A MILLION CUTS
A new documentary dissects the political climate of slasher flicks
BY JARRET KEENE
Growing up during the Reagan years may be a fond experience for many, but for this film critic, the era is perfectly summed up by the suspicious notion that ketchup qualifies as a vegetable in public school cafeterias. Of course, when you�re trying to slash a billion dollars from child-nutrition funding in order to pay for a few extra fighter jets, you need to take drastic measures. Just ask Bill Clinton, who attempted the same trick in 1998 by declaring salsa an integral part of the food pyramid. Let them eat chips!
While the Big Gypper revitalized our nation by gutting food funds for kids, filmmakers were busy dismembering horny teenagers in such bloody classics as Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Slumber Party Massacre. A new documentary called Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film goes a long way toward explaining why such hateful cinema thrilled � and continues to thrill � audiences, and why the genre remains fascinating in light of its revival during Dubya�s reign.
As American workers waited for the benefits of trickle-down economics (or Reaganomics), audiences flocked to slasher films, hungry for gore. Escapism became essential, especially after a prolonged period of stagflation and energy crises, which Carter had inherited after the lengthy debacle of Vietnam and Nixon�s dunderheaded machinations with OPEC.
Carter was an unpopular president who gave the impression (particularly after firing his entire cabinet) that things were running imperfectly in the White House. It was the perfect cultural moment for John Carpenter�s Halloween, in which a masked murderer stalks a babysitter with a butcher knife.
Equally inspired by Psycho and The Exorcist, Halloween was a box-office bonanza, inspiring hundreds of imitations despite boasting very little graphic violence. The film consecrated the clich�s of the genre, which include teenagers running for their lives from supernatural psychopaths, first-person camera angles, and mundane settings (summer camp, suburban neighborhoods). A year later, Friday the 13th would take things further in terms of violence. This being the Reagan era, of course, meant that sexual purity is essential in order for a scantily clad girl to survive. If she does drugs or fornicates, she�s as good as decapitated (a trope made light of in Wes Craven�s clever, postmodern Scream franchise of the late �90s). And as the greed-is-good decade moved onward, gore became good for the box office, too.
Going to Pieces puts it all together so thoroughly and convincingly that you get the feel for the slasher aesthetic in 88 minutes without having to endure the mass carnage of the movies themselves. Based on a book by Adam Rockoff, the documentary DVD is chock full of viscera, yet provides food for thought as to why slasher films blossomed when they did, and what political and cultural forces shaped supply and demand. It�s a feast for the eyes as well as the mind.
Going to Pieces offers interviews with many of the genre�s foremost directors � Carpenter, Craven, Sean Cunningham � but the most compelling personality by far is Tom Savini, a Vietnam combat photographer who, consciously or unconsciously, dealt with his experiences by becoming the best special effects and make-up artist in post-�60s horror. Already well-regarded for his work with George Romero on films like Dawn of the Dead, Savini cemented his reputation with Friday the 13th, Maniacs and Deathdream. The energy and passion he brings to the shoddiest of projects is enough to make you want to actually sit through some of these flicks.
By the late �80s, audiences grew tired of theaters crammed with slasher movies. During the Clinton years, slashers simmered in the background until re-emerging with Scream, in many ways a satire of the whole genre. In case you�ve been living in a spider hole, there�s now a resurgence in dead teenager movies, but with an added emphasis on extended scenes of gruesome torture (Saw, Hostel). The new slasher is more sickening than its predecessor, and it�s so successful that more movies are in production. What is it about a conservative political climate that fosters such despairing, demonic cinema?
Of course, today�s neoconservatives aren�t true conservatives. The only 2008 candidate who gets it is Ron Paul, whom the conservative establishment and the mainstream media are already characterizing as a nutty Ross Perot figure. Hopefully, in the coming election, we�ll be spared from faux conservatism � and from another wave of slashers.
