Camp Ghoul Mountain Part VI by Jonathan Raab review

    CAMP GHOUL MOUNTAIN PART VI by Jonathan Raab is pretty much a book made just for me. It is a book that celebrates slasher movies, the creators of them, conspiracy theories, UFOs, black magic cults, behind-the-scenes books, and the goofy world of B-movie cinema. If it sounds like a lot, it is. It is also utterly fantastic once you get into the strange weird groove that Jonathan Raab generates as he tells the story of a fictional movie franchise, its production staff, and the bizarre events surrounding both that never happened.

    The premise is that Jonathan Raab, the actual author, has been hired to do a novelization of Camp Ghoul Mountain part VI. The Camp Ghoul Mountain series is a transparent riff on the Friday the 13th series where an animal-masked serial killer murders teens in a mountain summer camp. The book is thus divided in telling the story of the slasher movie franchise's most infamous entry as well as giving a bizarre backstory about its troubled production history.

    The more you love slasher movies, the more you'll enjoy the bizarre crypto-history that Jonathan Raab has woven around the fictional movie. In real life, movies like Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Meyers, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, and a few other films deviated from their formulas to introduce bizarre new elements.These include introducing a cult to control Michael Meyers, an imposter Jason Voorhees, and entirely ditching the franchise formula as a whole.

    In this universe, a mushroom-addicted auteur director is given control of a well-established derivative slasher movie franchise to tell his own bizarre story about Satanism in America's government as well as counter-culture protests against the Vietnam war. The production company is left with a movie they don't understand and can't sell that ends up becoming a cult classic despite itself. The movie gains notoriety for all drawing down the wrath of the moral guardians who unwittingly provide it all the publicity it needs to escape its bizarre plot as well as nonsensical twists.

    In addition to the behind-the-scenes, we also get the actual plot of the movie that is a surprisingly well-written slasher. A bunch of campers are horny and wanting to enjoy each other's company on the supposedly haunted mountain. However, Henry the Horror is not the only thing stalking him. He's aided by a cult that has sinister designs on them all and may be the people controlling the monster.

    The book has a humorous conversational style as Jonathan Raab makes very believable characters out of the staff who produced the movies, even when they're acting utterly insane. You sympathize with both the director who wanted to make genuine art out of a horror movie that satirized America in the Eighties as well as the producer who just wanted to put out another nudity-filled gorefest to entertain its teenage audience.

    There's a lot of bizarre and amusing diversions like the discussion of the role that UFOs played in the production of the movie, the slow mental breakdown of certain staff due to the changing politics of the time, and the role of drugs in virtually every decision made by the cast. The annotations are almost as good as the articles themselves as Jonathan Raab struggles to talk about how deep and well-written the Camp Ghoul Mountain series is despite the fact he's conceived of it as objectively one of the stupidest movie series of all time. It's a wink and a nudge at the banality of strictly formula slasher films that the vast majority of fans want.

    A strong recommendation for this novel. I'd actually watch Camp Ghoul Mountain Part VI and I enjoyed reading about it more. I've been a lifelong slasher fan and it's nice to see something that celebrates both the good as well as bad in the genre. Since I'm a fan of documentaries like Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Memories, I got extra joy about this. I also got an extra bit of an enjoyment from the fact its basically what would happen if you got John Milinus to direct a slasher flick.

Available here

Psycho Killers in Love now available for pre-order

 Hey folks,

I have some awesome news. The latest entry into my UNITED STATES OF MONSTERS series (Brightblade, Bright Falls Mysteries, Red Room, Straight Outta Fangton) series is now available for pre-order. PSYCHO KILLERS IN LOVE a homage to slasher movies, slasher villains, and all those wonderful invincible villains as well as their Final Girls.

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SUPERVILLAINY SAGA:
 
What if all the villains of slasher movies were real? What if the movies made about them were just adaptations of real-life killers with supernatural powers? This is a fact known to William and Carrie because their father, Billy the Undying, was one of the worst slashers of all time. So much so that they've spent the past decade in an asylum out of fear they'd end up just like him. Escaping, the two have decided to form a new life on the road. Except, a chance encounter in a dingy diner introduces William to the girl of his dreams.
 
Too bad she's a girl on a mission to kill all slashers. But maybe the best way to catch a supernatural serial killer is with another pair of them.

Enjoy this exciting prequel to the United States of Monsters books!

Available for purchase here

Foreword to Psycho Killers: A Love Story

    I love slashers.

    A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween are the ones most people know but I'm a fan of many more. I also love the parodies, deconstructions, and homages that they've created over the years. You haven't got a full appreciation for the genre until you've tried Scream, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and Tim Seeley's Hack/Slash. At the end of the book, I'll have a whole list of recommendations for movies and works that I think my audience will like. I even have a soundtrack plotted out.

    What is a slasher? A slasher is, in simple terms, a movie or piece of media that is about a murderous killer that is stalking a group of individuals that must struggle to survive against their attacker's rampage. A slasher can be an escaped mental patient, an immortal zombie, a ghost, or any number of other things. One quality most possess is a nebulous invincibility. They can attack you, hunt you, and stalk you with seemingly no ability to be stopped until the final confrontation (because then there wouldn't be a story). You can shoot them, stab them, or throw them off a roof and they'll just keep coming back. Running away from them is useful but they always seem to find a way to get ahead of you, even if they're only walking after you. They might wear a mask or they might not but each slasher has a depersonalized element that makes them like a supervillain. Very few, except for Freddy Krueger, are chatty and the majority are mute horrors.

    Facing against the slasher is usually the Final Girl. Conceived of in the academic work Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover, they're basically the young women that manage to turn the table against slashers in the majority of said movies. Whether a babysitter or a sorority sister, they manage to turn the tables on the slasher after they have survived the death of several friends. Joss Whedon, without specifically naming this trope, used it as the basis for creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He wanted to empower one of the victims in a horror movie so that when she went into an alley with a monster, she kicked said monster's ass.

    The original slasher story is And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie of all people. The Queen of Locked Door Mysteries conceived of a group of scummy people trapped on an island before they were knocked off one by one. Psycho isn't really a slasher in the fact that it really only has a tiny body count but it's focus on the killer rather than the victim opened the way to many more murderer-focused films and stories. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas would both debut within a few months of each other in 1974. They set the template for the gorier, crazier, and more survival-orientated horror movie that dominated the 80s. Movies like the ones I mentioned in my opening would become box office icons and they eventually became satirized as a formula in the 90s. We even had a successful show in 2006 about a serial killing vigilante named Dexter.

    But why a love story?

