doing that and seeing things like I know what you did last summer, if for me it was really frustrating because I'd come home and be like I would just I just want to watch my VHS copy of The Prowler or whatever it might have been instead, And there was kind of a chip on my shoulder for a little bit of that until some of the movies that you watch you're like, oh no, they're actually good.

And I have gone back around and gone back and watched some of the movies of that era and found like, oh no, like Disturbing Behavior is a really interesting movie. I was way too hard on it when I was seventeen, and like, you ideally grow out of that and get over it. But I think there's still a lot of people, a lot of particularly men, who don't. Yeah, definitely. So I do think that that returned to form of Mandy Lane is interesting and and I think spoke to why a subset of fans.

Very particular fans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would. I would like to rewatch it now that you mentioned it, because I don't have a good memory of it. We should do it for a show. Maybe we should next couple of weeks.

Yeah, Zach's never seen it. I made a list of things that I wanted to kind of look back at before this, and I just didn't. That was like at the bottom of like a twenty movie list, so I didn't. I didn't get to it. It makes me wonder, though, was there anything else around that time period that tried to recapture that like gritty, more like authentic version of like what a slasher was.

I don't know, I'll have to think. There probably were that I can't think of. Yeah, I mean that is two thousand and six is right in the era of saw captivity. Like that was the big like if you were basically if you were either chewing one of the three things, we're actually one of four. I guess you had Jhorror.

So you had a lot of those kinds of remakes. You had PG thirteen still like again, just this was around the time after Texas Chainsaw, I think's two thousand and three as a remake. So after that you have a lot of by old properties, put pretty people in it, making PG thirteen and sell it out there. You had torture porn, and you had Found Footage just around that time started right. Found Footage starts two thousand and nine is Paranormal Activity two.

The d is two thousand and six. I was gonna say I was in New York Yea's two two thousand and se Well, it's two thousand and seven, but it might have been. That might have been because that was on the shelf for a long time. It could have been two thousand and eight when that actually came out, So right, when that happened, suddenly a lot of your lower budget shifts to that, which changes a bunch of things. So you did.

It's all kind of spread out. Now here's another question I have to ask you. Is Final Destination and the and by that, I mean, really the franchise is that a slasher? I have seen the argument. I've read people explain why it is, and like, this is kind of why this frustrates me because it's super subjective.

To me, it's not. It's just simply not. And I can't explain to you why except to say that for me, the killer is important. And I know that you can make an argument that the killer and final destination is death itself and thus the most important killer of all. But I will be kind of a hack and say I can't see death, my man.

It's a part of it is the tangible nature of the threat. So I think removing the tangiscy kill it, right, And. You cannot kill the the the big bad in the Found Destination franchise, So it. Makes it scarier in some ways, it makes it more existential. And I get that it's like a heightening of the slasher genre.

But when you, for me, when you remove such an important core ingredient, it's not ratituwei anymore, or it's not like buuya bass. It's just something different. And that's fine. But like I don't when I'm craven a slasher, I don't pick up final destination. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I think I agree. Huh. Well, okay, So here's something that I found interesting. So we were just talking about Mandy Lane, which was two thousand and six, right, you said, I went and looked at the year of something else, So I think this needs to be talked about. Two thousand and six is behind the Mask, Yes, of course, so the Leslie Vernon movie.

So this might be my favorite of all time, like meta slasher or like slasher send up. And I think it's interesting that it came out like what we were just talking about, in this time period where we weren't doing. This, because it came out because it was made by people who grew up probably round the same time as us, maybe a little earlier, who grew up on those movies and who read Carol Clover and so they made a movie that kind of in a way should have come out either five years earlier or like eight years later, because I think that was the problem, was that it found an audience in the horror community, but it never found a broad audience because nobody like it. It was so particular. I mean like, if you're a horror fan, it is like, yeah, duh, of course this makes sense, Like yes, every everything he's doing makes perfect sense, and I get every joke and every reference.

But it has to be like that wasn't broadly known in some ways at that point. I think, yeah, yeah, it makes it more of a novel watch too, like people like how like I don't know it. It's like a commandium almost. And he really does. It feels like like like like an innocent little like explainer.

I don't know when the last time you watched it was, oh, probably about ten years ago. Because I think Brandon hadn't seen it, and I made him watch it. I think he kind of like it. I think it just he's actually standing right there Leslie Vernon my love. No, he's shaking his head.

He didn't care for it wasn't just too obvious for you. He's just shaking his head whatever that means. Yeah, I think I think maybe it hit the right people at the right time. It really felt like like it blew the lid off something, you know, even though it was very kind of plays quaint now, like oh what a fun, sweet little idea, executed really well, but it really felt like, whoa, somebody's fucking doing something something, say, somebody's saying something. Yeah, especially because at that time, because that's two thousand and six, okay, like you didn't have as many things like that, like I guess for sure.

And not even to say, like compared it to scary movie because that that's not helpful because that's a different thing. But like that it was so engaged with not just the movie, but like the actual narrative around, like the Carol Clover men, women in chainsawsness of it all of like the oh no, people who've studied horror, this is what we all know. So it was very much made for those people. Yeah, and I appreciate that. I mean, I don't mind being catered to same same like have have it.

