The second Golden Age of the genre film was initiated by the release of Jaws in 1975 and ended with Tremors in 1990. The sixteen-year period saw some of the best science-fiction and horror movies of all time.
Limiting ourselves to true classics, this period produced Jaws, the three Star Wars films Aliens, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Terminator, Blade Runner, Back to the Future, and Ghostbusters. Expanding our view a little, we find such excellent fare as Alien, Evil Dead 2, Predator, Gremlins, Fright Night, The Howling, Tron, Tremors, The Abyss, and Robocop. Truly it was the best time for films of this sort since their hey-day in the 1950s.
And yet…the movies that are equally, if not more remembered, that are most associated with the time are not these giants, but the seething undercurrent of trash that shared the screen with them. As much as anything, this period is remembered as the time of the Slasher film.
Although stemming primarily from the excellent Halloween, the true Slasher film really arrived with the phenomenally successful Friday the 13th, in 1980. Seeing how much money could be made on little investment and even less talent, every hack producer (no pun intended) started churning out these flicks by the dozen until, less than five years after the craze had begun, the genre had become a joke even to itself.
But still they came, and still they were profitable. Today some are even considered sort-of classics, despite their manifest lack of class. It is not enough to simply dismiss them, as is so easy (and apparently sensible) to do, for clearly they have struck a chord and somehow it is fitting that they should be a particularly loud voice in the story of the Eighties.
Every age and particularly those that produce great works of imaginative art has its own particular fear. In the 1950s, the first Golden Age, the fear was science; the fear of what man could or would do in the future. In the wake of the most destructive war in history, the atom bomb, and unprecedented advances in technology, men wondered where it all would lead. This fear drove the great (and less great) Science Fiction and monster films of the period.
The 1980s, meanwhile, were a period of relative calm following two tumultuous decades of social upheaval. The people of the eighties had endured Vietnam and the associated protests, Watergate, the Civil Rights movement, the Sexual Revolution, and a massive, relatively sudden shift from the older paradigm of their parents to a new, more permissive, relative, and inconsequential one. They were coming off an economic recession. Now they were enjoying a time of economic prosperity, an immensely popular president, and a period of relatively little war or upheaval, at least as far as Americans were concerned.
The primary fear of the eighties, therefore, was fear of the past. The fear that they were forgetting important things, the fear that what had happened during those turbulent years would require an accounting, the fear that those things they thought dead were not quite so dead after all, and the nagging fear that the issues that had so divided the nation had never really been settled. In short, it was essentially “did I leave the stove on” writ large.
We see this worry about the past in almost all the great films of the era: Back to the Future mixes nostalgia for the last relatively peaceful decade with a young man’s disappointment with his parents and desire to change the past for the better. Ghostbusters and the Evil Dead films (among others) deal with the rise of ancient evils upon the present. Fright Night sees an old-school monster –a vampire – returning and forces its heroes to take past traditions (i.e. religious faith and its symbols) seriously to defeat it. What was a game to the people of the eighties must become deadly serious to defend against this ancient evil. A Nightmare on Elm Street is about the very memories of a defeated force of evil attacking the survivors. Even movies set in the future, such as Aliens and The Terminator deal with the past. Aliens is a Vietnam movie in space, expressing the shadow that conflict still held and the fear that it might be repeated in the future. The Terminator is about two warring forces attempting to change their past by returning to our present, so the whole film is about the shadow the present shall cast upon the future in its turn.
But perhaps no films express this fear as consistently as the Slasher movies, for whom fear of the past was their main theme. The basic outline of a Slasher movie remained largely the same for almost all of the many, many such films that were released: at some point in the past a crime was committed which was somehow not adequately dealt with. Possibly an innocent (or even not so innocent) man was maimed, tormented, or seemingly killed. Years later, on the anniversary of the event, either the victim or the perpetrator (or someone connected with them) returns to mete out punishment on those involved and anyone who gets in his way.
The figure of the Slasher represents fear of the past: of crimes being discovered, of past mistakes returning, of past sins being punished. Surely for the teenagers experimenting with drugs or having unprecedented levels of sex such fears were often only too real. For the parents the fear that old tragedies were being forgotten and that old mistakes could burst out at any moment must have been equally real.
The sixties and seventies could perhaps be seen as a battle for and against tradition. A battle which the ‘for’ crowd lost. The Slasher film expresses the nervous fear of the victors by asking three questions: “What have we killed?” “Are we sure it is dead?” and “What if it isn’t?”
Consider, as an example, the most exemplary (meaning they are a good example, not that they are good in any other way) films of the genre: The Friday the 13th series. The fear of the past saturates these films. The first movie tells of an old summer camp being re-opened after having been closed for two decades following a tragedy that had occurred there…and that turns out to have been the result of an earlier, forgotten tragedy in its turn.