    Fans of my other work like the Supervillainy Saga, Agent G, Lucifer's Star, and Wraith Knight know that I enjoy doing stories from the perspective of villains. There's something awesome about getting into the perspective of the bad guy that I really enjoy. Here, I had a lot of fun playing with the making of a slasher, William, who had sympathetic qualities while also living in a culture that wanted him to be worse than he was. Contrasting him was the character of Nancy that I wrote as a love letter to my favorite Final Girls and probably would have been first to be murdered in most movies as she was a "bad" girl. The two of them travel through a crazy send-up of the tropes and attitudes of slasher movies that I have assembled here.

    I hope you enjoy their story.

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins review

    THERE'S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE by Stephanie Perkins is a weird combination from the beginning as it's a Young Adult slasher novel. I spent much of my childhood watching R-rated movies like Alien, Robocop, Friday the 13th, and Terminator but the illicit thrill was in watching something you weren't supposed to. This is a rather strange combination of sweet teenage romance and then gutting people.

    I'm not sure that it wouldn't be R-Rated given the level of violence on display but it is definitely a teenage story too. This somewhat disjointed tone is both a complaint and a compliment as I would recommend this book to people who don't necessarily like slasher movies or hardcore horror. Its tone might put off those who are big fans of the genre, though, as it zigs when most examples of the genre zag.

    Makani Young is an Afro-Hawaiian student in Osborne, Nebraska where she sticks out like a sore thumb. Having done a nebulous "bad thing" that forced her to move in with her grandmother, she's trying to rebuild her life in a school she hates. The only bright spot in Makani's life is her sort-of boyfriend Ollie that she lost her virginity to but pushed away. Ollie is a pink-haired troublemaker with a heart of (seeming) gold. The two reconnect when one of their fellow students is murdered in her house and the body count starts to grow.

    The obvious comparison for this book is Wes Craven's Scream but the killer remains off-camera to a significant more degree than Ghostface. Here, the focus is squarely on Makani and Ollie for the most part as well as their romance. Even so, the book makes the wise decision to reveal who the killer is about halfway through the book. Before the revelation, the murders seem a bit disjointed and unrelated to the main plot.

    This isn't a mystery but a slasher and that's when the book starts to pick up steam. Some individuals may be disappointed with the killer's identity and motivation but the book makes clear that their absurdity is the point. Nothing could justify their killing spree and its randomness is part of the point. Sadly, the reality of a teenager snapping then going on a killing spree of their classmates means that this isn't a fantastical premise like it was in the 80s ala Heathers. The only difference between this killer and real world school killers is he uses a knife not a gun.

    I'm a big fan of slasher movies and horror so I'm always glad to see a serious work entered into the genre in a new medium. I think I like this a bit more than Riley Sager's Final Girls despite the fact the latter is more high concept but that's because it sticks to its landing far better. This feels more realistic and grounded, too, for whatever that counts in a slasher novel.

    In conclusion, if you're interested in a tame YA story to introduce other people to the slasher genre as well as something that is intelligently written as well as romantic then this is a pretty good novel. I liked Ollie and Makani's relationship as well as appreciated it was frankly sexual in a way that felt a lot more real than most books about teenagers their age. There's a few issues I have as I think the slasher scenes could have been more suspenseful in the beginning. These are minor flaws, though.

Available here

Final Girls by Riley Sager review

    FINAL GIRLS by Riley Sager is right up my wheelhouse since I am the kind of guy who read MEN, WOMEN, AND CHAINSAWS by Carol J. Clover for the intellectual stimulating discussion of the slasher movie with not a trace of irony. The premise of the novel is a simple and intriguing one: what if a typical slasher movie plot "really" happened? Well, the survivors would be traumatized as well as media sensations.

    Quincy Carpenter, a nice reference to Quincy Harker and John Carpenter probably, is the survivor of a camp ground massacre in her college years. A twisted maniac went on a rampage and murdered all of her friends, leaving her as the sole one to escape. It's been ten years and she is a baking vlogger with an apartment she pays for with money from a number of lawsuits filed on her behalf. She's an emotional mess kept going by Xanax and grape soda but a fairly realistic model of a trauma survivor.

    Quincy just wants to pretend that her life is fine and she's moved past her horrific ordeal but this is impossible due to the inability to fully confront it. Quincy doesn't remember what happened for an hour of events and the media enjoyed bringing it up repeatedly. Not only was her ordeal similar to a horror movie but she and the other two "Final Girls" who suffered similar experiences are conventionally beautiful women who are perfect for generating cheap ratings.

    Quincy's faux-perfect life takes a downturn when Lisa, the strongest of the Final Girls, seemingly commits suicide. This results in the other Final Girl, Samantha Boyd, coming to visit Quincy in New York. Quickly, events start to spiral out of control as Samantha repeatedly tries to trigger Quincy's long-suppressed rage. Was Lisa's suicide really that and why does Sam want to force Quincy to remember what really happened that night?

    The book is entertaining for about 90% of its page count but doesn't quite manage to successfully land. The best part of the book is following Quincy through her daily routine and how she's adjusted to being a survivor of a horror movie in "real life." I also enjoyed the flashbacks to the Pinewood Cottage massacre even if they're a deliberately cliche (camp ground, Indian burial ground, insane asylum). The final answer to the mystery is actually more cliche than all of the invoked tropes and I wish the author had gone with a more original twist.

    Fans expecting a book that reads like a slasher pic are going to be disappointed as this is mostly a psychological horror piece. Quincy is badly damaged by her experience while simultaneously irritated with how everyone treats her like a fragile piece of china. I like her relationship with Samantha and was interested in seeing them develop a friendship that puts a wedge in her relationship with her boyfriend. I was a bit reminded of the Anna Kendrick/Blake Lively movie, A Simple Favor, that had similar characters to Quincy and Samantha but the roles reversed.

    I think the biggest problem of the ending is the fact that it doesn't really tie into the rest of the book's themes. Much of the book is about how there's no such thing as a "Final Girl" and that it's a media created moniker to cover up a traumatizing event. One of the other characters suffered horrific child abuse and killer her attacker but was labeled a monster because, presumably, it wasn't Hollywood-esque enough a premise. Then the ending introduces a villain straight out of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and we're meant to treat her Final Girl status seriously.

    Still, I enjoyed reading the book and if you're a fan of 80s horror films then you'll enjoy most of the references even if they strain credulity that there's been three or four incidents that perfectly mirror a typical horror movie, complete with beautiful survivors. Then again, we're living in a time with spree killers so what do I know. I recommend the audiobook version narrated by Erin Bennett and Hillary Huber as they do an amazing job bringing the main characters to life.

Available here

Escape from Happydale: The Last Final Girl by Jack Quaid review

    THE LAST FINAL GIRL: ESCAPE FROM HAPPYDALE is a homage to 80s slasher movies that I very much enjoyed. It is a quick, solid, and entertaining read that has an interesting (albeit unnecessary) gimmick that makes me want to read the rest of the series. It is also a story that I am going to read the sequels too and probably pick up the omnibus collection for because it is a work that deserves the attention. This is one of those self-published indie treats that I think would do well with a medium tier publisher and deserves to be brought to a larger audience.

