Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke

The body count is relatively low compared to other films, and this one makes the list on a technicality. Here is another proto-slasher with heavy leanings toward giallo when it comes to the murder scenes. While making his new album at a remote house, an ax-wielding, hag-masked stranger goes after those around him. Sally Field and Jessica Walter, both of whom already had established film and television careers at this point, bring some able flair to this dramatic murder mystery.Ī famous musician resumes recording after a painful divorce. Spelling’s TV-movie comes moderately close to the tropes we all know and love: the killer is incognito, and the camera follows their POV. Plenty of horror enthusiasts describe Home for the Holidays as well as anything else predating 1978 “proto,” as these films helped pave the way for what we regard as a typical slasher. Consequently, Friday the 13th is deemed the first film to be called as such. So why is it considered a ‘proto’?” The term “slasher”-which was once synonymous with “snuff” in the seventies-wasn’t coined until shortly after 1980. You might be thinking: “Okay, that sounds just like any other slasher. Eventually, someone wearing a yellow rain slicker and brandishing a pitchfork comes after the three daughters. Set at Christmas, three adult women’s ill father suspects his new wife is trying to kill him in Home for the Holidays. Another example is Alfred Hitchock’s classic Psycho.

“Proto-slasher” is term used to describe horror films, mysteries, or thrillers with a few elements of a conventional slasher. This includes the important 1972 proto-slasher Home for the Holidays. The late television mogul Aaron Spelling was behind some of the most remarkable genre telepics of the seventies. To retain some mystery, the assailants’ identities will not be disclosed. In celebration of Women in Horror Month this February, here is an assortment of slasher movies throughout the last fifty years that feature a woman behind the mask. What was considered a man’s “sport” was now an equal opportunity for either gender to exact revenge and employ various phallic weapons. This subversion of what was thought to be a standard of horror ended up handing the women-often the victims in these movies-back their power in a way. Followers of the genre as a whole know that this couldn’t be further from the truth.Ī number of these types of films, especially around the “golden age” of slashers from 1978 to 1984, switched things up by having women become the perpetrators. Some people assume all slashers-the horror sub-genre where a disguised or themed killer traditionally picks off unsuspecting targets within a short period of time-always have a male killer.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke