Slashing’s My Business
And business is good!
Hello, Party People! I feel bad about taking so many breaks. Between Nanowrimo, getting Covid, and starting a new job and getting used to being tired at 10 pm, I’ve really been in the mood to play New Vegas and fall asleep. That’s it. (I killed off all of Caesar’s army. It was a blast. 15/10. I feel like a new woman.) Regardless, I’ve been slacking. So I’m throwing in an extra article this week! I was thinking about how giallo is a precursor to slashers movies, and I knew it was time to defend them. I know I called them the sexually repressed virgin cousins of Argento. I’m right, but I was a little harsh. I do love them. They’re bloody, corny, they make very little sense and most of them scare the shit out of me. My sister once made up a bunch of show tunes that she sang while I watched Nightmare on Elm Street the first time. That helped, but I still didn’t want to watch that one for years. Still, their formulaic quality and reliability makes them sort of soothing. You know, for movies about supernatural serial killers. And of course, I have the usual feminist qualms about who gets to be a final girl and who doesn’t. But then again, what makes the final girl the final girl isn’t necessarily her virginity, but her focus and her reliability. She probably won’t abandon the children she babysits so she can hook up with some asshole in their parent’s bed. She thinks of activities, cares about what movies they watch. It isn’t the sex necessarily, but that if someone is going to come after her with a chainsaw, she’s not going to get distracted by attachments. Or that’s how I’m going to justify it. Really, you could replace sex with like, recreational underwater basket weaving, but these are teenagers were talking about. It still isn’t fair, but at least the men die too. Equality or something. I appreciate a good slasher, I promise.
Behind the Mask
“Paradise Lost? Found it!”
I’ve said before that horror comedies aren’t really my thing. That was wrong. That’s mostly because comedies aren’t my thing. I don’t want to gleefully watch people make mistakes. I get secondhand embarrassment. I think maybe that’s what I had wrong about horror comedy. Scary people making scary mistakes but making jokes the whole time is actually a lot better than straight comedy. This is actually the movie that changed my mind. It is hilarious, and brilliant, as it breaks down the process of serial slashers. You wouldn’t think of there being a process. What a unique idea. I mean, with how meticulous and consistent these guys are, there has to be something. It’s their job. Like any freelancer, they need to adapt to a changing world. There is that sneaky viewpoint that people are more promiscuous and less pure these days, but that’s not really true. People are actually less promiscuous these days. But this is yet another world where men are sad about women fucking. That is my one criticism. Maybe a woman whose fucked before CAN kill you, Leslie. Also, what’s your criteria for someone who got fingered, or what if it was just the tip? What about half a blowjob? What if she’s gay? Anal? Phone sex? Catch up. How did you adapt? Did you get a smart phone? Again, I promise I loved this. I’m a pedantic nerd. Nothing to be done.
What is also amusing is how earnest it all is. Everything has to be done exactly right. The long game is one of my favorite plot devices. I take movies at face value and don’t really try to see how I can outsmart the plot the first time I see something. It’s a movie, not a car salesman. So this trope is pretty effective on me. This is one of my favorites because for a bit, it feels like maybe he missed something. Maybe, as ever, the killer can be outsmarted.
Unless that’s what he wants.
Halloween (2018)
I haven’t seen Halloween Kills, so my interpretation of the ending is completely blind.
I honestly could probably just write, “Jamie Lee Curtis” and people would think, “must be a pretty good movie.” And it is a pretty good movie. And I don’t ever watch the sequels, or the reboots, or any of it. But this has Jamie Lee Curtis in it. Sometimes you need everyone who will be faithful to it and not go hog wild on board. While movies are up to interpretation, and it is great that people can expand on the universe, it is nice to have a cohesive thread running through them. What happened when Michael Myers goes into space? I don’t know! And I don’t care? And is that something that happens? Don’t tell me unless it involves Jamie Lee Curtis.
If the Rob Zombie version sets the canon for Michael’s backstory, this one sets it for what happens after. Almost perfectly, maybe. I feel for Laurie Strode. Sometimes when you have PTSD, people think everything you fear is an overreaction. Because you know what can’t be trusted after a mental health bus crashes and a serial killer escapes? Someone with heightened pattern recognition. Make it make sense. Lives probably could have been saved if they stopped calling her insane, or questioned why her marriage failed, or why her relationship with her daughter is strained. It is probably because of the murder guy who is on the loose. Maybe. I’m just getting mad at fictional guys again.
But also I love how disappointing men were in this one. In the original Halloween, they were absent, but most people except Laurie were. It was a relief to have Laurie get a little bit of help. Also the sacred trinity of mother, maiden, and crone? We love to see it.
My final favorite element is how you can’t really tell what is happening with her granddaughter. Every man in the movie lets her down. It is interesting to say that there is one final girl, at least age wise, and two final women. But the biggest theme is that when you go through something this horrific, you either hunt the killer, or you become the killer.