    The framing device is that it's supposedly a lost script of Jack Quad, a fictional writer from the 70s and 80s who wrote dozens of cheesy novels that are all lost now. Before he disappeared, though, Jack Quaid submitted a script for a slasher movie starring Mia Sara from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Except, it wasn't a script but a full-fledged novel because that was just how Jack rolled. Luke Preston (the actual author) discovered this novel and presents it to the reader. I found it a cute narrative conceit but the story really stands on its own and didn't actually need it despite the entertaining opening where he visits a low budget, now-failing movie studio office.

    The actual premise is presented as "Stephen King meets Quentin Tarantino" but I think Luke should revise that since I think a much better description is, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scream meet R-rated gorefest." It has some superficial similarities to the popular Hack/Slash comic book series by Tim Seely and that is enough that I recommend it since I love those comics. In a larger context, it is story about a survivor of a typical horror movie experience who then proceeds to dedicate her life to hunting down serial killing undead called slashers.

    Parker Aimes, the character played by Mia Sara in this fictional universe, is the Final Girl of the Coffin Bay Massacre that claimed her entire family. Adopted by a hard-nosed monster hunter, Parker learns the tricks to murdering creatures of the night and goes on several hunts before coming to the haunetd town of Happydale in order to go after the slasher that killed her family a decade ago. Chasing Parker is her former psychologist, a Doctor Loomis figure, who is convinced she's a murderer. There's also a cast of reasonably developed dead men and women walking that exist solely to show Hurricane Williams is a bonafide monster.

    There's some flaws in the book like the fact at one point there's "missing pages" from Jack Quaid's script that, unfortunately, remove some of the story's pivotal character development. It's a cheap gag that, unfortunately, comes at the expense of what is a fairly solid story. I also note the book is a bit darker and edgier than it needs to be in its finale. I would have appreciated a couple of more survivors even though 80s movies rarely ended with anyone but the Final Girl. The problem with developing the "dead men walking" is that you actually care when they die.

    Overall, this is a very enjoyable horror/urban fantasy novel. The use of slashers to replace traditional monsters like vampires and werewolves is something I've seen before but given my love of 80s horror, it is still very welcome. Parker is a great protagonist and I love all the subtle as well as not so subtle homages to the classics of the genre. This is definitely a book worth investing to buy rather than just picking it up on Kindle Unlimited (or you can do that too).

8.5/10

Available here

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon review

    This movie should have really been a bigger hit than it was. I am a huge slasher fan if you've ever checked out my many reviews on the subject and commentary but it's a genre that doesn't get much critical love. If you actually want to talk about good slasher movies versus fun ones, there's only about a handful of them: Halloween, Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Until Dawn (which was a video game), and this movie right here.

Leslie in costume.

    You can argue with me on this list and name your own favorites like Candyman, My Bloody Valentine, or whatever but I'm not arguing specifics just generalities. The majority of slasher films are designed with a minimal eye to character development and a focus instead on the gory spectacle as well as eye-candy. It's not me putting down the genre, it's just me stating that it's a visual rather than intellectual feast.

    Behind the Mask is a beautiful homage to the slasher genre in a way that arguably elevates the entire thing. It is a dramatic comedy, deconstruction, parody, and reconstruction all in one. The first two-thirds of the movie are a delightful send-up of documentaries as well as slasher movies as a whole while the remaining third is an entirely serviceable example of them. The first two-third are sort of a combination of slasher movie and sports drama where we get the perspective of a man who wants to be a slasher movie villain and has spent his whole life prepping for it.

Robert Englund's third best role after Freddy and Willy from V.

    The premise is a documentary crew led by Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals) has been invited to do a piece on the making of a slasher. In this world, Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are all historical figures referred to by name. Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesal) claims to be a local boy who "died" in a tragic accident but has since returned for revenge. He indicates that slashers may actually have nothing supernatural about them, at least he doesn't seem to possess any such qualities, and are actually just extremely well-trained individuals who use special effects to appear as unkillable monsters.

    Leslie is the perfect deconstruction of your typical slasher in that not only is he not a menacing silent killer but he's incredibly talkative and not the least bit physically imposing. He's disarmingly charming and it's easy to understand why Taylor and her crew go along with his preparations for a killing spree. It's impossible to believe Leslie is serious about murdering people and that he'd be vicious enough to do so until he (spoilers) proves otherwise.

The slasher fodder.

    The movie's one serious flaw is that they never spell out that Taylor's crew don't believe Leslie is dangerous right until the end when they're so rudely disabused of said notions. I felt the movie would have been stronger if they'd explained why these documentarians are continuing to film and go along with Leslie if they believe he's a fake. Because the alternative, that they actually believe he's planning on going on a killing spree is even more peculiar. Just a short conversation which says they're grad students with nothing else to film, think they're filming an "alien autopsy" style hoax, or just having too much fun would work.

    Taylor Gentry follows Leslie Vernon around and serves as our POV into the twisted mind of a guy who spends months, even years, to set up his killing spree. This includes setting up parties in the middle of isolated locations, providing a selection of victims, rigging the places with various traps, selecting weapons, and stalking the "Survivor Girl" that he will have heroically defeat him.

Leslie looks like everyone else.

    We even are introduced into concepts like "Ahabs" who represent the Doctor Loomis or Nancy-esque figures of slasher movies where someone knows they are a danger and tries to stop them. Perhaps the movie's best in-joke is the appearance of Robert Englund as Doc Halloran, who was Leslie Vernon's psychiatrist and reveals that he is a genuinely dangerous lunatic. There's also a guest appearance by Zelda Rubinstein from Poltergeist.

    My favorite part of the movie is when Leslie visits the home of his mentor Eugene (Scott Wilson), who is implied to be Billy from Black Christmas. He's apparently retired from murder and taken up residence with one of his Survivor Girls. I loved Scott Wilson in The Walking Dead and he does an excellent job here. There's a wonderful re-watch bonus to this film after you finish it the first time as all of Eugene's scenes gain a sinister quality they didn't initially possess.

Black Christmas, I gave you a heart (I ripped out).

    The actual slasher movie part of the movie is also excellent, albeit truncated but not really that much more than many slasher movies. Leslie Vernon has prepared us for his murder spree for the rest of the film and seeing his plans all come together in horrifying detail is wonderful. I'm actually leaving out the big twist of the movie and I'm pleased that it caught me by surprise despite my familiarity with slasher movie tropes.

