Slashers & Serial Killers In Review : Friday The 13th (1980), part one
Tonight we take a look at one of the big four. I mean, really, when one hears the word SLASHER, four characters jump to mind, right? Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Leatherface and of course, Jason Voorhees.
There are countless other stalker killers out there, but for some reason, these four are synonymous with the word slasher. It doesn’t seem to matter that there were slashers before and after these classics were made, these are the Grandaddies of the slasher family. Take it or leave it. One might make a case for Chucky, The Firefly Clan and others, and while terrifying and time-tested, in my opinion, Chucky has become a lampoon of himself and The Fireflys were only in two(?) movies. That’s not to say that Jason and Freddy haven’t become parodies either, but that’s a topic for another day. Today we talk about the birth of all things Camp Crystal Lake and why teenagers of the 80’s didn’t want to go to camp. Continue Reading
Slashers & Serial Killers in Review: American Psycho (2000)
American Psycho is a satirical novel written by Bret Easton Ellis and published in 1991. It is an unreliable first person narrative, in the present tense, given by the main character, Patrick Bateman, who is a yuppieliving in 1980s New York City. It is an extremely controversial novel, given its depiction of increasingly brutal violence against women; this issue led many feminists to protest the novel.
A movie version was made in 2000, the screenplay written by Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron (the latter also being the director), and starring Christian Bale in the lead role. The movie removed or mitigated the novel’s violence, and rearranged much of the material: apart from that, the film was reasonably faithful. Continue Reading
Slashers & Serial Killers in Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
I wish to start my review by saying that while I was alive in 1984, I led a mostly sheltered life (read: my parents were NOT going to let me as a tender 12-year-old go see a HORROR (gasp!!) movie.) So, I didn’t see A Nightmare on Elm Street until I was late into my teens. That being said, there are movies that transcend the era in which they first appeared. Dracula, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein despite being made in the 1930’s still hold sway over generations not even considered then. Night of The Living Dead, Rosemary’s Baby and dozen’s more still thrill us fifty or more years later. For every Jigsaw (2017) there must be a Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). My point is that even though it was not a current or hot movie when I saw it, it still held as big a punch for me as if I were a starry-eyed tweenager in 1984. Continue Reading
Machine Mean 