Which came first, the chicken or the slasher?
In the horror genre, the slasher sub-genre is the most popular and the most profitable. Most horror fans born in the seventies or eighties usually fell in love with the horror genre because of a popular slasher. (Mine was Halloween 4! :P) Considering most of us are fairly knowledgeable on the history of slasher films, you would think we would also be scholars from where the sub-genre evolved from. Sadly, as I discovered this past weekend, most of us have different ideas of where the notorious genre came from.
I got together with my fellow horror elitists, (we like to use the term elitists, rather than admit we’re geeks…:P) and asked them a simple question. “What was the first authentic slasher film?” All of us looked confident and acted as if we were asked the 100 dollar question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and then we were amazed when we ALL had different answers.
Now to individuals who are strictly mainstream fans of horror, the first definitive slasher movie in their books, is John Carpenter’s Halloween. Although this 1978 horror film is praised for incarnating the slasher genre, it is probably the LAST film that should be recognized for starting the genre. This is because Halloween’s box office success made it seem like it was an original idea. It is one of horror’s all time classics, but it is only responsible for popularizing and modernizing the genre rather than creating it.
To fans who have been following the genre would know that 1974’s Black Christmas is noted for being the first bona fide slasher film. John Carpenter has even stated that Halloween was inspired from the Canadian cult classic.
However, there are people who would argue that Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the ultimate slasher that spawned them all. Even though the ultimate horror fanatic would also dispute that the obscure 1974 Canadian film, Deranged which was also influenced by the infamous serial killer, Ed Gein deserves the credit of being the first slasher.
Then there are people like me, who think that the Italian giallos are what started the whole slasher genre in the first place. In my opinion, the slasher genre would have evolved far differentlyif Argento, Bava, and Fulci didn’t make their legendary films. I had suggested to my friends that Sergio Martino’s 1973 obscure giallo Torso could have been the first slasher film, because even though the first half of the movie is strictly a giallo, the second half morphs into a movie that would inspire the American slasher genre. Sadly, they did not agree.
So there we were debating a question which seemed like it would have had a simple response. We looked as if we were a bunch of theologists and scientists discussing Evolution, and then it struck me that maybe the answer to our debate was another a question. I then asked, “How would you define a slasher movie?” Again, a string of responses were thrown at me, but this time I wasn’t confused at all. It occurred to me that if nobody can agree on an accurate definition of a slasher film, how is anybody able to decipher which movie truly is the definitive slasher film?
My friends all had different answers. One defined slashers as movies with masked killers murdering groups of people with or without reason. One of my other friends suggested slashers are horror films which have the killer battle the Final Girl (and now boy) archetype at the end.
Even looking the definition up, the possibilities were endless. Wikipedia defined slasher films as horror films involving psychopathic killers (sometimes wearing a mask) that stalk and graphically murder series of adolescent victims in a typically random, unprovoked fashion, killing many within a single day. Hell, Roger Ebert bluntly describes slashers as “dead teenagers movies.”
The term that I think accurately sums up the slasher genre can be found in Carol J. Clover’s engaging novel, ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws.’ She states that slasher movies are horror films which have murderers that use weapons other than guns and have startling and sudden attacks registered from the victim’s point of view. If horror fans were able to agree with this term, that would mean the first slasher film was Alfred Hitchcock’s all-time classic, Psycho. However, is Psycho the first slasher or did it merely just influence the infamous sub genre of horror? (*Sigh*) It just goes to show you that even the most devout and loyal aficionados can confuse innovation with imitation.
So did we all agree on one film that kick-started the endless amounts of slasher films fans enjoy and/or endure everyday? Nope. Like religion, everybody stood by his or her beliefs, and like religion, I chose to be completely agnostic on the subject. Who cares who started the first slasher movie? All I care about is that they’re here, and as long as they keep making them….I’ll keep cherishing them. J
So what was the first slasher movie you fell in love with? Also, just to prove a point, which film do you think created the ever-popular slasher genre? 
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