    This movie came out in 2006 and this is one of the films I recommend picking up in Bluray. The movie commentaries are great for this film and give a lot of insight into the production, writing, in-jokes, and other stories. I think this is one of those films that stands up to deep analysis and is born from a tremendous love of the genre. Still, if you just want an enjoyable experience watching a slasher film with a brain then this is it. The more you know about horror movies, the more you'll enjoy this film.

9/10

Halloween (2018) review

    This is the third time the Halloween series has been rebooted and the second time with Jaime Lee Curtis coming back to take on the role of Laurie Strode. The first time when Halloween H20, which, honestly, I kind of like better. The ending to that film was ruined by the execrable Halloween: Resurrection but said more or less everything that needed to be said. That's going to be an unpopular opinion on this film, that it's good but not great but I really loved H20. Michael died there so we don't need to write "another" death scene for him. We're also skipping over Rob Zombie's remake of the franchise because he really wanted to understand Michael Myers' psychology and the answer is--you can't.

Good to see he found another pair of overalls.

    Still, I went to see it in the theaters as soon as I could make time. I wasn't about to miss the return of the slasher movie to cinemas since the genre fell out of favor. While some attempts to return it to the big screen (like Hatchet and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon) have been made--bluntly, the genre never recovered after Scream and the later Cabin in the Woods. I say this as a huge fan of the genre. So, how was it? Pretty good.

    Jaime Lee Curtis remains the Queen of Scream Queens, a title she rightfully inherited from her mother the Kingdom of Scareville's founder, Janet Leigh. At age 59, Jaime is still spy enough to be killing slashers in self-defense and does her best to doll down herself as a crazy old lady despite the fact she still looks gorgeous when not playing a crazy survivalist lady in this film. Indeed, as a picture shows later in this article, they really had to work hard on her old lady face makeup.

    There was no way I was not going to see this movie, especially since it also starred my favorite Archer and Arrested Development star Judy Greer. Judy has a somewhat thankless role as the daughter of Laurie Strode who has done her best to forget every survivalist lesson her mother taught her. She has to play the "normal" one in the family and only gets to make use of the decade of training her mother gave her in preparation to be a Final Woman at the very end. Which is a shame because I think Judy could have been a great horror icon herself if she'd gone that route instead of romantic comedy best friend.

Special Effects Failure: Old Lady Makeup only applies to face.

    Andi Matichak plays the role of the third generation of the Strode family, a young woman who is attending her Halloween dance with her boyfriend and gets the even more thankless task of being in the shadow of two well-beloved icons. I actually give her props for being extremely good in her limited role, however, but I do think the film could have done every bit as well with just its main stars.

    The premise is Michael Myers was captured by Doctor Loomis and a Deputy moments after the events of Halloween, wiping out all the other sequels from continuity. Apparently, being five times in the back was enough to slow down even the Shape. He's spent the subsequent forty years locked away in a mental institution and it's hard to get over the fact he's supposed to be the most terrifying man in the world when he's sixty-two and "only" has killed five people. It's even commented on in-movie that since the 1970s, spree killers more "successful" than Michael Myers are a common part of life.

I feel like Judy missed being a Scream Queen herself.

    Laurie Strode has been warped by her experiences in the original movie with the two of her two best friends and stalking by Michael Myers. She raised her daughter in what is implied to have been an abusive (or at least unhealthy) environment that resulted in her being taken away at age twelve. She's paranoid about Michael escaping at any time and has turned her house into a fun house of death for the (what she believes to be inevitable) rematch with the Shape.

    Unfortunately, the Babysitter Murders have become a topic of podcasters and pop psychology. A pair of would-be journalists have somehow managed to get their hands on Michael's mask and try to get him to respond before he's transferred to a maximum security federal prison. They try to get Laurie's story but only end up offending her. Laurie's granddaughter, Allyson, wants to reconnect her mother, Karen, with her granddaughter but this is thwarted by far too much history that neither daughter or granddaughter understand.

Allyson is pretty but not terribly interesting.

    The movie is entertaining throughout but, unfortunately, just isn't all that scary. We know Jaime Lee Curtis is going to make it out of this movie (or has lived a mostly full life). We also suspect the other members of the family will do the same. As such, the only victims we fear for are people served one after the other to the all-consuming gods of Slasherdom. The ending is especially disappointing as the Shape really deserved a more dramatic final scene. Not even the promise of more sequels can delight.

    Weirdly, the best part of the movie not involving Jaime Lee Curtis is the segment with Virginia Gardner as Vicky, Allyson's best friend and designated Victim 3# or 4#. She's a likable protagonist and ticks many of the boxes which would normally go to the Final Girl. I actually wanted to see her survive as her primary reaction to seeing a child endangered by Michael Myers is to try to get him to safety. It makes her automatically more sympathetic and interesting than Allyson, whose primary concern is her boyfriend and his best friend both want to kiss hot women at inappropriate times. I also saw a certain character's betrayal coming from a mile away despite the attempt to set them up as someone to be trusted.

"You're not my brother! No Halloween candy for you!"

     One element I do like about the movie is it's fairly clear Michael Myers picks out his victims randomly. He's not interested in hunting down hot teenage girls exclusively like so many of his imitators did. This isn't a sexual thing. He kills adult women, young men, adult men, children, and spares others indiscriminately. There's no rhyme or reason and he does it because he feels like it--that's all the reason he needs, really. I will give Nick Castle, a seventy-year-old-man, kudos for coming back as Michael, though. Yes, obviously he had a stunt double for some scenes but I think that's entirely understandable.

    In conclusion, Halloween (2018) is a good movie. It's a fun movie and it's a love letter to slasher films, particularly its own franchise. It's not an especially great version of the film, though, which was perhaps impossible since there have been many remakes of the franchise and reboots. They could have gone further with the meta-humor or they could have removed it entirely. Getting rid of the idea Laurie is Michael's sister makes Michael more random in his attacks but then you have to wonder how he ended up in her backyard. Was it just random chance? Very possibly if this movie is to be believed. In the end, the Shape will always be the archetypal psycho-killer and almost (but not quite) indestructible.

8.5/10

Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th review

    I have a confession to make: I absolutely love the Friday the 13th series. I was born a little too young to be part of when it was a mega-sensation (i.e. I was a teenager in the 90s rather than the 80s) but I came to lose Jason Voorhees through the magic of VHS. Which, for those of you who have no idea what those initials means, were magical boxes that contained images as well as the souls of dead unicorns.

    Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th is a novel which contains collected anecdotes and a rough timeline for the creation of the original Friday the 13th to Freddy vs. Jason. We get to hear from virtually every single cast member, member of the production staff, and the writers. Their perspectives are almost uniformly positive and, honestly, include a bit of lying since poor Adrienne King (Annie in the 1st movie) quit show business due to a crazed F13-inspired stalker that goes completely unmentioned in the book.

