Good question. Also in slasher films, if a couple has sex, both of them die. I think the sexual punishment is doled out to males too, it's just that they aren't usually shown naked or partially clothed like the women are.

True. But I don't how they expect us to figure out dangerous and immoral it is if they don't show us the naked boys. Help us learn!

I know. I am a very good student and I would like to learn more about the male anatomy and by god I will watch slasher flicks if that's the way I have to do it!

I'm not enough naked boy for youse? ingrates.

Well if you would turn around once in a while we might learn something. As it stands now I think you're retarding our education.

Who's the ingrate now??

Heh. Flickr dosen't allow frontal nudity, sadly. And I don't want to give anyone a complex.

I don't need a whole complex. A small pied a terre will do just fine.

Heehee taz!

jon, they sure as hell do allow nudity. You aren't looking in the right places.

Not according to the rules. It specifically states "no genitalia or frontal nudity."

GEE I GUESS THERE'S JUST NO WAY TO SEE NAKED PICTURES ON THE INTERNET THEN!

Go to flickr groups and search 'breasts' or 'nude' or sheesh, even feet. I saw the raunchiest pic so far there in one of the feet groups.

I also love that one of the 'vintage' groups I belong to has about 8 closeups of anal penetration. I guess because they're sepia colored, it's ok. Hah.

I like to retain a little mystery, sorry.

If this keeps up they're going to have to come up with a new name: Fluckr? Lickr? Puckr? (that's for the vintage anal, ico)

Oh, so it's a little mystery, is it, jon? ;)

taz, regarding your initial question, some of Dario Argento's movies are kinda sorta slasher movies, but they're not quite as predictable as the U.S. kind where you KNOW who's going to get it next.

Don't taunt the naked boy: he has beach balls, and he's not afraid to use them.

This is kind of interesting (about.com):

Q. What are some of the horror genres certain countries are famous for in film?

A. Italy: Zombies; Mexico: Vampires; China, Japan and India: Ghosts; America: Slashers.

Italy for zombie flix? I did not know that.

Taz, you may have just come up with the killer app for amateur porn. Anybody want to form a company? This could revolutionize the industry.

Meanwhile, back a the slasher flicks...

I strongly supect (without any really solid research to back it up) that American slasher flicks are unique because of the influence of the Hayes code on American scriptwriting and the introduction of the MPAA rating codes in the late 1960's.

The Hayes Code came into effect as the result of a backlash against Scarface -- which featured not only a lot of sadistic violence, but some very clear suggestions throughout the film of an incestuous relationship between Scarface and his sister; in which the sister clearly got sexually excited by her brother's violence.

Other countries may also have censorship codes that inadvertently spawned genres, but I simply don't know enough about world grindhouse to cite any examples.

The violence towards sexy girls in slasher films is very directly related to the Hayes office's demand for retribution unto the immoral and also a way of getting around the more recent MPAA code's ban on showing sex, particularly penetrating sex.

The "sublimation" of sexual acts pops up (heh) in a lot of horror film scenes. One scene that springs to mind is in Alien, where the cyborg attempts oral rape of Ripley with a rolled up magazine. It never seems to have anything to do with moving the plot forward, but usually comes across as purely gratuitous reaction against the MPAA on the part of the screenwriter.

The endless quest for the all-important "R" rating continues to distort American scriptwriting. Think of all the films that got held up in final cut over some stupid squabble over whether or not the ever-precious "R" would be awarded by the industry's blue-noses.

Asian horror (e.g. Audition or Oldboy) follows different themes in sexual issues. After seeing Oldboy, I've decided I'm going to give that entire genre a miss in the future. Ick.

Well, that's very interesting. I didn't realize that it was sort "hard coded" into the format. I always thought it was a rather more convoluted cultural phenomenon.

Oldboy was brilliant, in a very twisted way.

Italy for zombie flix? I did not know that.
posted by taz

Oooh... you should check out some of Lucio Fulci's stuff. Very, very squishy. Badly made and ludicrous at times, but lots of fun if you don't take it too seriously. (As opposed to the movies of someone like George Romero, who I think is a real artist.)

The violence towards sexy girls in slasher films is very directly related to the Hayes office's demand for retribution unto the immoral and also a way of getting around the more recent MPAA code's ban on showing sex

Actually, I think this has just as much to do with what's called "excitation transfer"... lots of horror movies use it. The sexy scene (in theory) gets the audience's nerves all stimulated and tingly, so that then when a nailgun pops a tenpenny nail into somebody's head, the shock is supposed to feel more intense, because the nervous energy of arousal is turned into the nervous energy RELEASE felt as horror.

Whether this works is debatable, but some schlock directors swear by it.

Italy for zombie flix? I did not know that.

As something of a zombie afficinato (if there is such a thing), I can say Italy is the SHIT for zombies.

Also, the American zombie king, Romero, has always worked closely with the Italian zombie king, Dario Argento. (up to and including doing a lot of the post production on his earlier movies in Italy with him, and using Goblin, the band which created the scores for almost all of Argento's movies, for Dawn of the Dead.

Also, seconding BoringPostcards, Fulci is a ton of fun.

I didn't realize that it was sort "hard coded" into the format. I always thought it was a rather more convoluted cultural phenomenon.