I'm gonna throw one out that is I thought it was actually earlier, but it's it's just a couple of years after that, and it's also on that sort of and again, the original of this movie you could also call a slasher. It's one that is sort of pre slasher, but follows a lot of the beats and a lot of its own ticks are then stolen and borrowed for other movies. But the twenty fourteen requ well, I guess whatever you want to call it. Of the Town That Dreaded Sundown. Yeah, that's on my list.

I really really enjoy this movie. Yeah, and that one is a pure like to me. Oh, this is a movie that is engaging with a movie that came out at that point, what forty years earlier, and but it's very much in the now, like it is made. It feels like it is written by somebody or directed by somebody fairly young. It's about young people in this day and age, but who have had this story as their own kind of folk tell and what that means if you repeat it now.

And it's just a really interesting like to me double pairing of of just how to how this story can sort of stretch over decades later and be something different. Yeah, I agree, it's it's the execution is really interesting and honestly enviable, Like, what a great way to tackle like that idea? That like remake type of thing. It is engage with it versus repeat it. Yeah, very like grounded in an interesting reality because of it, and it's very rewatchable.

It's it's one of the more modern slashers that I will like just casually rewatch, like, you know, instead of just throwing on Well we should talk about Texas chainsaw. I guess all right, So is that is that a slasher? I don't know. Yeah, I don't. I don't think of it as one.

I don't you have three for one thing? You have like three killers, right, you have multiple killers. Again, there's aspects that like fit. But to me it's more and I think brown because I was throwing it out to Brann and I would be like, is this slusher? Is this slasher?

Why? What? Why? And I think with that one, you have like what about forty five minutes of multiple people dying and being hunted down, and then you have another forty five minutes of just a onslaught against this one woman where it I think that's what kind of breaks it in a way of like, no, it's it's not it's something. I think it's something different.

I don't think it's a slasher, but it's i mean, still one of my favorite r. Yeah, and it definitely uses elements that we've talked about. But I think, too, what what kind of muddies the waters? Obviously is just like we've lived it now for decades, like the Slasher perception, like who is on the Mount Rushmore of Slashers, It is Jason, it is Freddy, it is Mike, and it is Leatherface. I mean, I know recently we've added ghost Face and sometimes Chucky dips in and out, and like now we've got the clown from Terrifier, But like classically, for decades, I'm telling you, it was like the Big four Slash five sometimes and I don't know that I think Freddy belongs there either, So like only two of them are are to me, it's like Slashers villains.

Yeah, and I think maybe for simplicity's sake, we've we've kind of just lumped them all together. But like I think, like the Fishermen from I Know what you did last Summer is more relevant to that lineup than leather Face. But I mean, he's not that iconic. I guess he should be look at a slicker. But sure, and motivation too, write there's a very clear there's a different motivation.

It's well or food and skin verse. You represent teenagers who led to my death, or you represent the people that burned me, or you know. Yeah, I would say that leather face fits in, like I guess letter face in TCM in general fit more in waits hold on less in than Freddy. There it is, Yes, Freddy for me at least has some of those tropic things that make a great like Slasher, except I guess he's just very talkative, a little chatty, he's a little he's a little social guy. Yes, he's our extroverted Slasher vers most of the others.

And I guess maybe who says that that's wrong. He's still motivated by something, and like the revenge type of element is still there, and that kind of like you can kill him, and he is unrelenting, he keeps coming back and stuff, And I guess his identity is obfuscated by like time and lies. We don't really know, yeah, well, instead of like just a mask that covers his face, we don't really like we the victim, I guess, don't really know the whole story of him until we uncover it from the town's secrets. So like, I don't know, I guess I could be convinced that the Nightmare on Elm Street series is more of a classic slasher than Sexts Tadesaw agreed, agreed. Interesting, Yeah, give me another one of yours.

Okay, So I don't like it. But if I'm going like Seminal, like what is a quintessential slasher for me, it's it's actually the burning. And I say that that's kind of unfortunate just because one of the last time I watched it, it really I don't know, maybe I'm being wild, but it really I really felt Weinstein's hands all over it. Like there's some like strange like sexual stuff in it. Yeah, and there's a lot of very underage stuff in it, right, like the kids look.

I think that was one of the things that works as a horror movie is that it looks like you're killing kids, which you didn't get very often in slashers. But also it's like there's a teenager having sex with a counselor and wait, wait a minute, that's gross. It really makes you wonder. And I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent here because I can't really support any of this, but it really makes you wonder how much of a negative impact Weinstein truly had on the slasher genre, the horror genre, well, how much of his fingerprints are really on it? Because then you when you when you ramp up into the nineties, I mean, whose fucking name is on half of these things that we've been talking about, and then you have something like the Burning, which again to me feels quintessential.

You have like the setting which is just like. Oh yeah, summer camp with a backstory. Yeah, it it works for me. As like if if somebody was said to me, Christine, what are I've seen I've seen Freddy, I've seen Jason, Like, what are some like really like quintessential? What what gives me that gives me the.

Taste of it? I would I would have to say the Burning is among them, probably my ability Valentine as well, but like there's just something about it that that it it locked into some of the tropes I think the earliest ye and pushed some of the tropes out I think in popularized them a little bit. The summer Camp definitely. I mean I just rewatched sleep Away Camp. Yes it's been a minute.

