I can’t do it.
Four movies in and I’ve come to the conclusion that this slasher-film-fest is not going to work. Even Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, with its crazy Corey Feldman and its macheted Crispin Glover, could not win me over.
I’ve discovered I really don’t like slasher movies. I like monster movies—preferably monster movies with some semblance of a plot or theme.
I liked Freddy vs. Jason, but I think that may have beeen because both franchises had acquired enough “mythology” in their respective universes to allow for a vaguely interesting plot. Freddy and Jason were both full-fledged supernatural monsters by that point. Also, I grew up a huge fan of Godzilla movies, and the whole “versus” concept seemed like a campy nod to those days.
But these early films…I don’t get the appeal of slasher films. I guess it’s similar to that of movies like Hostel and Saw. I know that there are real-life psychotics out there who murder people in brutal fashion—I don’t get any enjoyment out of seeing it on-screen.
I admit the Friday the 13th films are particularly egregious. Unlike Halloween, which had good direction and a horror-in-suburbia theme, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, which had a more intriguing plot and antagonist, these Friday the 13th films just have a guy in a hockey mask killing people in gory fashion. I found myself wondering why, exactly, Jason kills all these people. After his very first victim, we aren’t given any reason for the rest of his endless murder spree. How about some psychological background at least? Of course, Jason’s very existence is an affront to what is set up in the first film, which at least has the infamous reverse-Psycho twist at the end.
Anyway, I’m sorry, folks. It was a good idea, but I began to crave oblivion before I could even finish the first franchise. I realize these are probably the worst films of the lot, but I just can’t bear the idea of watching hundreds more teenagers get hacked, slashed, strangled, tortured and whatnot.
I think I’m gonna go watch The Monster Squad again.