Those involved in the camp’s re-opening do so over the warnings of the local townsfolk, who are sure nothing good can come from stirring up those old memories again. And of course they are right, as the counselors are picked off one-by-one.
The townsfolk are concerned because the camp was closed in the first place following the murder of two counselors and as far as they are concerned the tragedy is still too fresh in the memory of the area to do anything as flippant as start up the summer-camp again. At the end, though, the shadow of the past grows even darker when we meet Mrs. Voorhees.
“Did you know that a boy drowned here?” she asks Alice, who is now the only survivor. No, Alice didn’t. Apparently, no one knew or cared about Jason Voorhees’ death. The opening scene implies that the counselors’ whose neglect resulted in his death weren’t even fired. It is their deaths, not his, that close the camp. Here, therefore, we have the really forgotten tragedy, the even from the past that is being defiled and ignored until it forcibly returns to remind the present that it happened. Only one person cared about that little deformed boy, and the disregard everyone showed his death drove her insane.
The fear here is the question of what tragedies have been ignored. What might the consequences be of such neglect? The popular urban legend of the time of American POWs still being held in Vietnam spoke to a similar fear; the fear of forgetting and of what is being forgotten.
As the series went on, Jason (as far as he could be called a symbol at all) continued to represent this reminding, retributive force. He is localizes, bound to Camp Crystal Lake and its surrounding area (although he can and does venture beyond, it is always against his will and he always returns). The transgression that evoke his wrath is the fact that people keep returning to this place; it is the sight of a tragedy and they repeatedly ignore what happened there.
Much has been made – I think too much – of the idea that Slashers “punish” those who transgress moral boundaries. Put crudely, the promiscuous die, the virgin survives. This is true to an extent, but not to the extent most commentators take it. For instances, it is clear that the “virgin is spared” idea is not at all supported by the films themselves: the Slasher attacks the virgin as fiercely as he does anyone else. Clearly the “have sex and die” idea is something that comes from the script or directing, not as a motivation for the Slasher. The Final Girl (as she is called) is not “spared,” what saves her is that she fights back. Rather, the quality that really saves the Final Girl is often simply awareness: she pays attention, notices when things are going wrong, often sees the Slasher before it attacks her. This ties in with the fear of the past: the Final Girl tends to be the only one who takes the past seriously by discovering the Slasher’s history, evincing understanding for his motives, and even sometimes trying to make amends. Often she uses what she has learned to help her defeat the Slashers (for perhaps the best example of this, see Friday the 13th part 2). The Final Girl, therefore, makes an effort to remember and acknowledge the past and it is this, more so than her “virginity” that saves her.
In addition, the Final Girl oftentimes has some tragedy in her past, or at least actually has a past, in marked contrast to her fellows. Alice in the first Friday is implied to be trying to get away from something. Chris in Part 3 is traumatized by a childhood encounter with Jason (nonsensical, but it counts). Tommy Jarvis, who becomes Jason’s nemesis, struggles with the trauma of his first bloody encounter with Jason in 5 and 6 (the two films being mutually exclusive). Tina of Part 7 lives in the shadow of accidentally killing her father with her psychic powers while her would-be boyfriend (who also survives) recounts a troubled past. Rennie of Part 8 also suffers from a childhood encounter with Jason (also nonsensical), and the hero of Part 9 is attempting to rectify the failures in his past, which include a child he’s never seen, when he is sidetracked into fighting Jason. In Freddy vs. Jason, meanwhile, Final Girl Lori suffers from twin past tragedies, both of which are revealed to have been caused by Freddy (more on that film later). Note also how often the past traumas and tragedies are linked directly with the Slasher himself, who becomes a kidn of personification of the lingering or hidden damaging effects of such events and of the consequences of forgetting or trying to repress them.
Jason represents retribution and reminding; the danger of forgetting tragedies and transgressing old boundaries. The other great horror icon of the decade, Freddy Krueger, represents the opposite fear; fear of remembrance, of things thought settled that are not really settled, problems not fully dealt with, relapses, chickens come home to roost. Jason is the present looking back, Freddy is the past looking forward. Jason represents the forgotten veteran, the abandoned morality, the defaced monument. Freddy represents the old drug addiction you never quite overcame, the venereal disease you never knew you had, the psychological problem you thought had been cured. In short, Freddy is the personification of the consequences of the drug-and-sex culture of the past two decades.
Do not think I am being too complimentary. I don’t think for a moment expect that the makers of Friday the 13th and all its bastard progeny had any of this in mind during the making of the films; they were just business, a get-rich-quick scheme. But they were products of their time and they were what the public wanted and they wouldn’t have been half as successful if they didn’t’ tap into something deeper than “gore and boobs,” if only accidentally.
The Nightmare films, at least at first, are of a different breed. Sean S. Cunningham, who made Friday, was a businessman, an entrepreneur. Wes Craven was an artist. So while I doubt my interpretations were anywhere near Cunningham’s mind, I suspect strongly that Craven knew exactly what he was doing.