Zach has never seen it. Oh did he know? Did he know everything? Yeah, he knew, he said, so sorry for sleep Away Camp spoiler, but he he said, like, I wonder how this would have played if I didn't know it was her the whole time. Yeah, at one point he was like, I think I just forgot that I'm supposed to not know it's her.

And I was like, I know, it's really hard to to to approach it with any other ideas about Mandla, right. Oh, completely, And I mean Angela went on to be such an icon in the other movies that. It's Yeah, it's so like but like that that between that and The Burning, I feel like that's your fucking that's that's the real base for all your Summer Camp shit, right, it's got anytime you see a Summer Camp thing parodied and modern stuff, it feels like it's pulled from either The Burning or sleep Away Camp. I know, like Friday the thirteenth was there too, but like these to me feel like the Summer Camp movies. So Friday thirteen, let's let's talk about it, because I mean, that is your biggest slasher as a franchise.

I mean, I guess at this point, I think there's actually equal amounts to that in Halloween. We might even have more Halloween movies. I mean, with those new three, it's gotta be uh, because I mean you had so you had up to six Resurrection is seven h two os or no? No, no, resurrection is six h two is seven? Then you have resurrection?

Wait? I just did that reverse seven plus three plus two Rob Zombie to twelve Friday? Anyway about equal? You don't come here here for us to do that, do Yeah? Now you guys have the internet?

Yes, So now what is your uh? How do you feel about Friday thirteenth? In general? Is a franchise? Where do you kind of land on it?

Do you have favorites? Do you just kinda what is it to you? What does it mean? Who is Jason to Christine? Make peace?

It's historically been my least favorite. I I struggle to remember the different entries when I watch them, fair like which is which and what happens? I never have really connected the Jason movies, but I will say semi recently, I guess maybe when they did the really nice four K release of the first one. I rewatched the first one within the past some ideas, and that one hit. I was like Oh wait a second.

I think I just got this movie for the first time. But the other ones still don't really work for me. Other than Manhattan, which and it's an X. I like X two because Jilly Manhattan, and I like because it's not actually like it's just him on a boat ride. Ye.

I think that one's good. But the first one, the first one fucking rules. And if you say that it doesn't, then I think you might be being contrarian, because it's really cool, Like the kills are really good if you watch it with fresh eyes, which is super hard to do. Very it's it's a it's a good movie. And I mean the twist is the twist.

It's not it's his mom, it's which I don't know, man, imagine not knowing that. Yeah, like it's talking about pysically campin Angela. Imagine not knowing it's his fucking mom in this thing. Yeah, thanks Scream for ruining that. I I mean, I don't want to say it takes away from it, but I do think that it's cooler when you when you get taken by surprise.

Yes, but I I enjoy them overall, but I would never classify them as my favorite. No. For me. I. I kind of just like that there's so many of them and that they're always maybe on somewhere, Like, I mean, that's that's fair.

It's a quantity over quality thing, Like it's just nice to know, come October or come like a Friday thirteenth. Oh good, at some point in time it'll be on. Any one of them be on the background, and it's fine. And I think they vary in quality very like, I don't think any of them are great. I think Jason X is a really fun thing and it's kind of separate from every everything after that.

I think six is a good movie. I think two is a good movie. I think one has a lot going for it, whereas I think the rest of them are kind of not very good movies. Again, they're forgettable for me, so like I don't know if that means like anything about but like I don't feel like your movie should be forgettable. Yeah, I don't know, but I don't know about quality, but I want to remember it for for some reason.

That's absolutely fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's see. Okay, I have one that I'm curious if it if it would fit your definition of a slasher, And I know it's a movie that you really like. Uh, this is a new one, a new, very new one on shutter Sissy. Uh.

I had saw. I had seen that come up on a couple of like the newer lists, and I don't know, I'll allow it. I guess it had for me. It has the right spirit right right, It's it's like going for the same feelings in the same like things. Yeah, and you have people stuck somewhere and the keels are fairly interesting.

I think when I was throwing things out to my husband and he was giving me some like reasons for why he thought things weren't weren't when I had said, like Silent my Deadly Night, and he's like no, he's like, because it's more about the killer than it is about the victim, which I think is fair and I've existed is kind of that as well, Like it is the point of view essentially of what becomes your slasher. But it's it's very good, so I still think it deserves a shout out. Yeah, it's it's close enough that like reading it and under that lens or whatever is it makes it more interesting, I think too. Yes, there's one another one that I'm dying to know. If you can put it in this category, because the thing about also slasher is if you're kind of doing like throwing out like other things that influence the actual slasher.

Like one thing I would always go to is at the Christie's, and then there were none because it's it is a bunch of people dropped in an isolated place and they're dying off one by one for reasons that you will find out where it is. You know, there are reasons for all of their their murders. And then you have a big reveal of the killer. And there's a movie that I think does that that I know you're a fan of from the early two thousands. What movie I am thinking of?

The movie Identity. Oh that's so interesting. No, that was nowhere near my list at all. Hold on, let me think about it. You gotta think about it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think it absolutely is. So. If so, this is where we get down to the ingredients again. I don't know. I guess you have the ingredients to make a slasher, but you put it in in a in a different pan and now it's not.

Now it's a bunt cake. I don't know why it came out as a bunk cake, but it's not a slasher anymore. There's something about out the way that it. The way bigger reveal of all of it. Maybe I don't even know about the bigger reveal.