    The anecdotes are quite candid in places and sometimes contradictory, which is good for the book's humor value. For example, one creator spends a long time explaining how ridiculous the concept of "if you have sex you die in a F13" movie is, only for the next to say, "Sex equaling death was clearly a major part of our idea for the movie." Plus, there's more than a few lurid innuendoes about how the actors tended to hook up during the long shootings.

    The biggest contribution this book may have made to F13 fandom is the fact it resulted in the creation of the identically-named documentary that's available for purchase on Amazon.com. That was hosted by Cory Feldman and, frankly, does the book's job a great deal better. The Kindle Edition may be much longer but the content tends to be a bit on the repetitive side with many actors somewhat embarrassed about their roles despite their pleasant memories. The lack of pictures also hurts it versus the coffee-table version that was at least visually stimulating. The book also lacks any coverage of 2009's reboot, perhaps because it's a bit harder to get in touch with Amanda Rhigetti and Jared Padalecki (but apparently not Kevin Bacon or Crispin Glover).

    In the end, the book is a little dry and on the technical side. It's amazing the author managed to get seemingly every single person involved in the production of the movies interviewed. However, the anecdotes dominate everything when I think the book could have benefited from maybe summarizing the films or adding some bits for the laymen. It's basically 11 or 12 ComicCon panels in text form.

8/10

Hack/Slash Omnibus 3 review

     Pfft, this one is a tough one to review. Well, okay, it's not. Hack/Slash volume 3 isn't actually that good. I was a huge fan of the first two volumes but this omnibus and its stories pushed me away from the franchise. Basically, the omnibus takes some of the flaws of the previous volumes and then exaggerates them a great deal before adding a few more.

    The premise of Hack/Slash is Cassie Hack is a young beautiful Goth girl who is the daughter of a Slasher. Slashers are human beings with homicidal impulses who, if killed, resurrect from the dead as unstoppable revenants. Traveling with her deformed but pleasant-mannered friend, Vlad, she attempts to wipe out all Slashers everywhere. This basically being the case of a Final Girl and a good aligned Jason Voorhees versus an endless horde of horror movie villains.

    This volume is filled with a lot of returning "favorites", crossovers, and the introduction of the Black Lamp Society that I have issues. I was a big fan of some elements like the introduction of the character Samhain who is a pretty transparent homage to the character Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The thing is, if you're going to take inspiration from other works for your wn then you should take from the best.

    In general, the omnibus shows there was perhaps just a little too much effort to appeal to older fans as well as try to gain crossover potential. One of the appeals of Hack/Slash is its a violent R-rated antihero comic book with a high body count. Cassie Hack kills her opponents and they should, if not stay dead, at least have a pretty big interlude between appearances. New varieties of slashers should be created since it shouldn't be like Spiderman with the same villains popping up again and again.

    I'm also not a fan of the Black Lamp Society or how it comes not only to dominate the story but the entire mythology of Hack/Slash. The origins of the Slashers are revealed to be an ancient Greek sex-hating cult that is misusing a sacred flower of an African tribe to create an endless army of murderous Michael Meyers types. How do I feel about this revelation? Roughly the same way that If did about Michael Myers being controlled by a secret cult of druids. It is a silly origin no one really needed for the monsters.

    Samhain is a good love interest for Cassie and I admit I kind of like her a bit more than Georgia Peaches (though I don't like her). I know how this story ends, though, and I feel like they could have gone deeper with the relationship between our heroine as well as our Jack-o-Lantern themed killer.

4/10

Friday the 13th: The Game review

    I've been holding off on this one because I knew the game was going to be not really what I wanted but was probably going to be enjoyable. Just probably barely so. You see, I'm a huge Friday the 13th fan. What introduced me to the series? I'll tell you what, THE NES GAME! When I was a wee tiny tot, I got to face Jason Voorhees in one of the mostly badly designed games of all time. Except, I still remember I beat Jason ONCE during one of the boss battles. That stuck with me and made me think I could someday play a great Friday the 13th game.

This animation reached meme-proportion early on.

    I was a Kickstarter supporter of this game and while I don't play on PC, I picked it up on Xbox One as soon as it came out. I had a somewhat mixed set of feelings from the beginning because, well, it was a multiplayer only game and I'm not a big fan of multiplayer.

    Still, I was ready to trudge on with the game because I have a spectacular love of Jason Voorhees. I was bitterly disappointed that the 2009 Friday the 13th movie didn't become a new franchise. I'd accept almost anything from the series because I want to see it continue. I also was happy Jason Voorhees was in Mortal Kombat and got more attention than being another boss in Dead by Daylight.

    So what did I think of the game? It was okay when I first started playing it and updates have moved it to "good" but it's not amazing either. Still, I'm glad I bought it and kept apprised of the fact the game's continuing additions by the developers. This is one of the few games which has changed dramatically from its initial release and become a bigger more complete system as time has gone by.

    The premise of the game scarcely needs to be explained. There's a bunch of counselors partying at Camp Crystal Lake when Jason Voorhees interrupts with a murder of an unfortunate teen. The surviving counselors flee in every direction and Jason has to hunt them all down while they try to escape. You either play Jason or you play the counselors and matches take about 15 minutes to complete. This scenario is repeated whether you're playing multiplayer, Single Player Challenges, or against offline bots. In single player mode, you always Jason and this is a bit of a shame because I tend to root for the counselors versus the Man behind the Mask.

Counselors vs. Jason is the classic set up.

    The game is presently a lot more playable than it was at launch with the addition of an offline mode where you can fight against a bunch of dumb-as-post bots. I actually had to turn up the difficulty to Hard to get any sort of challenge and I'm a perpetually casual gamer.

    Recently, this changed and the counselor bots have gotten significantly less stupid but it's still unlikely for them to escape or kill Jason. The update also introduced new bugs like glowing sparkles after kills (I'm not kidding) as well as making it too dark to see unless you turn up the lighting for your game.

    Additionally, the developers have added a number of additional maps to the game versus the original, including some spots from the original series like the Jarvis House as well as the Higgins Farm. I'm looking forward to the eventual spaceship design from Jason X and hope we'll see the ship from Jason Takes Manhattan.

Try to run Jason down with a car. I dare you.

    I love the fidelity of the game developers to the franchise. There's every variation of Jason available from the movies except for Jason X (who is coming) as well as Jason vs. Freddy and the remake version (which is a rights' issue). There's even the NES retro-Jason which is just plain awesome. I also like the counselors, that include most of the archetypes found in the movie as well as a couple of homages to older characters. I loved the Jarvis and Voorhees Tapes that chronicle what passes for backstory in this game. Sadly, finding them is all but impossible and I think 99% of gamers actually interested in this game's story just listened to them on Youtube.

