The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies (Mammoth Books)

by Peter Normanton

  When he finally gets the chance to engage with the prostitute across the landing he takes her to a restaurant before returning her to his apartment. Here he sedates her by spiking her drink and then removes her clothes to photograph her semi-naked body. The next morning she awakens, oblivious to his unseemly antics. As Lothar passes from this world, the prostitute travels unaccompanied to the building, seen earlier in the film. Here she is left bound and gagged with the murderous taxi driver no longer able to come to her rescue.

  Jörg Buttgereit didn’t have the money to afford a police car in the making of his film, which is perhaps as well because his feature didn’t concern the authorities’ efforts to track down this homicidal maniac. Instead, his film guided its viewers on a voyeuristic journey into the delusory vision of a truly unhinged mind. This powerful tale was told using an imaginative time-line as it traversed between the past and present, never truly adopting a sequence of events or the necessity for a linear narrative. While Buttgereit once again sought to disturb and challenge our everyday perceptions, there was an underlying sub-plot in evidence, relating the frustration of a pathetic individual’s unrequited love; one that would make the horror in the bondage epilogue all the more harrowing. Our sympathies came to lie with Florian Koerner von Gustorf and his distant portrayal of this isolated serial killer, for he was never presented as being a wholly inhuman monster; rather, Schramm was a tortured soul trying to return to the lost innocence of his youth.

  The film’s stock was of the low grade that characterized Buttgereit’s filmmaking, which served to reflect his movie’s oppressively downbeat tone in a desolate visualization of modern-day Germany. While low budget, Buttgereit’s efforts revealed him as an infinitely talented filmmaker, with a touch of the art house auteur manifest in his technique. There were many sequences in Schramm observed to echoe Luis Buñuel’s trademark for the surreal, and the constant juxtaposing of imagery would evoke memories of the work of the esteemed David Lynch during the run of Twin Peaks (1990–1) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) leading to Lost Highway (1997).

  THE INTRODUCTION TO Wes Craven’s Scream was one of the most shocking witnessed on the silver screen in many a year, and while it paid homage to Psycho (1960) it also set a new standard for filmmakers treading into the domain of teenage horror. Craven initially focused on the plight of his lead actress (Drew Barrymore) and within minutes had butchered her in a tense sequence as a mysterious voice (Roger L. Jackson) plied her with questions over the telephone. As he forced his way into her home, he was revealed as a man dressed in a ghostly costume; the audience would very soon come to know him as Ghostface.

  The murdered girl’s classmate, Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell), whose mother was raped and murdered only twelve months before, is trying to come to terms with all that has gone on in her life. The night after the murder, shown at the beginning of the film, her phone rings and the chilling voice of the killer can once again be heard. He verbally torments her and then assaults her in her home, only to withdraw as he is beaten off. The following night, with her father out of town on business, Sydney is invited to sleep at the house of her friend Tatum (Rose McGowan) and her brother Dwight “Dewey” Riley (David Arquette), who works as a deputy with the sheriff’s office. In the seeming safety of Tatum’s house, Sydney receives another call from Ghostface, who throws her life into turmoil by telling her the man who was convicted of her mother’s murder, one Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), is innocent. Suspicion is now thrown on her father (Lawrence Hecht), but no one can seem to locate his whereabouts.

  As the killer continues to stalk the fictional town of Woodsboro, California, school is cancelled. Tatum’s boyfriend decides it’s high time they get their friends together and had a party. As the teenagers gather under one roof, Ghostface quietly enters the scene, providing the perfect opportunity to methodically pick them off one at a time as he works his way to the film’s spirited heroine, Sydney Prescott.

  Wes Craven returned with an ironic self-awareness for his film Scream, to the leafy suburbs that were very similar to those seen around Elm Street, and once again succeeded in popularizing the horror movie for a new generation of cinemagoers. This proved to be the first suspense-driven slasher film to hit major cinemas in almost a decade, as he and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson, of Dawson’s Creek fame, set about revolutionizing virtually every cliché the genre had for so long relished. Throughout this feature, he liberally referenced his own film Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) as a reminder as to what had gone before. As with the success of Halloween, a series of imitators would immediately follow but weren’t to detract from Scream’s monumental impact, principally in the guise of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Halloween H20 (1998), Urban Legend (1998) and Valentine (2001).

  The iconic mask returned in Scream, which has since gone on to be of commercially greater significance than those worn by time-served slashers Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees. Craven also looked to dispatch his endearing cast in a variety of bloody and imaginative ways including a throat slitting, a graphic disembowelment, multiple stabbings, a skull crushing by a garage door, an umbrella stabbing and electrocution by television set. Critically the reaction to the film was overwhelming and it was to spawn three sequels in 1997, 2000 and 2011, with a fifth entry now in planning.