So I'm I was almost I was trying to talk you out of it, and then I started to think about the end. So at the end, when if you haven't seen identity, like ghost, it's so fun. Something happens to Amanda Pete's character at the end, and that to me is the most fucking slasher shit about that? Yes, yeah, a good singer. The killer did so, Like, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to talk about identity all day because I could, But like I will say, for me, no, it's not.

But if you wanted to make that argument, I would be hard pressed to argue against you because of the fact that there are clearly elements there and if those are the elements that stand out to you. So for me, identity is like a psychological yeah, like literally yeah, but if you want to like let it be a tangible, real story, I guess it is kind of like like a slasher. Also, it's the framework of it is about a guy that that murders a murderer if you will, and so, so the man at the center of identity could have been like a slasher esque murderer. I mean true. So this this could be what's in the mind of every slasher.

So it could be the ultimate slasher movie. I like that. It's a good movie. Oh now I want an identity made for like Jason Voorhees, an identity made for like Freddy Krueger, like imagine that ver like that spin off of every like great. Yes, yeah, that would be I think it's interesting.

Obviously, that's an interesting way to look at that movie. I never approach it that way for some reason. But it's it's a solid it's a solid one interesting. Hold on, do I have any weird ones that I thought were interesting? I kept seeing candy Man, So.

I absolutely do not think candy Man is a slasher. This is one I was adam and on because he is not hunting down people, right, he is being like forced awake. Essentially, he is not going after bystanders. He's not going after like It is very much a like focus on this one woman. And yes, if people are around her that are getting drawn into this, then you know they're they're on the chopping block.

But I don't think of it in any way as a slusher. I think it's a great horror film, but I do not put it in that category. Yeah, I don't either, and I think it is the I think it's that just the charisma of the killer man, just because like that's why you have you know, you are the slasher lineup. We were just talking about those dudees that we were just talking about, and then they try to put Meghan in there. I don't think Megan's a slasher either, but yeah, so I think for some people, and that's fine.

Everybody can define it the way they want, but perhaps people do get a lot more tied up in the killer than maybe I or you do. Like, if he's got a good killer, it's a slasher, right. Because I think what separates a good slasher from a bad slasher. And this again to go to use the Friday thirteenth series as an example, to me, part two is good? Why is part two good?

Well? Christ as a really good final girl, because I'm invested in this woman surviving the night and I think a mistake that a lot of slashers make is and I get it it's hard because usually a killer you have designed, especially if you have a good actor playing that killer, is going to be more interesting than the young people that he is going after. But like, once the movie knows that that, I think it either it loses power or it becomes kind of something else. Yeah, yeah, I can, I can agree with that interesting. Well, hold on, here's the other one.

So I I'm not the first person to say this. This is like Diehard is a Christmas movie what, But like, Terminator is a slasher and. The Fator is a slash like one. Hundred percent, And the first time I so, I'm a I'm a T two gal. Maybe you are too, just because it was always on.

That's that's why I saw T two in the theater when I was what nine, And that that leaves imprint. So I didn't see the first Terminator for like a while because I did that thing I always talk about where I'm like, why, yes, I did it. I understand the references. But then I actually watched it. And I was like, wait a minute, this is pretty good.

It is this is a whole different horror film and it really is, and it has the beats of a slasher and like just go watch it through that lens and it'll be just as interesting as the first time you watched it. I feel because like it really reframed Sarah, because Sarah is not like if you're again, if you're a Tea two gal like me, Oh. Yeah, you're You're Linda Hamilton is a very particular Linda Hamilton. She is Yes, she is built for this. Yes.

And then when you but in the terminator, she is just she is Laura Waits, Yeah, she's She's just a gal that's now in the middle of something she didn't ask to be in the middle of. And like, I think she's a great final girl in that regard, And then if you look at her as a great final girl in regards to T two, she's a fucking phenomenal final girl because she learns and she gets tougher and stronger and is ready to fight. And it's and that's something you want out of a franchise. You want your survivor, which is usually your final girl. Uh.

You want her to come back in part two better, stronger, smarter, and ideally you want you know, in some cases you want her to be the one you follow. Often the thing that a lot of eighties movies did was like kill her in the first reel because we have introduce a new one. And I know that was actually something for Predator thirteen to two. The actress like wanted a little more money for part three. Then she got paid for in part two and they were like, now we'll just kill your character off screen and move on, which which sucks, right, And that was something you know, like night marenells you very much was doing for a while.

I was like, Okay, this is how we're gonna We're going to transition and new killer, new new final girl, here's your new lead and so on. But yes, you want that growth, I think, and along with Terminator, I think you have the kind of that other little mount Rushmore. I feel like all three of these movies have the same thing. Where part one is a slasher in part two is not. I'd say the same for Alien and the same for Predator.

Right, Predator and Alien are both slashers. Yeah, definitely have thought that before with Alien, but I think, look, I'm so sorry my gendered issues are gonna tell tell me that I've never I don't think I've ever thought that about Predator because it is I know, I know but like if you're using if you if you can concede that alien fits the framework, then you have to like kind of can see the same for Predator. And if anything, I think Predator is more so because if an alien, it's a little bit more like biolog The motivation is very biological as opposed to that you know anything else. But it is a you're in a confined place, You're gonna get killed one by one by this one entity Predator. It is you are actively being hunted by something that just wants to kill you because it kills Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's that's a solid point too, it I So now I have that leads me to two different questions. Do you think that there needs to be We haven't really talked about it, like a final there needs to be a Final Girl for something to be a slasher, And is Final Girl like is their wiggle room there? Can it be a final boy? Can it be? It is?

