#1155
Gameplay of the DLC character Jason Vorhees in the Steam/PC Port of Netherrealm Studio’s Mortal Kombat X.
Oh joy. Leatherface.
Leatherface was actually one of the original slasher villains, starting all the way back in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film in 1974. Although I find the likes of Jason and Freddy more iconic, they wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for pioneering films such as this and, later, John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978.
While I love psychological horror films, slashers have just never done much for me, barring the original Nightmare on Elm’s Street. Part of their appeal is their lo-fi nature, really, a trend which has continued right up to the modern era with films like Paranormal Activity. I can enjoy a good lo-fi effort from time to time, be that a good independent film like Clerks or Christopher Nolan’s The Following, or even a cheesy Godfrey Ho film. Horror at the right time of year (i.e., during Spooktober, which we’re currently in) can also make it pretty good, getting into the mood for it.
As for nowadays though…I just don’t really get the point of horror films when True Crime is not only a million times more interesting, but also true as well. Horror films worked better in an age where information was last wide-spread, so they had a kind of mystique and edge to them as these “video nasties”, that were going to corrupt the youth and steer them towards satanism, or whatever. The fact that you usually had to go to one of those sleazy B-movie cinemas only added to that, to be sure. In the era of VHS trading and collecting, things like the slasher films or infamous exploitative stuff like Faces of Death just made a lot more sense, as there was a sense of macabre discovery when you watched them. Nowadays though, why do I need to watch a fake slasher villain when I can read up on real serial killers like Ted Bundy and the Original Nightstalker? There’s tons of sites for gore, most of all Liveleak of course. The brutality of the Hong Kong triads and the Yakuza are infinitely worse than your average film director can conjure up in their films, so if the idea is to be scared by them, then it’s not overly effective, to me anyway.
Then there’s the fact that it’s just difficult to care about the protagonists in horror films, as they’re barely established, usually assholes, and are killed off pretty quickly, and sometimes in hilarious ways. I’m sure this wasn’t intentional, but there are a couple of times in Texas Chainsaw Massacre where Leatherhead kills one of the teens by just bonking him on the head with a mallet and it sent me into hysterics each time. The development of modern television has allowed for much more intricate stories in any genre you could wish, and though there are still great films being made to this day (1917 and Parasite being the two masterpieces of this year, and good examples of films which can and should only really be seen in a cinema), television simply has the potential to create stories in a way that film never will do, and can explore certain genres and things which can only be half-developed in a film. If I had to talk about horror done right in a tv series, Series 3 of Stranger Things is probably one of the best examples I can think of, especially the scenes in the hospital. Series 1 was brilliant too, mainly the way it felt very much based in the reality of disappearances which were all too common in the 80s in the American Mid-West (seriously, look it up; still tons of unsolved cases from there to this day), but by Series 3 we really care about these characters, and we know them well, so putting them in a true horror scenario gives so much more weight and impact than it would in a film, especially at a point where it’s been established that even beloved characters can die. I know people had other issues with that series (most legit, truth be told), but that was one of those moments where I really saw the potential of television as a medium for horror.
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