    I was especially fond of the counselor Tiffany for being the pretty cheerleader type that usually gets offed quickly in these games as well as Chad, who is the rich doofus who has equally poor survival prospects. All of the counselors have different states which makes them a surprisingly variable character to play. I also appreciate they put in Tommy Jarvis as a character that "dead" counselors can play if they're killed during the match (or escape). It's extremely hard but possible to kill Jason using Tommy and that's extremely satisfying.

All versions of Jason and a couple of new ones are available.

    Surprisingly, the thing I enjoyed most about the game was the Virtual Cabin that contains a cornucopia of franchise trivia. Unfortunately, even that is sort of tainted because there's no clues except the internet to resolving the complicated parameters to "solve" the puzzle. Even so, I had a huge amount of fun with it in a 7th Guest sort of way. It makes me think a Telltale Friday the 13th game or outright adventure game would have been a lot more fun.

    As for bugs? Yeah, this game is buggy. There's clipping issues, dropped connections, missing hits, and more. Even logging onto the game was an enormous hassle. There's also a number of weird elements that render combat problematic. Jason can't reach through windows, cross over knee high fences, or crawl through spaces. This is meant for game balance purposes but it reduces Jason to doing a lot of tedious door chopping. I would have made the counselors faster and had Jason have multiple ways of entry to make the game more fast paced.

So many young and nubile victims.

    Still, there remains hope for the game as they've recently uploaded single player Challenges that allow Hitman-like missions where Jason must kill his prey in a variety of interesting ways.These challenges are based on the movies and allow Jason to re-enact the plots of Friday the 13th part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and a few original stories.

    The Single Player Challenges are fully voiced maps and "quests" which give a lot more personality to the Counselors even as they sometimes re-enact scenes from the movies scene-for-scene. I was especially fond of the twists which sometimes occurred like the fact A.J. has dated multiple male Counselors, Chad is actually a decent boyfriend, and Tiffany has a twin sister. None of these are probably "canon" as this is not a game with a serious story continuity but they captured my imagination.

    I've had a good 4-5 hour experience completing all of the Single Player Challenges and that's worth the game's purchase price alone. If they had it at the beginning, this might have been a much bigger success than the sleeper cult classic it's been. Even so, this mode is also flawed because you can't skip the opening cutscenes and that's murder when you're trying to replay them for the complete number of Challenges available on any given map. There's only so many times I can listen to A.J. talk about how Mitch is a bad lay or Shelly insult Tiffany for not giving him pity sex.

    The best time and place for this game is to get a group which enjoys playing the role of Jason as well as a group of counselors who enjoy communicating during the game. Sadly, like with all online multiplayer, there's no way to determine what sort of players you'll get. You may get a Jason who enjoys stalking and taunting the other players or you can have one who just wants to murder you as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the leveling system is a minor issue as experienced players as well as inexperienced don't have much difference in what they can do except how they look killing people.

I love how the campers freak out when they see Jason.

     There's also the counselor who work with their match Jason and wreck the balance of the game. Supposedly, they're creating "Salt Mines" where cheaters, rage-quitters, and griefers are assigned. It worked for Grand Theft Online so I hope that will help things as well. This is a fandom problem, though, not a gameplay problem. So far, reports are that it's not working.

     One thing I do recommend is that players purchase the beachware and Halloween costumes for their character at the store. While they aren't dolling out micro-transactions, I think the alternate costumes and emotes are really quite good this time around. I'm hoping they'll continue to update the game with more content even if they have to be purchased. Plus, I don't supporting games which actually add things I might use.

    In conclusion, Friday the 13th: The Game is okay. It's fun and playable, especially after being updated but not the best game ever. I feel like I got my forty bucks out of the experience due to the love of the franchise on display. This is a game made for playing with headphones and those who don't have them or friends willing to play are missing out. Ironically, for a game not meant to have a single player mode, I enjoy that much more.

8/10

Friday the Thirteenth (2009) review

    Happy Halloween, folks! Today as a special treat, I'm going to be reviewing a horror movie which tried to re-bottle lightning. It's not one of my favorites but tries so very hard. I think it deserves to have its efforts recognized even if the results were underwhelming. I speak of the Friday the Thirteenth reboot.

    Jason Voorhees is one of my favorite movie monsters of all time. He's up there with Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman in my opinion. The thing is, I recognize Jason is kind of an accidental success. He's a transparent rip-off of Michael Myers who came back as a zombie because they "almost" killed him four times. The producers are surprisingly candid about all this.

    I like the F13 movies more than I like the Halloween movies on a per movie average. Halloween and H20 are classics of horror cinema but the Friday movies are consistently schlocky fun the whole way through. That and the other Halloween movies are really-really bad. There's no "classic" Friday the Thirteenth but they're all entertaining.

This is why you should always take Dean with you, Sam.

    The reason for this is because Jason Voorhees is, if you're honest with yourself, a cartoon. He's the Wolverine of horror monsters. Jason's appeal is that he looks cool, can take any amount of punishment, and kills people in interesting ways. Jason's character, per se, doesn't actually matter all that much. Except when it does.

    Really, the greatest addition to Jason's character the movies made was making it so he never talked. You can project all manner of tragic motivations (or not) onto him without being contradicted. The most sympathetic reading of Jason's actions is the poor kid just wants to be left alone, doesn't understand death, and has a real hang-up about people coming to his turf to have sex. He's like the Hulk, that way, except with a machete. New Jason is not like the Hulk.

    The original movies remain the best of the films because they had a sense of authenticity to them. The latter films became deliberately camp and lost a lot of what made them scary. It's why you can pretty much watch 1-4 and skip the rest (with the possible exception of The New Blood). Freddy versus Jason had a lot going for it, too, so there's another argument there. Still, this version has a little too much polish to it that makes it feel like a modern slasher movie with a CW cast (a lot of the actors are actually on the CW in fact) that undercuts its strength. It's a little too glossy and everyone a little too pretty to be quite what the original films were--which was a bunch of teenagers in the woods.

I wish we'd followed this group instead.

    The 2009 reboot makes the mistake of attempting to take the F13 movies seriously. It takes the plots from the first three movies, distills them into one, and attempts to explain who Jason Voorhees is. If you need to explain who the monster is, you're doing a bad job of storytelling. We, the audience, are sometimes unobservant cretins but we don't need it spelled out Jason has mommy issues.
   
    New Jason is a wild man who lives in the woods, killing people who come to visit his home because he witnessed his mother getting murdered. He kidnaps women who remind him of his mother and holds them prisoner until they die. He's not a funny character and while you may question whether or not a slasher should be funny, Old Jason certainly was.

Amanda Righetti is lovely. Too bad she doesn't ever get a chance to act.