Yeah? So could it be a final like small group? Because I feel like, I mean, I know it doesn't end well for them, but in Final Girls, it's not just girl, it's like small group that survives and it is, but Final Girls I still think is framed as if like, yes, there is a group survive, and I mean that in fairness that happens in Scream, right, it's not just one persons, but you you have a focus, like you as the audience have the avatar of I'm supposed to see everything through Taysa Fermiga's brain. Right. I am still following Sydney, even though I know Gaien and Dewey are out there somewhere.

So I think it doesn't have to be female. Often. It is for a lot of reasons that Carol Clover laid out well in min Women in Chainsaws. But I think the idea is always you have somebody is you know, knock them off. And a lot of movies have done interesting things with it of you know, like giving you a final girl and that or like what is Wrong?

Turn two does a really interesting thing with that where you believe, well, this has to be my final girl because she's she's the person who's not there for fame. Everybody else is there to be famous. Then she's not. Oh no, it's not gonna be her. It's gonna be this other woman and guy and the black guy like it's they're gonna be the ones who survive.

So I think you have a lot of room to play with it, and I think a lot of movies subvert it intentionally, and that's part of what they do interestingly, but I think, like you do need somebody that is there for the audience to be able to say, this is who I would be in the scenario, or this is who I'm rooting for in this scenario. Yeah, yeah, that's that's interesting. So the final girl for you doesn't have to be literal. It doesn't have to be one remaining figure left. It just has to be a person that is maybe archetypally designated to fight the bad thing.

Yes, somehow they are ordained for it, whether it's because it's Laurie Strode and maybe she's the killer sister, or it's well it's Linda Blair and Hill Knight and she's the one virgin so we know she's the you know, the good one by this movie's logic. It doesn't always have to be as literal as that, but it needs to be somebody that you are following more so than other, Like you are watching characters in a movie knowing they might die, verse the character that you have, like whether you realize it or not looked into as this is the person who's gonna get me through to the end, and they might die in the end, but they're the one that I am. I am, this is me right? That was something Carol Klover laid out of, like why it had to be a girl for so long?

Or it could be a a like young man, but the idea of it being somebody that like. Men would have a hard time investing in a man who was the victim, and they could invest in a woman, but if she was too sexy, then they were watching her for a different reason. Like that was why they always like why I had to be the good girl, the moral girl who you are most naturally inclined to think, this is the person who deserves to live. Yeah, but that is what the rule actually says, So. That makes total sense.

Interesting. Hmm, let me let me let me look at my list. Do you have anything else? What are a few more? I'll throw out This one.

I couldn't decide because it's a movie I love. It's not, is it? I don't know? Toepooper is the fun House. I've actually never seen it.

I love this movie. Anytime I feel too clean, I'm like, oh, I need to feel dirty. I can watch The Funhouse. It's just gross. There's something about it that like you have to take a shower when you watch it.

And it is young young teenagers are having a good time at the carnival and they decide to stay overnight in the Funhouse and they wouldn't have murder, and then the creature who did the murder happens to be a disfigured man who then kind of hunts them one by one. So it's sort of it is, but it isn't doesn't kind of follow everything, but it's a good time. Yeah, would you recommend it? Yes, it's a good Halloween movie. I think cool.

Yeah, I've never seen it, and I've been on a bit of a kick Atoby Hooper kick lately, so I don't know why I thought like it was bad. I don't know why I thought that, And since when do I listen to people anyways? No, it's it's very seedy, like it just it feels gross, and it's it's a couple of years after change. I think it's I think it was the next thing he made after Chainsaw. I could be wrong about that, but it just has like a grime about it that is really satisfying if you are like looking for that, I guess.

Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah, I'm gonna add it to my list for the rest of the month. Because I've never seen it, I. Would throw out as far as newer movies or if you wanted to go like the slasher comedy Route the Conference, which was a Swedish movie. I think I think it was Swedish.

It was on Netflix for a while, might still be there. It is a work retreat who end up in the woods and cabins and such, and somebody is after them and it is a it's like the mascot of their company, so it's like a big mask and kind of like over size killer and it's it's really good, some very like well done violence, but also is both saying something and is also very funny, so. That sounds fun. I like that setup. I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Fear Street movies.

Oh yes, good call. Not not not prom queen. But I know people the first trilogy. Yeah, people will say whatever they want about that one. That's fine.

But like the The Legionic, those three which they they varying degrees of slasher within them, I think. But there are definitely elements and tropes and things on display and being kind of utilized. Yep. And I think with that because I feel like something people would ask and be like, well, where's Prom Night in your list? Well, I don't think Prom Night's very good.

It's a slasher, definitely. Rom My heart lies with prom Night too, And. I was gonna say hello, but I don't think that's a slash. That's not a slash. That is a supernatural possession story and it's amazing.

And if you have not seen Hello Mary Lou prom Night too, do yourself a favor and watch it. Oh but terror Train, Terror Train definitely a slasher. Good time, that's a good time. I like that one. So Slumber Party Massacre I think needs to be needs to be discussed.

