Girl Meets Freak
Slashers
Movie Discussion: Joseph Kahn’s Detention (2011)
Girl Meets Context: It’s Indie Horror Month, where we cover some of the best original and independent horror movies to be released in the last few years. Detention is the second feature film by director Joseph Kahn (his debut was the Ice Cube-starring motorbike racing flick Torque). Kahn is mostly known as a music video director, spending … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: James Wong’s Final Destination (2000)
Girl Meets Context: Horror Franchise Month takes a turn into teen antics with the first Final Destination film. In the movie, a pellucid teenage goblin named Alex (Devon Sawa) has a terrifying vision of a plane crash during his high school class trip to Paris. He and several of his peers are thrown off the plane, … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974)
Girl Meets Context: Often considered to be the first traditional slasher, Black Christmas was a moderate success upon its release (though it was infamously pulled from television broadcast in the late 1970s when viewers complained it was “too scary”). Drawing heavily on the giallo tradition established by the films of Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and Dario … Continue reading
Movie Comparison: Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)/Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Girl Meets Context: The mainstreaming of the slasher movie, which was all ready wildly popular thanks to the Halloween and Friday the 13th films, was codified with the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. Freddy Krueger, over the next decade, became THE face of horror movies and America’s most recognizable boogeyman. Blending dream logic, sexual violence, a … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)
Girl Meets Context: Halloween was made on a small budget of about $320,000 and went on to gross $70 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable independent films ever made. Conceived as a simple “killer stalks babysitters” picture by producer Irwin Yablans, John Carpenter and his co-writer and co-producer Debra Hill turned the material into … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: William Lustig’s Maniac (1980)
Girl Meets Context: The brainchild of character actor Joe Spinell, who stars as Frank Zito and who developed the story and co-wrote the script, Maniac is one of the most notorious of the grindhouse slashers of the early 1980s. It has the honor of being one of the few movies critic Gene Siskel walked out of and was … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: Tony Maylam’s The Burning (1981)
Girl Meets Context: The Burning isn’t a well-known movie outside of horror movie fandom, but it is often cited as one of the best of the 1980s slasher craze (alongside films like My Bloody Valentine, Black Christmas and Alone in the Dark). It was produced at the same time as Friday the 13th Part 2 in order to cash in … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Girl Meets Context: When the original Friday the 13th was a massive success, a sequel went into production almost immediately. Adrienne King, who played the first movie’s final girl, Alice, asked to be included only peripherally, after a bad experience being stalked by an obsessed fan. Friday the 13th Part 2 introduced Ginny, played by Amy Steel, often … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980)
Girl Meets Context: The enormous financial success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978 inspired Paramount Pictures to want to emulate its model: a slasher like Halloween could be made on the cheap with no-name actors and reap huge profits, even if only moderately successful at the box office. Friday the 13th, made really only as a cash-grab using this … Continue reading
Movie Discussion: Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Girl Meets Context: It is difficult to even synopsize The Cabin in the Woods because the plot of the movie relies so much on twists and turns… so please be forewarned that there will be massive SPOILERS AHEAD!!! If you haven’t gone to see this movie yet, rush to your local theater to see it, then … Continue reading