    Jason's choice of victim is also a bit different. They're still all a bunch of horny young people but, unfortunately, they're now likable horny young people. The majority of Jason's victims were ciphers and quite a few of them were [censored]. There were exceptions, Part II and IV were well-regarded for the fact you didn't want anyone to die, but everyone here is awesome except the designated rich a******. And, of course, he lasts to almost the very end.

    This is one of those rare Friday: The Thirteenth movies where I didn't want Jason to win and that's against the formula. I wanted one of the many cool victims in this movie to put him down. There's much to like in this film: Supernatural alumni Jared Padalecki more or less plays Sam and Amanda Righetti is stunning. There's plenty of fanservice, too, and it's unashamed of this fact. The kills are lacking their humor value, though, and whereas previous Jason would kill in a variety of fascinating ways--this Jason just stabs people with a machete.

     I think this could have been a great movie with a little more effort or, ironically, a little less. There's two decent movies with the group of pot heads seeking a natural farm of it in the Crystal Lake area (who planted it? Jason?) and the subsequent kidnapping/rescue/camper plot. The two plots fused together undermine the whole. It's a shame because everyone does a decent job here and it shows a respect to the material absent from everything since the eighties but Freddy vs. Jason.

    In conclusion, this is not the Friday the Thirteenth which will ignite the passions of millions. Slasher movies will never die but films like Scream and Cabin in the Woods remember that if you're going to make the victims the stars, they should fun. If the movie is making the monster the star, though, you should make them the one the audience roots for.

6/10

Hack/Slash Omnibus volume 2 review

    Another great collection of stories.

    Oh, you need more?

    Well, most of my early statements about Hack/Slash from my volume one review remain true. The premise is great with poor Cassie Hack attempting to track down and kill as many undead slashers as humanly possible.

    The series premise that sufficiently evil serial killers rise from the dead to become zombie murderers simultaneously is explored further and is set aside frequently enough that it never becomes tiresome. In this volume, Cassie Hack fights Lovecraftian abominations and ordinary serial killers in addition to Slashers. This helps keep everything fresh.

    Despite the fact Hack/Slash is a comic book series with a vested interest in the status quo, we get some character development from both Vlad and Cassie both throughout this volume.  Some of these changes, I honestly did not see coming and worked surprisingly well.

    Vlad starts discovering he is, deformities aside, a perfectly average guy with desires and this leads to some hilarious moments where he throws Cassie for a loop. I won't spoil any but poor Cassie's reaction to Vlad's desire to see Bikini Car Wash is simultaneously hilarious and heartwarming. Even so, despite looking like Jason Voorhees, he remains the emotional and moral center of the pair.

    Cassie, for her part, is struggling to deal with the fact she has an abundance of friends. Cassie Hack, having been a loner for virtually her entire life, has difficulty even comprehending it let alone taking advantage. We also get a really surprising revelation Cassie is gay (or at least bisexual) and this is handled in an unusually sensitive manner. Certainly, she doesn't know what to make of it.

    One thing a lot of modern comic writers don't know how to do is create supporting cast members. I am particularly fond of the character Margeret "Georgia" Crump who is the first genuinely nice "normal" person Cassie Hack has probably ever met in her life. The contrast in their character is tremendous and watching their potential romance blossom, collapse, and spark again is a source of great drama.

    This is the volume where the first main series really begins so we have fewer crossovers than before, which is a good thing. The series has a chance to establish its own voice in this volume and some of its ideas are great. Others...not so much. Overall, though, I was very impressed with the work and enjoyed all of the stories within.

    My favorite stories of the volume include Cassie Hack investigating allegations of devil worship in the music industry (which is true, for once), the Tub Club that manages to take an exploitation premise (lesbian vampire cult!) in a surprisingly sensitive direction, and the Suicide Girls crossover with the comic which is so ridiculous it's hilarious. I kid you not, there's also an unofficial Hack/Slash crossover with Archie. That, much like Archie meets the Punisher, was gut-bustingly hilarious.

    There's some stories I didn't much care for in this volume. The long-awaited reunion between Jack Hack and his daughter isn't all that interesting. Sadly, even the inclusion of Doctor Herbert West from the Re-Animator franchise or the return of Cassie Hack's mother doesn't do much to inject life into a fairly dull story. There's also a story where Cassie has to deal with a group of feral kids I wasn't too fond of--I really didn't know what sort of message the story was trying to convey and it just felt grim for the sake of grimness.

    Overall, though, this volume just continues to impress me with the potential of the Hack/Slash series. It's a comic book with lots of humor and drama potential that it exploits to its fullest. I recommend people pick up the second volume, even if the cover is as unpleasant in its own way as the original one.

9.5

Hack/Slash Omnibus volume 1 review

    I love Hack/Slash.

    Abandoning all premise of objectivity, I've got to say this is my favorite independent comic currently ongoing and I suggest everyone go and pick it up. I also suggest people pick up the twenty dollar omnibus for the series and buy them each in turn. I could go on with my needless fanboy-ism but I think you all get the picture. So, instead, I'm going to dial it back and try to objectively talk about the series.

    The premise of Hack/Slash is a somewhat darker take on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer: different in execution but coming from the same roots. Cassie Hack is your typical Final Girl in a slasher movie, the slasher being her mother in this case. She's a soft, nerdy, virginal, introverted girl who brings down the big bad monster. Unfortunately, her mother proceeds to come back from the dead only to force her to put it down again. You see, in this world, serial killers are prone to resurrecting themselves as undead monsters.

    Killer!

    Re-inventing herself as a sexy Goth girl, Cassie travels across America with her partner Vlad to hunt these supernatural immortals. Vlad is, quite ingeniously, a "good" version of Jason Voorhees. He's a gas-mask wearing deformed giant raised in near-complete isolation who has latched onto Cassie because she's, quite literally, his only friend in the world. A lot of the comics humor comes from the fact that Vlad is arguably better adjusted than Cassie despite his appearance and upbringing.

    The first omnibus collects a bunch of the one-shots and mini-series which initially introduced Cassie Hack to the world. The first story, Euthanized, is a surprisingly effective horror story that takes its premise dead serious (pun intended). Girls Gone Dead nicely analyzes the "Good Girl vs. Slut" dynamic so frequently parodied in horror movies where the villain is the kind of Bible-thumping bad guy who would approve yet oozes hypocrisy.

    As a religious man, I approved of the fact the satire limited itself to a very limited part of the Christian faith. I also enjoyed Slice Hard, which had poor Cassie having to choose between assisting a corporate conspiracy and helping her friend Vlad get a normal life. I even liked Hack/Slash vs. Chucky despite the shameless crossover promotion which certainly motivated the story.