I am most familiar with the first one. I am semi familiar with the second, and I have actually never. Seen I've never seen a third. It's been a really long time since i've seen either of them. Yeah, the first one, though, I've become slightly obsessed with it and I will watch it regularly.

It's perfect. It's the perfect movie, and I think it's it's just like really if you're into any of these types. The setups like you gotta watch it, so good, and then there's the modern one they. See that was like it ended up on the sci Fi channel, right, but then everybody was like, no, but it's really good. Yeah it did.

I don't know where it's ended up now. It is phenomenal. It is a phenomenal subversion of not just some party massacre, but like the tropes in general, it's so good. And the woman who directed it also directed the Banana Splits. Movie, Oh, which I'd heard really good things about.

Which is also really good and not I guess again plays with slasher themes and stuff because it's about the Banana Splits. The If you don't know what those are, I'm so sorry, I'm old. But they're like, you know, Mascotti characters that start murdering. So it's got like a five Nights at Freddy's vibe. But like not but not so dour and well pressing.

That that it's a lot of fun. The Banana Splits movie. It's it's fun and goofy and weird, so like too high recommends from from me for like adjacent stuff nice. A few others in mine oh oh oh. If we were doing like, hey, what's what are some slashers with great settings?

I would go, I can think of two that are both very much made for me in this way. Wow about we set it at theater camp. I'm talking about two thousand and I don't know, fifteen fourteen stage fright. Yeah. I still haven't watched it.

Fun it's a It was on Amazon. I'm not sure where it is now. It is, it is a slasher. It is set at a summer camp, only it is a theater camp. And it's a musical and it has some great music in it.

And I rewatched it a few weeks ago with my husband, who because he hadn't seen it, and I was really excited for him to watch it. He was into it, I think in the beginning, and then I think he was like, it's still. Going, Oh yeah, that doesn't bode well for me, not as much. No, but give it a try, give it a try, and another great setting of a of a slasher. And it is a slasher.

For some reason, I toyed with it and I'm like, no, no, it all it fits. And that is and Keeien Eady eats maybe popcorn. Oh yeah, absolutely I like this movie. Yeah, it's it's weird and fun. Yeah, I was scared of the poster for so long it took me a while to watch it.

Yeah, and it's got a great reveal. It has a good killer reveal with a backstory that's relevant to the final girl like it's it's it's all those things. And then I have, Okay, some more recent ones that are not good, but just like I will remember for a long time, and I've only seen them one so I can't vouch for if they're any good or if they're like problematic in any way, but I remember when I watched them, I was really excited. One would be you must have seen this movie, because I for a while, I couldn't stop talking about it. Chain Letter.

Oh yeah, I love this movie. Yeah, the movie with all the chains. There's like twelve different deaths and all of them involved chains. So yeah, I not to not to derail too much, but I just want to make sure I'm right before I go on a little thing. So yeah, I am right.

So Deon Taylor directed this movie called Chain Letter. Deon Taylor also directed the movie The Intruder, which is the Dennis Quaid House Invasions movie. You did not see this, and I know you spoke about it, well. So good. Deon Taylor is a fantastic filmmaker and people should see his movies.

The Intruder is not really a slasher, but it's a home it's a home invasion thing. And if you want to pretend that Dennis Quaid is a slasher, I think it would work. So yeah, I one hundred percent co sign chain letter A hundred. It is. It is low budget shit, but it is so engaging.

It is such a memorable and engaging movie. Yeah, and it has such a great cast too. You got brand Doris, You've got Keith David, You've got Noah Seagan builing like, you have this great cast to be you have wild deaths in Wild Waves. It's sort of like it's it's very much of the like the torture porn era in terms of how some of the violence is done. But it's got like a wild little story attached to it.

It's I keep meaning to rewatch it and it just keeps moving around on different sites, but it's one that like, look, if you were looking for something fun and of that ilk in that era, then it's right there. Yeah. Absolutely. I remember it was making like the blog rounds back in the day, and I think it's worthy of that. Sometimes surgeons sometimes strange movies would get talked about it and you'd be like, why do people seem to like this?

Right? But yeah, not this one, No no. And another movie that somehow nobody talked about and I was obsessed with it for a long time. Two thousand and seven, so around the same era is a dark comedy slasher film called drive Through. Hmm, do you see this?

It's got the master let's look, let's look. It's a clown killer who is killing people through a drive through best food place in in ridiculous ways. Look, apparently there's a lot of things called drive through. I'm gonna have to go through Layton. But I've never heard of this.

It's because my friend and there was a period of time where I would not stop talking about it. Really, Yes, So I'm I'm trying to send you the little link for it. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's got always some jam from the office, isn't it. Oh that's yeah, she's part of the backstory.

Oh I was. Oh, I'm so sorry. I was sailing through like a word. Oh how are you? I'm on, Christine.

Look, we're not all Yale educated here. Whoa you know what's hey? Everybody stop the presses. Nick the a Agastino's in it too, and he was in A five no Destination. I think, oh, he's in four no five right, So wait a second, Hey, everybody again, stop the presses.

So drive through A movie made in two thousand and seven has Nicholas Dagostino and you want did di Augusto? You know what else do you guys know him from? He is Hunter in the office. Who is the the the receptionist that jam is in this movie? I wonder if that's how they one of the two of them was cast.