  YOUNG MATTHEW’S LOVE for his mother veers out of control when he kills his father with the farm’s tractor. His arm, however, becomes trapped in the machinery and he suffers serious injuries. He is soon after taken away to a sanatorium, where they attempt to address his psychological problems, and in due course his lost hand is replaced with a hook. Many years hence, a similar occurrence would happen to one Fred Kreuger. Now aged eighteen, Matthew returns home to find his mother, Daisy, has remarried. When he catches his stepfather becoming amorous with his beloved mother, Matthew seizes an axe and they both fall victim to his maniacal wrath. He journeys to Venice, Los Angeles, leaving a trail of mean-spirited murder, as his deluded state of mind makes it impossible to accept that his mother could ever desire another man. The multiple killings might suggest an inevitable tide of gore, but the film never actually delivered it in the excess promised in the title.

  Matthew eventually befriends Vera, who works as a prostitute and has an unusual talent for painting. The poor girl, who due to the limited budget is played by the same actress as his mother, is oblivious to his psychosis and his bizarre interpretation of her canvases. She assumes a motherly role in his life, but gets a horrible shock when he abducts her and holds her hostage in what he claims is his mansion, having already disposed of its previous owner and the maid.

  Scream Bloody Murder, also known as Claw of Terror, Matthew and Captive Female, falls into the seventies grindhouse drive-in theatre category of film and is an interesting precursor to the slasher fare of the early 1980s. Marc B. Ray’s feature doesn’t go along with the last girl scenario although the ending certainly befits the film’s depiction of an insane killer on the loose. The intimation of sex and nudity coupled with a maniac with an Oedipal complex who prefers murder with knives, axes and meat cleavers over his hooked hand was the kind of unadulterated exploitative trash made for the drive-in theatres of the day. The deviant Matthew assumed the role of Norman Bates, but now set loose in a world lusting for sleazy excess and he was given licence to go so much further than his schizophrenic predecessor. In the years that followed, Marc moved into television, working on Ellery Queen and The New Mickey Mouse Club. Stephen H. Burum produced some rather extraordinary camera work for this low-budget feature, warping the perspective during the hallucinatory scenes and helping build the tension in Matthew’s mansion. This was the beginning of a highly successful calling, which would see him work in television on Mork and Mindy and continue in film on the cult acclaimed Rumble Fish (1983), St Elmo’s Fire (1985), The Untouchables (1987) and on until his retirement.

  Both the DVD and VHS prints of Scream Bloody Murder continue to frustrate
fans of this and grindhouse cinema as a whole; four minutes were removed from the original cut, but no one has ever been able to identify the differentiation between the original and the edit that exists today.

  LI WAI AND his two likeable friends have put up with too much from their boss. They are fed up with being the underdogs of society and so, in an effort to repay their abusive employer, they scheme to kidnap his son. They call themselves The Wolves and as they hatch their desperate plan, they know that one way or another there will be no going back. As the trio negotiate the ransom the son makes a bid to escape, but in the ensuing struggle is accidentally killed. The Wolves have no choice but to persist in their demands. Their boss refuses to relent and calls in the police. Angered by his actions they scheme to take him as their next victim and then extort money from his family. In comical scenes so typical of Hong Kong’s category III excess, the police appear more interested in wise cracks and beating up potential suspects. The hilarity is soon forgotten as the film takes an inevitably dark turn, leaving these young men behind bars and regretting their chosen path, as the hangman prepares his noose.

  Taylor Wong’s Sentenced to Hang has the notoriety of being the first Hong Kong movie to receive a Category III classification, but is devoid of the excess of the similarly rated films that would follow during the 1990s. There is violence to this film and a solitary scene of full frontal nudity, but this is distanced from the excess that would come to typify the Hong Kong horror industry. Wong’s film, however, remains a good fast-paced crime drama where the fear of death is never too far away and contains a poignant narration that recollects an actual series of events from the 1960s, which led to murder and the last hangings in Hong Kong. The director of photography Herman Yau would go on to direct The Untold Story (1993), and along with his director has been widely praised for the eerie finale staring down at the noose hanging in the spotlight.

  ADISHEVELLED GEORGE (DAVID Gilliam) is seen running for his life through the woods with two young girls (Juli Drajkó and Judit Viktor) to the cheer of The Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park”. The girls tumble into a concealed pit, while George is soon after trapped in a snare. As he hangs helplessly from the branch of a tree, a masked man appears and without a word swiftly disembowels him with a knife.

  The scene then cuts to the events of a few days before, as the European Sales division of Palisade Defence travel to a team-building weekend at a luxury lodge in rural Hungary. Miles away from the nearest town a fallen tree obstructs the road. The agitated driver refuses to take the bus down a rutted track, which Richard (Tim McInnerny) insists will take them directly to the lodge, so the group are left to walk the rest of the way. As they trek through the forest there is an uncomfortable feeling that someone or something is watching their every move. When they arrive at their destination, the lodge falls a long way short of the anticipated luxury; it is in an appalling state of repair. As they attempt to settle in, Harris (Toby Stephens) comes upon a filing cabinet containing company records, all documented in Russian. As they try to make sense of his find over their evening meal, Harris recalls the lodge had once been an asylum, and a century ago a Palisade nerve gas had been deployed to thwart a take-over by the inmates. Jill (Claudie Blakley) had also heard something of its history as a reeducation unit for Soviet war criminals. After an escape bid, the same Palisade nerve gas had been used to drive the men from the surrounding buildings. Each of these accounts alluded to a survivor who vowed revenge on the company. The conversation is interrupted when Steve (Danny Dyer) finds a human tooth in the meat pie that the group have been served as their meal. The sense of unease becomes all the more intense. Outside in the forest a group of merciless assassins have now successfully cornered their quarry.

