Horror Movie Genre WITHOUT 'Halloween'?

[Romantic Nihilist]

In 1978, the Horror classic Halloween was released which pretty much kickstarted the 'Slasher' horror genre. Two years later, Friday the 13th was created in response and thus, the blueprint for 80's horror was created.

But, what if Halloween was never made? What if John Carpenter was never inspired to make it? How would this affect the movie industry and what would instead be the torchbearer for the Horror genre?

 

[Kalvan]

We still have Black Christmas, The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit on Your Grave, and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And the foundations were laid as early as Psycho and The Birds.

It was Steam Engine Time for the Slasher subgenre.

 

[Magniac]

Halloween isn't even the first _teen_ slasher.

I reckon if original Carrie doesn't qualify as such, then the fact it's released in 1976 means the template is still there for grindhouse filmmakers to exploit teen angst, even if neither Black Christmas nor Halloween are ever released.

Fun fact: even a mainstream 'soft horror' movie like Jaws 2 was using the teen-sexytime-goes-bad trope in 1978!

 

[Hadley]

I can see the slasher genre being even darker (like the films Kalvan mentioned). Forget the "glossier" slasher films like Friday the 13th, Child's Play, and the like, think more along the lines of Maniac or Driller Killer. Sadly, this also may butterfly Nightmare on Elm Street (either that or the supernatural level of the films gets even higher)

 

[zoomar]

The point can be made that the "dead teenager" movies of the 1980's would have evolved in some form regardless of Halloween. Unlike the modern teen-angst films like the Hunger Games and all the teen vampire movies, movies like the Friday 13th series and its countless variations were not about teen angst. They reflected adult paranoia, concerns and/or revenge fantasies aimed at the permissve (loose sex and drugs) attitudes of the dead teenagers. Regardless of how teens interpreted them, I think the implicit message of most of these movies was "You better not go into the woods with a bunch of your friends to have sex or do drugs because god only knows what will happen to you."

 

[Kung Fucious]

Fun fact: even a mainstream 'soft horror' movie like Jaws 2 was using the teen-sexytime-goes-bad trope in 1978!

Fuck yeah someone else recognizing that Jaws 2 is the prototypical teen slasher. The only thing it goofs up on is watering down/outright removing the person who should be our supporting protagonist/prototypical "Final Girl", Mike Brody. Other than that it's got all the beats right there:

1. We're gonna defy our parents and have fun!
2. Couple sneaks away for sexytimes, get's killed!
3. Oh noes, some monster is hunting us!
4. Monster kills authority figure that was about to save teens!
5. Monster kills off goofy sidekick, shit is real now
6. Monster is dispatched in an over the top fashion.
7. Roll credits.

 

[Romantic Nihilist]

I believe there may be less emphasis on 'nameless-serial-killer-with-a-knife' antagonists and perhaps a stronger psychological edge akin to Silent Night, Dead Night or a supernatural edge akin to Poltergeist. Don't underestimate how big an influence Halloween was on the genre.

Just a point to consider: the AIDS scare of the 80's may have some influence. Some filmmakers may use the whole virginal element and decry sex as OTL.

 

[SLCer]

While slasher movies existed before Halloween, none had broken into the mainstream (beyond, I guess, Psycho) and without Halloween, it's almost certain you don't have Friday the 13th - at least, in its most known incarnation. That movie was pretty much green-lit after Halloween's success - not Black Christmas' or Texas Chainsaw Massacre's success. That isn't to say those films didn't influence Friday (which, like Black Christmas, had an unknown killer), it's just that those movies were already six-years old when Friday was made and, for the most part, not widely known (though, TCM saw a bigger stretch of success).

I mention Friday because, beyond Halloween, it set off the slasher craze of the 1980s. Without Friday, and the rash of sequels and knockoffs, slashes probably sputter into the 80s and likely do not become the prominent sub-genre of the horror film industry - at least, without another major slasher movie filling the hole left by Halloween.