Hey, you've really opened up my eyes to I don't I did not remember Penn Badeley being in this movie, and apparently he's in this movie. He is I just scrolled back. Okay, is this good or is it like? Oh god? I don't know because I watched it probably twelve years ago, and I remember like not knowing what I was getting and like just being having joyful feelings watching it, like I was like, this is great.

And I don't know if I was drunk that day. I don't know if I had just been on like a bummer lebble, like hadn't seen anything good in a while, and this hit me at the right time. It's one of those movies. And I put this in a list with like the sand and Chane Letter of movies that like, I watched once and it was so energizing and I loved it. And I have no idea if I were to watch it today, if I'd be like, what was I thinking?

Uh? Well, I will say to your credit, you, for a very long time, speaking of Layton Easter, were the only person I knew that like the roommate, and it took me so he asked me the first question, why do you feel like you needed to keep watching it five times? Clearly you did like it too. Maybe I did like it. I don't know, But now I do think it is one of the best movies ever made.

So I've learned to trust you a lot more. Well, let me say this is eighty two minutes long and it's on toob so at this point we're both gonna watch. It sold honestly. Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, it looks like it's everywhere Pluto. To be all the ones that you don't have to pay for and you will get ads with it.

But any anywhere you can watch something for free, I will watch it. I look, so here's a weird one that I'll throw out. Then ATM I still. Haven't watched it. It's I almost watched it a few weeks ago.

I sat down, it was on shutter I was going to watch it on a Friday night and then remembered, wait a minute, there's there's baseball, and then watch that instead. So I mean, probably a better choice. I don't know why. I've got like a weird like ATM gives me like weird two thousands vibe, where like every other like Indian indie or low budget movie was like, is this gonna be the most misogynist thing I've ever watched? Remember?

Yeah, ATM is twenty twelve, and that was definitely the era for it. That's time period, But this one is not. Alice Eve is in it too. If you like really need a reason to watch it, it's Alice Eve is in it, so like a real actress is in it, and Josh Peck I guess Drake and Josh is Josh isn't it as well? But it's basically, like I would say it's a slasher in the sense that it is a person whose motives are obvious skated and their face is obvious skated, and they're keeping he's keeping people trapped in a small area, which would be the ATM booth, the housing.

So it's not really slashery, but it's slash or adjacent enough. It reminded me of Drive Through that like just watch it, right, why not? What are you gonna lose? Lose ninety minutes of your life? It's it's fine, yeah, And like I don't know forty of those minutes have Alice even them?

So like, come on, who is Alice? If why don't I know who this is Alice? She's blonde and she was in a Star Trek. I think she is British. She was in The Raven with John Cusack.

She I think is our age, so she's not young, but she plays young. She has a very long like real film I'm looking at her, you know her or whatever you call it. List of movies she has been in, and somehow I have not seen a single one of them. But they're all real movies. It's just that I have not seen such things as bombshell or bees may honey or misconduct.

But I believe you that she's very lovely. She's she's a good actress. I've seen her in the things that are scary, probably that she does so in scary things, she's good. I just like her. She seems charismatic and nice.

Plus she's our age, right, so it's like nice to see a forty some odd year old woman be beautiful and thing. Yeah, oh you know what her birthday? She actually has the same birthday as one of my best friends. Her birthday, she's five days after me, February sixth, nineteen eighty two. See, I knew she was when I say she has a fellow a query.

When I kept saying she's our age, I really think I knew that she was very close to your birthday. And that's why I. Wanted to say she's impressive the same age as you mean, Yeah, like she was worth five days later, same hospital, if you know. Maybe she was happened to be in Long Island at that time. But isn't that cool?

Like when I think it's cool when there are still people very active in Hollywood and have like I guess she made it through the hump of being like quotes young and beautiful and being like now an old lady like us and beautiful. I'm kidding, we're not old, but Hollywood will discs hard standards, yes, women quickly, and I think that it's cool she's still like going strong. Yeah, So with that, that's something I had meant to do and totally didn't. Was like think of, like who is your favorite Do you have a favorite Final Girl? Oh?

Okay, so I actually this is really hard because I think my favorite Final Girl is actually Heather laying in Camp. But like, I don't know that I would ever even classify those from Friday and thirteenth. I'm sorry, night You're on Home Street movies as slashers. So it really I'm really telling on myself. But it also says so much though, I think because I think that franchise it did do the Final Girl so strongly, like that was a huge part of the first five movies are all very much and some and again, like, my favorite Nightmare is Nightmare four, And I know it's not the best, but for me, it's the one that I find just the most interesting.

And and I think the thing about that one that I always like did kind of without realizing. See, like you actually get a journey of that character from beginning to end. Like I think Nancy is wonderful because from the beginning she's kind of like, you know, a strong, caring teenage girl who you believe is going to beat Fairy Freddy because she can fight them and she can use her brains and use her strength. And then with Alice in part four, you have somebody who is a who's a very mousey woman who is not is scared of to express anything or to talk, and you understand why she's kind of from an abusive home. And the whole point of that movie is her growing stronger because of the people she loved and losing them and so on.

So there's, yeah, you can somehow have a great final girl even if your movie doesn't fit our definition of slasher. Yeah, totally. And I think that this exercise for me at least highlighted again why none of this matters and you shouldn't care about any of it. I think it's cool to talk about like different tropes and ideas and themes and like things that easily categorize or lump together. But like, I don't know if if Jason's your favorite slasher and like we don't think he's a slasher, Like I don't care.