I have given one brief interpretation of Nightmare elsewhere, and there is no time now to give it its full due. Suffice to say, Freddy is not only a bad memory come to life, but he preys on victims who are already leading lives of, at best, thinly disguised disorder and lives beset with mistakes and sins, all of which are magnified in the pressure brought on by Freddy.
For example, Nancy’s mother is shown to have a drinking problem, which evidently is already a source of strain on her marriage (note the stiff greeting her and her husband exchange in their first scene together). As the situation grows worse and worse, so does her drinking, until finally her drunkenness contributes to the film’s most gruesome death. Similarly, first victim Tina has a neglectful mother who abandons her to go on a weekend trip with her piggish boyfriend, while Tina’s own boyfriend is a juvenile delinquent whose past makes him the chief suspect in Tina’s murder…and whose own death is therefore passed over without comment. Freddy is not just a bad memory returned to life, but he brings other bad memories with him. He is literally the past attacking the present.
Perhaps no film explores these themes better or more directly than Freddy vs. Jason, the long-awaited crossover of the two series, the finale for both of them, and one of the best films in either.
Interestingly, both Freddy and Jason are memories in this film for the audience as well as the characters. By the time it was released, Freddy hadn’t been on screen for nine years, while Jason had been absent for ten years, not counting Jason X the previous year, which holds the dubious-yet-impressive distinction of being possibly the stupidest film in the whole series. In the world of the film, Jason has been absent for an indeterminate amount of time (long enough for everyone to assume he’s dead), while Freddy has been absent for seven years, thanks to the extreme efforts of the Springwood authorities to defeat him the only way they can: by forgetting him.
The forgotten Freddy, however, has struck a plan to get around this by reviving Jason, the monster of remembrance, to force the people of Springwood to remember him. When Jason starts killing the local population, the authorities panic and assume it’s Freddy again…meaning that, very soon, it will be.
The plot of the film, therefore, rests on the tension of forgetting and remembering of the past. Its Final Girl, Lori, as has already been mentioned, is emotionally stunted by twin traumas in her past: her mother’s sudden death and the subsequent disappearance of her boyfriend. As the film goes on, she discovers partial truths about these events which push her even further into danger by directing her away from people who could have protected her (her father, the police) and causing her and her friends to try to take on Freddy and Jason themselves. In the end, though, she discovers the truth that Freddy was responsible for both of the tragedies by killing her mother, which her boyfriend witnessed, but misconstrued (possibly by Freddy’s intention) what he was seeing to be Lori’s father killing her, resulting in his sudden removal for fear that he has found out about Freddy (all the teens who knew about Freddy have been institutionalized to prevent them telling others about him). The unknown elements in her past, and the subsequent half-remembrances, lead her further and further into danger. It is only after she learns the whole truth that she is able to take charge…and to defeat Freddy once and for all, symbolically ending the past’s reign over her present.
In the meantime, though, Freddy has been having problems of his own. Having unleashed Jason to remind Springwood about himself, he never stopped to consider what might happen afterwards…or that, for someone who is literally a bad memory, releasing an engine of retribution might not be the best idea, since what is retribution if not a counterforce to bad memories? Jason, true to his nature, refuses to be shut down: he refuses to let Freddy forget about him either. As Freddy himself puts it, “HE JUST WONT STOP!”
In response, Freddy digs up horrors in Jason’s past: specifically, his death by drowning and his relationship with his mother. Freddy, therefore, attacks Jason with Jason’s own past. And it works, at least at first. The trouble is, Jason has things to remind Freddy about too. Freddy, in life, was child-murderer and Jason, it is shown, is a child at heart (a feral, deranged child, granted). When they next meet, it is on Jason’s terms…and he makes it abundantly clear that he remembers what Freddy did to him. Freddy has revived and then tormented an indestructible force of retribution, and now he finds it visiting his own sins upon himself. Jason the child-man rips Freddy the child-murderer to pieces and there is nothing Freddy, for all his power, can do about it. Retribution meets Memory.
In the end, though, they can’t kill each other. How can Memory defeat the force of Remembrance or Retribution destroy Memory? What can happen, and what does happen, however, is that Retribution contains Memory. The last shot of film is Jason emerging from the lake, as invulnerable as ever, with what’s left of Freddy firmly in his possession. The last shot of the last true Slasher film is of the personification of Bad Memories secure in the power of the force of Remembrance and Retribution, not forgotten, and with an implicit warning not to try to forget again, but faced and dealt with at last.
The Slasher movies were the rather repulsive expression of a society living under the shadow of its past deeds and uncertain about what exactly it had done. Their theme, essentially, is that the past is often frightening and rife with sins and mistakes, but trying to forget it or shove it aside can be a very dangerous thing, as it has ways of forcing you to remember it. The only way to deal with the past is to face it head on, no matter how horrific it might be. Only then can we move on and continue to live.
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