AD: "Girl Power: the Politics of the Slasher Movie"

Alexander, Group 3

When, and in what way were women repositioned within the horror genre? 

Women have often been represented as weak characters, who rely on the strong, primarily male hero. However, in the late 1970's, American horror cinema began incorporating political themes into their movies, such as the Vietnam War, the race riots and the growing Feminist movement. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead from 1968 and John Carpenter's Halloween from 1978 to mention a few examples were incorporating the 'horrors at home' into their films and began to portray the female characters as stronger and able to defend themselves against the horrors that they faced.

What are the conventions of the 'stalk and slash' sub-genre of horror?
Stalk and slash movies are:

• The American studio productions are usually behind the film.
• They follow the same basic plot: "a mixed-sex group of teenagers travel to remote location and indulge in sex, alcohol and drugs. As they have done these things they are steadily murdered, one after the other, by an unknown or masked killer. As the movie comes to an end, there is usually only one member of the original group left, who manages to survive the ordeal and confront the murderer, killing the murderer in the process. The identity - although not always - of the killer and his reasons for the murdering is then explained."
• Nudity in certain scenes - most likely before the victims are murdered.
• "The Final Girl" - out of the entire group of teenagers, only one female character manages to defeat the horror.
• Violent endings - the murderer is killed in a extremely violent manner, ending the film on a high note.

Who originally watched these films and why?
Audience research indicated that the core audience of the Slasher film genre were teenage boys and young men. The reasons for this were very simple, visual elements: long scenes of female nudity and graphic violence and gore doled out by the killer - often pushing the visual artists into finding more ways of killing off their characters other than stabbing and slashing. This also meant that the audience was kept sustained and made celebrities out of the murders, for example Freddy Kruger or the Ghost mask from Scream (Williamson, 1996)



Why does the author argue that the films were 'significant'?

Because the Slasher sub-genre created icons of horror cinema, which consequently led to a sustained narrative and income revenue through popular horror film franchises, e.g. Saw and Scream. Additionally, the author argues that the films contain deep moral tales, playing on "the ideas of America's puritan past, which is associated with 'the sanctity of home and family and the taming of the wilderness'". The murderers are, therefore, the visual representation of the punishing transgressing social norms, as the teenagers' actions are immoral and violate the moral beliefs of their parents. They are murdered for their desire to be free from the norm and their protective and moral adult community.

What is the concept of ' the final girl'? Summarise and give examples
The Final Girl concept was constructed by Carol J. Clover, which was presented in her seminal essay "Her Body, Himself" from 1987. In her essay, she describes the sole female survivor of several Slasher films, establishing the idea of 'The Final Girl'. The Final Girl is characterised by a set of characteristics that marks her as being different than her teenage peers. These characteristics are:

• Intelligence and level headed.
• Morally pure - does not involve herself in the drinking, sex and drug-use as her "friends" do.
• She is the first to notice the lack of morals of her peers and the threat of danger

Thus, she is most often visualised as a character who is not as socially capable, more than often because of these qualities. By not joining in on the drinking, drug use and sexual activities, the Final Girl is depicted as a potentially weak, virginal and repressed teenage girl. As the killer begins to emerge and kills off the people around The Final Girl, she is the one who overcomes the threat through her intelligence and cunning. It is also herein that The Final Girl shifts from being powerless to powerful, from a weak or perhaps passive female to a strong and aggressive 'male'. She becomes increasingly masculine towards the climatic confrontation, and this is often visualised by a phallic object, such as a shotgun, an axe, a machete and the like. With either of these weapons, the killer often meets a dramatic end to their killing spree. For example, in Slumber Party Massacre (Jones, 1982)* the Final Girl Valerie arms herself with a machete and cuts off the killer's hand and then impales him, or in Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980), where the Final Girl Alice, equally picks up a machete and decapitates the killer. In both examples, The Final Girl uses her weapon to cut off the killer's masculinity, which frees them from their repression and can emerge as a strong, independent and adult woman.

*note: trailer not included due to nudity