Why do you care? I don't care? Like whatever you want. And I read a ton of stuff about like what what is the neo slasher? And is anything post two thousand actually even and it's like, I don't care.

Man, calm down, why are you trying to police everybody? Yeah, and like you have the occasional filmmaker that probably has overthought it far more than we're doing now. And again, like The Final Girls is very much a movie that is engaging with a lot of history of movies and what the tropes are and how it can subvert them and how I can tie them up. But ultimately the reason that movie works is because it's this really beautiful story about a girl and her mother set in this very funny area that is calling on all the things that we like think of when we think of this particular type of movie. So it's it's fine if you want to overthink it, it's fine if you want to underthink it.

It's all good. Yeah, don't ever get stressed out about movie stuff though, like what you like, because like, who cares? Right? This was really fun and I know that you said that maybe you don't necessarily feel like it's your go to genre slashers, but like it's fun to talk about them with you because I feel like you have like a different perspective. You are less rabid about certain ideas than other people can be.

Yeah. I talked to a couple of people ahead of this. They might know who they are if they're listening, but some people got really like heated about certain topics, and it was like, hey, I don't know that I care this. Thing in defining whether something was or wasn't, or. In like what was good, not defining what was and wasn't.

I think hopefully the people I talked to are weird about like your personal preferences, but I think even within the individual, it was like you then get in a war with yourself, right oka of like, well wait a second. I don't know now wait yeah, because that means I have to re rank this movie. If now we're calling this this, this rule is broken. So yeah, if so as Killer Workout actually is slasher. Then you're right because and it's like because then that's number one for me, because my god, is that a movie?

But like it's just it asks you when you. I think what's fun about movies sometimes is just like having fun with them. Yeah, and when you try to like hyper analyze why something works or where it fits in, you can kind of take away the joy complately. Yeah. I just I think it's interesting with slashers in particular, because it keeps you then from lumping and comparing something like The Exorcist with popcorn.

Right, that there is a difference between what films are doing, I guess, And that's maybe where I like sit back and look at it, and it's why like the only time I get heated about it is when like the argument comes up about in a way like the one movie that bothers me is the whole Like, well, so Those of the Limbs is more a thriller than a horror movie, because in that case, it's because I think it's Hollywood or people's way of like saying, oh, I can like this movie because it's not a horror movie, see, like because horror movies are stupid. It's where my defensive side comes out of, like is the movie trying to scare you? Because then that kind of makes it a horror movie. Yeah, stop minimizing the genre, right, Like that's the.

Only time I will get annoyed about somebody classifying something. I think with Slashers, it's just a good way of being able to understand like what a movie is kind of going for and why. And again that's why like Texas Chainsaw to me doesn't fit because I'm like, Texas Chainsaw is this raw, like just like fear and horror and death thrown in your face, and it is terrifying, and I think it is still the most terrifying movie probably ever made. And it is sure it's doing it in a way that looks like movies that we classify as Slashers, but it's doing something with such a different energy than I want to tell a story about a bunch of hot people getting hunted by a charismatic, scary killer in a mask who you're scared of because you know, we can do crazy things to your body.

And this is the journey we're going on where it's texts, so it's like no, no, no, the journey is just chaos, and that's a big part of it. So I think that's where why I like to draw the line, just because I think it helps me understand the difference and what a horror film what this kind of horror film is trying to do versus what that kind of horror film is trying to do. But ultimately like, yeah, just like watch what you want, talk about it the way you want to talk about it. We're not telling you wrong. Yeah, but also getting heated discussions that go for hours about it.

That's also fun too. Yeah. Yeah, I go watch the slasher or and also on social media, let us know what makes a slasher for you. I'm on Blue Sky, oh so's pretty easy to find. And Emily's there too.

If you talk to he or more, she might show up more. I just don't understand the like every time I hit it suddenly like my timeline is completely different. I don't understand Blues. I'm too old to understand Blue Sky. I try, I don't.

I don't believe that, but I do appreciate that you try. I am curious though, because I did engage other people about this. Sounds like you did too. It's an interesting topic, right, like what actually we're decade in now, and like in nineteen ninety two, it was easier to have this conversation even in two thousand and six and seven, like when we met, it was easier to have this conversation, and now in twenty twenty five, it's like, uh, I don't even know, man, that's why I'm I'm I'm just saying vibes. Yeah, that's fair.

I'm with you. Yeah, all right, So find us. You are at xteen to make peace. I am at Deadly Dolls on blue Sky. Talk to us, tell us me, yeah, tell us how we're wrong.

Yeah. I love that, especially that part where you yell at me. From my opinion, I love especially if you're a man. It's so much more fun if you're a man telling me I'm wrong. Oh yeah, line up boys.

Yep, yep, yep. Oh. But this was a pleasure with you, Yes, it was. All right everybody. If we don't talk to you again, happy Halloween?

Oh yeah, have you Halloween. I can't seem to face up through the bags. I'm tense and nervous that I can't la. I can't sleep because my bed's on fire. Don't nothing have a real life?

Wire Cycle Killers to see better run run Run n run. Run cycle Killer, I'm just see a better run run Run Run Run run run Fi