It was too late for Black Christmas and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Paramount was not going to hop on board the Friday train on the idea that two movies, six years prior, had done okay enough - it was fully a direct result of Halloween's success (and Halloween grossed $40 million more than TCM - a margin that actually was greater than TCM's entire run ($30 million).

So, yeah, horror in the 80s is probably different. Paranormal movies potentially become the bigger craze (Poltergeist was a template for success) and without the slasher mania of the 80s, it doesn't bleed over into its revival in the 90s with SCREAM - so, no clones of that movie, either.

Then again, maybe another movie comes along and shakes things up enough to keep the sub-genre alive. It's possible Wes Craven still does A Nightmare on Elm Street, but it's a bit different without the success of Halloween & Friday the 13th - with that movie really becoming the template to the new style of slashers. If that's the case, the genre probably balloons throughout the late 80s (instead of dying off toward the end of the 80s before its revival again in mid-90s) and carries over into the early 90s. From there, who knows what path it takes ... but that's assuming Nightmare even gets made in this universe.

 

[vultan]

In the absence of the slasher genre, there'd probably be a zombie craze in the eighties comparable to the one we're having now. Romero was still active, and zombie movies were being made, it's just slashers got most of the spotlight.

 

[Kung Fucious]

Then again, maybe another movie comes along and shakes things up enough to keep the sub-genre alive. It's possible Wes Craven still does A Nightmare on Elm Street, but it's a bit different without the success of Halloween & Friday the 13th - with that movie really becoming the template to the new style of slashers. If that's the case, the genre probably balloons throughout the late 80s (instead of dying off toward the end of the 80s before its revival again in mid-90s) and carries over into the early 90s. From there, who knows what path it takes ... but that's assuming Nightmare even gets made in this universe.

Maybe NIGHTMARE is focus' less on the slasher aspects and more on the supernatural? I could see NIGHTMARE being reworked as a R-rated spin on Poltergeist: maybe Freddy Kruger isn't a serial killer that the parents murdered, but some kind of anti-Indian soldier (or something) who went on a rampage on ground where Elm Street is now located. Somehow he gets offed (maybe the Indians get him, burn his cabin down, whatever). Now, 150 years later (or whatever) his spirit returns, still thinking he's fighting the same old battles. Crazy supernatural shenanigans happen on Elm Street (not just targeting the kids), eventually our Nancy equivalent has to go into the spirit world and stop him.

You could add some satirical bite to it if you have this Kruger-analog be hailed as one of the founders of the town, with parades and a statue and all that good shit, only for the truth to come out that he was a lunatic mass-murdered (revisionist history, spinning off of how Poltergeist dealt with America being built on the blood of the Indians).

 

[SLCer]

Maybe NIGHTMARE is focus' less on the slasher aspects and more on the supernatural? I could see NIGHTMARE being reworked as a R-rated spin on Poltergeist: maybe Freddy Kruger isn't a serial killer that the parents murdered, but some kind of anti-Indian soldier (or something) who went on a rampage on ground where Elm Street is now located. Somehow he gets offed (maybe the Indians get him, burn his cabin down, whatever). Now, 150 years later (or whatever) his spirit returns, still thinking he's fighting the same old battles. Crazy supernatural shenanigans happen on Elm Street (not just targeting the kids), eventually our Nancy equivalent has to go into the spirit world and stop him.

You could add some satirical bite to it if you have this Kruger-analog be hailed as one of the founders of the town, with parades and a statue and all that good shit, only for the truth to come out that he was a lunatic mass-murdered (revisionist history, spinning off of how Poltergeist dealt with America being built on the blood of the Indians).

That's what I was thinking. Far less serial killer and more supernatural. If paranormal movies really take off in the absence of slashers, that is one way Craven could go - kind of a movie similar to Ringu but without the video tape.

 

[Magniac]

Unlike the modern teen-angst films like the Hunger Games and all the teen vampire movies, movies like the Friday 13th series and its countless variations were not about teen angst. They reflected adult paranoia, concerns and/or revenge fantasies aimed at the permissve (loose sex and drugs) attitudes of the dead teenagers.