I think it still is a pretty convoluted phenomenon, because the Hayes Code basically just enshrined the conflicted, Puritanical strain already present in American culture. If you watch a lot of vintage film, pre-Code movies are absolutely startling in their often joyous, flirtatious, and risque depictions of sexuality, whereas scary movies from that time period are more of the giant-monster or invader-from-space variety. Those, I'm sure, represent a different set of psychological fears and fixations.

So I do see the connection between the Hayes code and the sublimation of sex into violence. And since then the tropes have just been reinforced. Since I really don't like seeing people get hurt, even fakely, this confusion of sex and violence really disturbs me a lot. I suspect there's quite a bit of old-school misogyny overflowing into it. The spate of violent-crime shows is especially bothersome to me. Every time I turn on the commercial TV stations and see yet another pretty young woman lying in a pool of blood, I think "Why do we have to see crime as a stand-in for sex? Why can't we just see sex?" I'd far rather watch drama shows where people get it on than drama shows where people get dismembered. There's some sort of fundamental guilt at play here.

We learned a lot of the slasher stuff from the Italians. Check out some of Mario Bava's early stuff--especially Bay of Blood (maybe under its more charming title Twitch of the Death Nerve), which is arguably the first slasher film. Dario Argento's 1970s work started out as more suspense (like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) and ended up supernatural (like Suspiria, although he never directed a zombie film). Really any of the 1970s giallo (suspense/slasher) films will show you where we got many of the elements.

Also, you should check out Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol Clover. It offers a different, if debatable, reading of violence in slasher films. Finally, if you can get your hands on it, read Robin Wood's "An Introduction to the American Horror Film," where he uses a combination of Freud and Marx to talk about themes in horror films, especially "the return of the repressed," which is the idea that in horror films, things society represses come back in the form of monsters, pubescent girls with telekinesis, zombies, etc.

Dario did work on Dawn Of The Dead with George Romero, though, as kellydamnit mentioned. Romero also let Argento edit the European version of that movie- I recently found that version on DVD, and it's interesting to me (esp. since I make my living as an editor) to watch how two different people can take the same footage and make slightly different stories with it. (The Argento version is really good, BTW- not better or worse, just different.)

Also: that Robin Wood book sounds really intriguing. Google brings up a lot of references to it, but no sources to get it (yet). I'll have to be on the lookout for it.

I know Argento worked on Dawn of the Dead, I was just mentioning that he's better known for stuff other than zombie movies. Good luck finding the Robin Wood piece; it was published in a 1977 volume of essays called An American Nightmare, which is impossible to find anymore. I had a copy from a Modern Horror Film class I took in grad school, but I can't find it anymore. My local library has a copy, but the top two lines on every page are missing--bad print run, I guess.

Huh. Well, I just bought a copy on eBay. Email me your snail mail address, and I can send you a photocopy when it comes in.

Wow! :) I will do that, since I'd really like to read this. I'll swap you a copy of my MeCha mix CD, if you're interested.

"...[Clover] suggests that the 'low tradition' in horror movies possesses positive subversive potential, a space to explore gender ambiguity and transgress traditional boundaries of masculinity and femininity." Be forewarned...

Post-modern feminist deconstructionism in an academic setting. Now, there a real possibility for a horror flick.

"subversive potential"... "a space to explore gender ambiguity"... "transgress traditional boundaries" ...no pomo cliche left behind.

*runs screaming out of the room*

I shall refer this topic to the esteemed Prof. Perry Mills whenst I next pay him a visit.

goatdog: I bid one bunnypin for a copy.

*wonders why if it's such a seminal work, it's damn near unobtainable*

I have to admit that I didn't make it all the way through Clover's book. It was an interesting thesis, and she did have some good things to say about the Final Girl (the one virginal woman who survives the film), but she lost me at some point.

Another interesting article about slasher films is "Spectacles of Death: Identification, Reflexivity, and Contemporary Horror" by Jefferey Sconce in Film Theory Goes to the Movies (1994). It's about why we watch slasher movies if they're all so predictable, and why teenagers are so drawn to movies about other teenagers getting murdered.

Heh. The Final Girl. I was going to say something about this as well... but hey, I didn't. You're just going to have to believe me that I noodling over this aspect of it, too. Okay? OKAY?

*slashes left and right*

Italy for zombie flix? I did not know that.

come see me have breakfast. and bring your video camera

The slasher film tropes seem to mirror old ghost stories and urban legends, many of which also punish female sexuality with violence and death. Wouldn't these predate the Hayes Code?

I can certainly see filmmakers using some of this as a "Fuck You" to censors, but I don't think the conflation of female sexuality and violence is originally from that era.

I mean, look at the Bacchae, for example. Or any of the "teenagers making out in car get attacked by escaped convict" legends.

The Final Girl -- great name for a band.

Final Girl

. . .The Final Girl is also watchful to the point of paranoia; small signs of danger that her friends ignore, she registers. Above all she is intelligent and resourceful in a pinch. This Laurie even at her most desperate, cornered in a closet, has the wit to grab a hanger from the rack and bend it into a weapon; Marti can hot-wire her get-away car, the killer in pursuit; and the psych major of Friday the Thirteenth II, on seeing the enshrined head of Mrs. Voorhees, can stop Jason in his tracks by assuming a stridently maternal voice. Finally, although she is always smaller and weaker than the killer, she grapples with him energetically and convincingly.

. . .The Final Girl is boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine - not, in any case, feminine in the way of her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from the other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself. Lest we miss the point, it is spelled out in her name: Stevie, Marti, Terry, Laurie, Stretch, Will, Joey, Max. . . (p. 39)