  Christopher Smith’s feature began life as P45, a team-building session where the stereotypical office employees had to pass each of the tests devised for the weekend’s itinerary with failure leading to an automatic termination of their contracted employment. His script evolved to become a modern-day translation of the slasher theme, with the final edit producing a blood-thirsty horror comedy intensified by an impending air of doom. Severance has invited comparison with Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005), and is derivative of The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Wrong Turn (2003) and Timber Falls (2007), but unlike its precursors is jollied along for the first hour with a very keen sense of wit, which shouldn’t be confused with the puerile antics of the eighties teenage slasher brigade. The death scenes were also admirably handled, with a rather amusing decapitation sequence in addition to an excruciating leg removal in a bear trap.

  Severance certainly wasn’t found wanting in the shocks department, but it was essentially a dark comedy; however, on its release to DVD it acquired the kind of notoriety Christopher Smith and his crew would have never wanted. In June 2008, seventeen-year-old Simon Everitt, a promising engineering student, was taken against his wishes, to woods near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. He was then tied up and doused in petrol before being set alight. Although he managed to escape his bonds and stagger a short distance, he collapsed and died. His killers then threw him into a ditch and in an attempt to hide the body, covered him with soil. Jonathan Clarke, nineteen, Jimi-Lee Stewart, twenty-five, and Maria Chandler, forty, were convicted of murder in May 2009. Clarke, Stewart and Mr Everitt had all been involved in a tangled love affair with a young woman in the area. The court was told the idea for the murder came from Severance, when Clarke had commented, “Wouldn’t it be wicked if you could actually do that to someone in real life?” Clarke was later sentenced to at least twenty-seven years in prison before being considered for parole, with Stewart receiving twenty-two years and Chandler seventeen years. The debate continues as to whether the film should still have its classification raised to “18”.

  SHAUN (SIMON PEGG) appears to be strolling aimlessly through life with his relationships going steadily downhill. His stepfather seems to delight in hounding him, his girlfriend Liz has become so disillusioned with his ways she has dumped him and, let’s face it, life in the electrical shop where he works is dull at best. Shaun is going absolutely nowhere in life. He is so wrapped in his own misery he fails to see the dead have returned from the grave and have one thing in mind: the succulence of human flesh. As he walks to the shops, Shaun remains oblivious to the putrefied host shambling along the streets. The news, however, is full of reports of the increasing atrophied plague, but Shaun continues in his own little world. When he and his idle game-boy friend, Ed, finally realize the events on their own doorstep, Shaun springs into action. First on the list to be saved are his mum (Penelope Wilton) and then his long suffering ex-girlfriend Liz. Armed with a cricket bat, his quest will take him back onto the fear-filled streets of suburban London and a showdown in the lounge bar of his local pub, The Winchester, when it is besieged by these mindless droves.

  Following the success of the television comedy show Spaced between 1999 and 2001, Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright once again joined forces to create Shaun of the Dead, returning to many elements of the series’ premise and then splattering it with the insanity of Dawn of the Dead (1978) and 28 Days Later (2002). As with these previous zombie classics, the walking dead in this feature weren’t without a sense of menace, but thankfully their sluggish nature gave Shaun and his entourage just enough of a chance to dodge between them for a few pints and some well observed one-liners. This wasn’t an especially gory movie, but when one unfortunate was ripped to pieces before the camera’s lens it did take the audience by complete surprise, thus making it all the more shocking. With so much hilarity and socially relevant humour played out by a cast that included some of the finest cult comedy talent of our times, there were moments when it was very easy to forget this was a bloodthirsty zombie feature. In between the laughter and putrescent mayhem there were certain poignancies to the proceedings, as family, love and friendship in the face of the apocalypse come to the fore, but not before Shaun and his friends have savoured that last pint at The Winchester and disp
elled the living dead to the council dump. There was a concern that the comedy in this film wouldn’t translate beyond these shores, but it proved a resounding success in the United States with Pegg and Wright being invited by George A. Romero to appear as zombies in Land of the Dead (2005).

  ON THE CHRISTMAS Eve of 1971, a young boy watches in horror as his parents are murdered by a crook dressed as Santa. His father was gunned down and his mother raped before having her throat cut. After the trauma of their parents’ deaths, both Billy and his brother are sent to a Catholic orphanage, where they spend their formative years enduring the tyranny of the Mother Superior. Billy’s drawing of a bloody Santa Claus standing over a decapitated reindeer should have alerted the orphanage to his underlying problems, but the Mother Superior merely punishes him by sending him to his room. He doesn’t stay there for long. When he slips away from his room, Billy spies on a couple making love. The Mother Superior catches the couple and beats them with a belt before using it on Billy. The following day he is forced to sit on Santa’s lap, but he is scared out of his mind and bolts to his room.