A condemnation of John Carpenter et al as being a bunch of conservative culture warriors?

(And, not that I think it matters, but surely if the Freddy Krueger movies are a variation on the Halloween theme, then that's actually the ultimate teen angst series? Freaky deaky Jungian stuff galore. But as mentioned, that might as well be considered the next generation of popular horror.

Also, in bringing up Carrie before--which you took issue with?--I sort of missed a more important WI question: what if Stephen King's gothic Americana style actually achieves runnaway success on the big screen? We've been waiting for decades for all these film producers to rip him off wholesale, and yet it's never really happened.)

Fuck yeah someone else recognizing that Jaws 2 is the prototypical teen slasher.

I'd like to take credit for figuring that out myself after seeing the movie as a kid, but it was the London Timeout cinema guide that informed me about what the movie was up to.

But if they are following some kind of Kevin Williamson slasher movie formula, without having seen Halloween (released four months later than their production!), then it seems like something that was ripe to take off.

That's what I was thinking. Far less serial killer and more supernatural.

Far less serial killers in the era of fun Hollywood video nasties, sure--but the morbidly straight serial killer genre shouldn't be effected much in this TL. Cruising, 'Henry', the Thomas Harris adaptions, they came out of highbrow exploitation, with a bit of true European mondo trash influence thrown in.

 

[SLCer]

Far less serial killers in the era of fun Hollywood video nasties, sure--but the morbidly straight serial killer genre shouldn't be effected much in this TL. Cruising, 'Henry', the Thomas Harris adaptions, they came out of highbrow exploitation, with a bit of true European mondo trash influence thrown in.

Right. I guess I should have said 'far less supernatural serial killer and just more supernatural'.

Don't forget Deliberate Stranger, a fantastic made-for-tv movie from 1986 on Ted Bundy (though, definitely more mind compared to other sadistic serial killer films from that era).

 

[Romantic Nihilist]

I can see a rise in movies based on actual serial killers rather than the masked-villain-knife-screaming girl stereotype.

This could cause more trouble with censorship if it cuts too close to home with real life incidents.

 

[spiderduck1997]

Fun fact: even a mainstream 'soft horror' movie like Jaws 2 was using the teen-sexytime-goes-bad trope in 1978![/QUOTE]
The shark in Jaws 2 sorta seemed like a substitute for Jason Voorhees.

 

[AudieonAHCom]

Well,no.

The Slasher genre will continue,albeit we WON'T have the "resurgence" popularized by Scream(since Scream is heavily inspired by Halloween)

Since remember. We still have the Original TCM to kickstart things,not to mention Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street DIDN'T cash in or-made to jump to the Slasher wagon.

 

[spiderduck1997]

We still have Black Christmas, The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit on Your Grave, and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And the foundations were laid as early as Psycho and The Birds.

It was Steam Engine Time for the Slasher subgenre.

I watched Black Christmas last night for the first time, and I thought it was one hell of a film. I personally don't think there would be much of a slasher genre without Halloween.

 

[AudieonAHCom]

I watched Black Christmas last night for the first time, and I thought it was one hell of a film. I personally don't think there would be much of a slasher genre without Halloween.

Here.

Halloween establishes the "lumbering mysterious masked dude with a pointy weapon who stalks you and kills you cleanly" type-of slasher villain,and the "Teen Scream Girl" hero.

Now.

Without halloween? Slasher movie genre will take a different turn. The Villains will be more "exposing their Identity(Such as Chucky,Leatherface,Sergeant Matt Cordell)",not being a masked villain.

 

[phx1138]

(At risk of necro...tho considering the subject...)

Two other things should probably be said. One, if supernatural influence is the way it goes, can you imagine Wes Craven doing "The Fog"?


And the ending of "Fatal Attraction" is going to be way, way less predictable... (Did anybody not know she wasn't dead?)