     Did I dislike any of the stories? Not really. However, I wasn't too enthusiastic about Hack/Slash versus Evil Ernie. Despite the attempt to write a deep and meaningful story about the premise (seriously), I've never been a fan of Devil's Due. Evil Ernie is a parody of 90s anti-heroes taken to the grimdark eleven so the story trying to find emotional poignancy in a world where he hasn't killed 90% of the planet is....difficult to take seriously. Even there, the art is beautiful and we get a sense of Cassie's loneliness.

    I have only one real major complaint about the volume:

    The cover.

    This isn't a minor complaint either. I'm a married man who has difficulty explaining his love of comics to his wife sometimes. This particular cover is deliberately vulgar and seems designed to appeal to the shameless exploitation lovers of the fandom. The cover makes the book difficult to read in a public place and implies the book is nonstop fanservice. What's interesting is while Cassie Hack wears rather fetishistic Goth-wear, I actually found that element of the series tamer than mainstream comics. It's only to the point that Cassie Hack is anatomically possible but that's something.

    Indeed, I think the comic might actually due better to dial back even further because I'm a "less is more" kind of guy (or, technically, more is more since we're dealing with women's state of undress in comics). Cassie is an enjoyable comic heroine and while I love sexiness, I think it could actually be something for readers other than boys (both teenage and otherwise) given how well-realized and well-written a character. I was still impressed enough to order the entire series, however, so this is exalting with faint criticism.

    A warning for the squeamish at heart, Hack/Slash is a comic based around 1980s horror movies. There's parodies of Pet Cemetery, Friday the Thirteenth, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jaws, and (of course) Child's Play. There are plenty of places the series gets gory and a lot of the supporting cast for each issue gets killed. Still, your love of the series is likely to only go up the more you have experience with these stories. I will say, however, I prefer the original work and and know the series only gets better when it reaches Volume 2.

    This is a great comic, though, and one of the best I've read in a very long time.

9.5/10

Slasher horror vs. Survival Horror

    Yesterday, I had a lengthy conversation with one of my oldest friends about the difference between Slasher horror and survival horror. Basically, we were both discussing the fact we weren't terribly fond of the classic horror franchises A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the Thirteenth.

    Both of us agreed that the two franchises have intriguing premises with their Dream Demon and Unstoppable Juggernaut stars. However, neither of us particularly cared for the way the stories particularly progressed. Likewise, we were both fans of the original Halloween and Scream.

    It occurred to me this wasn't just a matter of taste, though it mostly was. I'm not going to tell you there's anything wrong with the FT13 or NOES franchises other than the occasional bit of bad storytelling. That's your business and tastes may vary. I will say, though, that the two of agreed the primary problem boiled down to a difference of audience expectations.

The Slasher's natural hunting ground.

    The primary appeal of these two horror franchises is watching Freddy and Jason massacre their victims in increasingly outlandish ways. Freddy killed a young Johnny Depp a spectacularly surreal method which has to be seen to be believed. Likewise, there's something gut-bustingly hilarious about watching Jason beat someone to death by swinging their sleeping bag against a tree repeatedly.

    However, I can't say that particularly appeals to me. Furthermore, my favorite of the two franchises revolve less around Freddy and Jason than Kristen Parker, Laurie Holden, Tommy Jarvis, and Tina Shepard. If you go "who?" you probably aren't alone but they're the protagonists of the franchise who put up the best fight against our unpleasant gatekeepers to the world of slasherdom. The fates of at least two of these individuals turned me off these franchises even though I had been forewarned they are not the stars.

    I'll spare you a discussion of the other side of the coin with Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott who are every bit as much the stars of their movies as their antagonists. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course, was built on the mold of the Final Girl without the disposability factor which some of the aforementioned characters above. [Digression: Seriously, I know it's wrong to be pissed off about 30 year old movies but some of the sequels treatment of them still bother me.]

    Which brings me to my point there is a difference between survival horror and slasher horror. Survival horror is exemplified by the typical zombie movie, where a group of people are slowly widdled down to a much smaller number by the relentless horde of monsters, but the audience's sympathy is with the survivors. We want at least one or more of them to survive as the story is about them and their struggles.

There's no e in Myers.

    Slasher movies move the emphasis of the storytelling from the heroes to the monster. They're not alone in this respects, look at Phantasm for example, but the general emphasis is on the audience witnessing the bad guys slaughter versus the heroes' triumph. The nadir of this particular philosophy is the torture-porn ideal where we actively desire the destruction of our leads in the most perverse manner possible.

    The Cabin in the Woods made this point significantly earlier than I did. Basically, that we lose something essential in horror if we de-emphasize the protagonists to the point their survival no longer matters. I won't spoil the movie for you but the basic gist of it is that making people into interchangeable archetypes so they can serve as meat for the grinder is about the lowest form of entertainment possible.

    Yet, I actually think there is merit to the Slasher movie approach as well. People want their villains to be spectacular and the individualization of evil in them results in a more personable menace than a generic zombie apocalypse. You don't need the entire world to be overrun with the hungry dead if you're faced with a figure like Jason Voorhees. The first A Nightmare on Elm Street is staggeringly effective because there's nothing more personal than your dreams and that's where Freddy lives.

    Back during my tabletop RPG days, I actually ran a couple of adventures which incorporated both monsters. The difference in our game, of course, was the PCs weren't running from either but attempting to stop their massacres. The stories were significantly lower key but worked well because both monsters were individually well-realized. In short, Slashers tend to produce very good villains because you don't diminish the threat of your opponent.

     The trick is balancing the two and developing a kind of symbiosis between victim and villain. Psycho, which predates all slasher movies, manages to throw the audience for a loop by fully developing its victim before disposing of her.  Likewise, Norman Bates is equally realized, becoming the heart of all future guys wielding a knife. You don't need a dozen people who exist to die when Janet Leigh's character is capable of handling it all by herself. Hard to believe as it is now, her death was genuinely shocking at the time and changed the nature of horror for decades to come.

Let's face it. We don't care who this guy is.

    My definition of a Slasher movie also applies to something you normally wouldn't think of as one in Jaws. The star of Jaws is undoubtedly the shark and the entirety of the story builds up to our heroes putting it down. Nevertheless, it's looming presence is the heart of the film. We don't even need its victims tremendously developed because the little time we spend with them shows it could be someone just like us. It's one of the reasons I loathe the, "Bad Girls Get Punished" meme that Scream discredited. The villains aren't morally justified in what they do to people, that's why they're villains.

    I think my ideal horror movie is a Survival Horror movie with Slasher elements or a Slasher film with a stronger emphasis on Survival Horror. No one is going to complain is you are upset at losing your spectacular kills but the heart should be all of the potential victims are people you'd like to survive. It should be a tragedy and a surprise when each of them dies as only rarely do movies have the nerve to do so. Likewise, the villains should be fully realized when they're not a natural disaster like zombies or demon hordes or whatever.

    My .02.