Daily Archives: October 17, 2024

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (4) Slasher Horror

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2010 film poster

 

(4) SLASHER HORROR

 

“Here, we can see a slasher movie killer in their natural habitat, stalking the final girl.”

I tend to prefer other sub-genres of horror to slasher horror but the latter is so iconic of the horror film genre in general that I have to rank it in my S-tier or god-tier special mentions, particularly with the iconic visual design of their slashers.

Also, like zombie horror films, they have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own top ten list many times over just for their themes, tropes and types, as well as by iconic slasher.

Interestingly, on the subject of type, according to Wikipedia “the slasher canon can be divided into three eras: the classical (1974–1993), the self-referential (1994–2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2000–2013)”.

Given my preference for supernatural (or SF) horror, I tend to prefer the more supernatural slashers. More overtly supernatural slashers that is, as all slashers tend towards supernatural – at least in terms of their superhuman ability to, well, slash, stalk, and all other ancillary abilities associated with them.

It’s like the film Taken – slashers tend to have a very particular set of skills. Hmm…now there’s a story idea concept, Taken as slasher film (or vice versa from the slasher’s perspective).

“The killers, mostly driven by revenge, are also typically somewhat made of iron, at a minimum, and frequently implacable to boot. Slashers prefer melee weapons that let them get up close and personal with their victims and almost never use firearms. Many are borderline (or explicitly) supernatural, having the ability to appear and disappear as if by magic. The corpses of their victims tend to be equally elusive; a slasher killer can whisk away a fully-grown adult’s body in seconds, leaving not a single drop of blood behind, or swiftly arrange all their victims into an elaborate tableau, without ever being seen lugging the dead bodies around”.

Anyway, here’s my Top 10 Slasher Films (and their iconic slashers) on the spot.

 

1 – WES CRAVEN – NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (FREDDY KRUEGER)

 

My favorite slasher film franchise – the combination of slasher horror with supernatural dream-haunting demon is hard to beat. Wes Craven has also proved one of the more capable directors as creators of slasher horror (and horror in general)

While iconic, Freddy is not the most iconic slasher – that title has to go to the duo of my next two entries

 

2 – JOHN CARPENTER – HALLOWEEN (MICHAEL MYERS)

 

That iconic William Shatner mask. And hello again, Mr Carpenter.

 

3 – FRIDAY THE 13TH (JASON VORHEES)

 

That iconic hockey mask

 

4 – TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (LEATHERFACE)

 

Title says it all really – as does the slasher’s nom de slash.

 

5 – WES CRAVEN – SCREAM (GHOSTFACE)

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. Yeah – we’re very much in the self-referential phase of slasher canon here, with Scream as its definitive franchise

 

6 – CHILD’S PLAY (CHUCKY)

 

If a dream-demon like Freddy Kreuger can be a slasher, why not a possessed doll. Well, apart from the size thing, which makes Chucky a little hard to take seriously – hence why he’s not in the top iconic slashers

 

7 – WES CRAVEN – THE HILLS HAVE EYES

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. I’ll rank this here – namely because of the lack of a similarly iconic slasher among its hillbilly mutant cannibal tribe (and also because said tribe strays somewhat from the archetypal slasher film)

 

8 – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

 

A distant second to the Scream franchise as representative of the self-referential phase of slasher canon – also that hook guy just doesn’t have the same iconic status or visual design as the top slashers

 

9 – SAW

 

Yes – less slasher and more torture p0rn but I’m still ranking it here as close enough, if only for the iconic puppet used by the killer.

 

10 – WOLF CREEK

 

Australian slasher horror!

 

HONORABLE MENTION

 

PSYCHO

 

Precursor and inspiration for slasher horror – it also gives us an iconic horror figure with Norman Bates

 

THE HITCHER

 

As I rank it in my Top 10 Horror Films and it definitely overlaps with slasher horror, I have to give it a shout out here.

 

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS & AMERICAN PSYCHO

Two of the most (in)famous serial killers in cinema – Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman – influenced and an influence on slasher horror films, although they obviously depart from the slasher archetype in a number of ways.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (2) Best: Trajan

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

 

(2) BEST: TRAJAN –

NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(98 -117 AD: 19 YEARS 6 MONTHS 10/14 DAYS)

 

The Optimus Prime of Roman emperors. No, really, as in the Senate gave him the title of Optimus or Optimus Princeps, “the best” or “the best emperor”, one of the two benchmarks or gold standards invoked by the Senate for every new emperor thereafter, wishing them to be better than Trajan…but none were (with the possible exception of Aurelian). A little like Jedi wishing may the Force be with you.

Everybody loved Trajan. The army, with whom he was popular as he had distinguished himself in military campaigns against the Germanic tribes. The Praetorian Guard, whose revolt had forced his predecessor Nerva to adopt him as heir and successor. The people. The Senate, who deified him after his death, and as I said, invoked him thereafter for new emperors.

“As an emperor, Trajan’s reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived 19 centuries.”

“Even Christian historians saw him as a virtuous pagan, among other things for not persecuting them too hard during his reign (Catholic tradition holds that Pope Gregory I briefly raised Trajan from the dead in order to convert him). He is immortalized in Heaven in The Divine Comedy”.

He was a successful soldier-emperor, who took the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent by the time of his death – a greater area is argued on occasion for Septimus Severus, although that is not clear and just extended worthlessly further into the Saharan desert at most.

Famously, he extended the empire by the conquest of Dacia in his wars against it, and by his annexation of Mesopotamia, Armenia and Assyria as Roman provinces in his war against the Parthian Empire. Less famously, he seems to have quickly and quietly annexed the Arabian client kingdom of Nabataea, possibly because they were just signed up from his pure awesomeness because little else is recorded of it.

And his general Quietus suppressed a widespread revolt by the Jews in the eastern provinces that henceforth bore an adaptation of the name Quietus – the Kitos War, yet another of those recurring revolts by the Jews against the empire before Hadrian wiped Judaea and Jerusalem from the map.

It wasn’t just all conquest or war – he was also a philanthropic ruler, albeit at some cost in debasing the currency. He oversaw prolific building projects and social welfare policies.

May Trojan’s force be with you, indeed.

 

EMPIRE-MAKER

 

Making the Roman Empire to its greatest extent.

 

MAXIMUS

 

Germanicus, Dacicus, Parthicus – and of course, Optimus or best

 

DEIFIED

 

By the gods and divine Trajan, yes!

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

The chad-est of the five chad emperors – and as Dovahhatty laments, “it’s all downhill from here”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)