Spectatorship, Affect, and Gender in the Slasher Cycle Snow Marti
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Psychopathic Dismemberment and Psychic Slaughter: Spectatorship, Affect, and Gender in the Slasher Cycle Snow Martin March 20, 2020 1 Before the Carnage Begins… At some point during the conclusion of the 1970’s, a mutation of the horror genre invaded theaters across the United States and abroad. These films, which, thanks to the likes of Carol Clover, are now colloquially referred to as Slashers, garnered national attention during the beginning of the 1980’s. 1 The name slasher was only retroactively applied to the cycle, as early on academia and the popular media took to referring to these films as “women in danger films," “splatter films” and “stalker films”. 2 3 Initially hugely successful and often independently produced, this theater of the macabre was virtually unlike any strain of cinematic horror that had existed prior to that point. Through a massive uptick in production in the early 80’s, the Slasher film quickly differentiated itself from other horror sub genres through a strict adherence to a certain set of rigid narrative parameters which revolve around ruthless acts of violence, which are often sexually charged in nature. Although public awareness of the film type has lessened over time, in its heyday the Slasher showed itself to be a cultural phenomena. A number of films in this cycle, as it has been historically understood, enjoyed massive albeit short lived popularity amongst youth demographics during a span of three or four years lasting from 1978 to 1981.4 In fact, from January of 1980 to April of 1982 the American film market released 15 Slashers, 10 of which were hosted in American theaters from May 1980-August 1981, a ratio of one film every six 1 C arol J. Clover, “Her Body, Himself” in Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), Proquest Ebook Central. 2 Vera Dika. G ames of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Film of the Stalker Cycle ( Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1990). 3 Nowell, Richard. B lood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle )New York: Continuum, 2011), Proquest Ebook Central. 4 Dika, Games of Terror, 14. 2 weeks. 5 Through the successes of cycle cornerstones like Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980), the Slasher emerged as a legitimate box office force and became thoroughly embedded in the public consciousness for much of the coming decade. The surge in popularity evident during the early stages of this period led to an increased willingness on behalf of studios to produce and distribute these films, which resulted in the release of a slew of releases that ultimately crystalised the genre model and solidified the Slasher blueprint as an easily reproducible and recognizable film type. 6 Harnessing the spirit of the exploitation films of the late 60’s and early 70’s, these productions were markedly independent products, making use of miniscule budgets and emphasizing gore and visual effects over narrative complexity, established actors or directors, or any kind of intellectual or emotional depth. Despite the low production costs which are synonymous with the art house and exploitation sectors, these films targeted commercial audiences, and initially generated massive returns on these miniscule budgets, predictably attracting the attention of mainstream distributors. After this brief period of boom, the Slasher experienced one of the sharpest declines in profit, production, and attendance perhaps of any film cycle to date. This decline, which began around the end of 1982, was a result of a confluence of wide scale criticism and controversy in both journalism and academia. This blowback is perhaps best illustrated by Roger Egbert and Gene Siskel in 1981 in their lengthy crusade against the Slasher in which they characterized the Slasher as a film type which “systematically demean[s] the human race” through their representations of sadistic violence against women. 7 Furthermore, in the academic realm these films were, at least initially, either neglected entirely or condemned for the ubiquitous presence 5 N owell, Blood Money, 5. 6 Nowell, Blood Money, 188. 7 Nowell, Blood Money, 227. 3 of debased gendered violence. Scholars like Vera Dika (1990)8 , Barbara Creed (1986) 9 and, in less derisive fashion, Carol Clover (1992), 10 survey the sadistic nature of Slasher violence through processes of gendered identification and psychoanalysis, all of which oftentimes leads to deprecatory, although not incorrect, conclusions. With that said, my aim here is to analyze the Slasher film using a more holistic approach than has traditionally been applied to the cycle, as it is severely limiting to only engage with these films solely through the lenses of gender, production and reception. The cycle is representative of more than cinema’s violently misogynistic response to the social upheaval of the 1970’s. The slasher’s impact on the cultural and cinematic landscape of the 1980’s was integral to the film culture of the 20th century, and its lasting association with the decade should not be discounted in any assessment of the cycle. Also, the formal tactics employed by these films are a truly singular formulation of cinema which demands further scrutiny. The Slasher’s intentionality in foregrounding issues of spectatorship through a frustration of viewer identification and a disruption of the passive stasis of normal film viewership, as well as its articulation of violent spectacle through a unique aesthesis of affective representations of bodily destruction are entirely specific to the cycle, and even unique within horror cinema. These discrete parts distill down and make visible the prime elements of filmmaking and film viewing, despite the cycle being a markedly low brow cinematic product. To this end, I will center my reading of this set of films around their formal construction, with particular attention paid to questions of spectatorship, affect and spectacle in addition to 8 Dika, Games of Terror. 9 Barbara Creed “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection,” in The Dread of Difference : Gender and the Horror Film, e d. Barry Keith Grant (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015), 37-67. Proquest Ebook Library. 10 Clover, M en, Women, and Chainsaws. 4 gender. These issues are the definitive elements of the cycle, and not only do they differentiate the Slasher from other subgenres of horror, but they also dramatically refigure the conventions surrounding film form, narrative structure and the viewing experience in ways that are demonstrable and meticulously constructed. Additionally, rather than opting to focus my efforts on the period of heightened activity which has been retroactively prescribed to the cycle, I aim to illustrate the presence and development of the aesthetic and thematic tenets beyond the previously acknowledged temporal and geographic boundaries, which neglect a broader history which spans across decades and borders. The Slasher cycle has been relegated to the fringes of film criticism for far too long. Many of these films refigured the formal tenets of the horror genre in a way that cultivated a distinct mode of viewership predicated on the visceral, experiential and individual qualities of film viewing with more nuance than the cycle has historically been credited. Before we begin, I would like to define and briefly trace the lineage of the Slasher film as I see it, beginning in the 1960’s and ending around the turn of the millenium, although certain aesthetic elements are visible in films released to this day. It is widely agreed upon that the cycle’s progenitor was Alfred Hitchock’s seminal film Psycho (1960) . Many of the cycle’s chief concerns are articulated in some fashion by Hitchock’s film. The affective mode employed during representations of violence or shock, the spectacle of violent death, and the thematic emphasis on abnormal psychology are all hallmarks of the Slasher and position Psycho as a clear antecedent to later films. As an alternative point of origin, I would also contend that Micheal Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) , is perhaps even more germane to the aesthetic and thematic content of the cycle, despite having faded into relative obscurity. The film’s preoccupation with 5 spectatorship, perspective and its emphasis on the act of film viewing in its depiction of a psychopathic killer are the motivating factors behind much of the cinematic form, and align it more closely with later films. As the 1960’s wore on the principle elements of the cycle were further solidified, particularly in the realm of spectacle. Italian director Mario Bava’s 1963 ”giallo” Blood and Black Lace revels in the same kind of hyper violent surrealism that films like Driller Killer (1979) and Maniac (1980) would harness two decades later. Concurrently the burgeoning exploitation sector in the United States, spearheaded by Herschell Gordon Lewis and his contemporaries, produced films that also bore many similarities to the coming Slasher. Lewis’ 1963 gore flick Blood Feast , for instance, would push representations of on screen violence to new levels of indulgent spectacle, not only laying the groundwork for the Slasher in content, but also creating a model for inexpensive and independently financed productions. With that said, it was not until 1974 that the Slasher had fully evolved into a distinct generic form. That year, a Canadian film directed by Bob Clark entitled Black Christmas (1974) took elements of the aforementioned films and relocated them within a milieu that was at once familiar and terribly unsettling, pitting youthful suburban stereotypes against an anonymous menace in an emphatically mundane setting. It was also the first film to employ the now infamous POV shot in order to align the viewer with a monstrous and oftentimes violently masculine force, a tactic that would come to inform much of the formal and narrative logic of the Slasher film.