In: Mass Media and Society edited by A. Wells and E.A. Hakanen. 1997. Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing

Horror films began in the 1930’s with the release of Dracula and Frankenstein. Like modern-day slasher films, early horror films were made to attract large audiences by promising to scare them. The formula of these films worked; they became extremely popular with the public. Unlike the original horror films, slasher films use graphic violence and sexual titillation to attract audiences. To examine why the content of slasher films has changed so much from the early horror movies, we need to look briefly at the history of movies made to frighten people.

The commercial success of movies like Dracula was actually short lived; by the late 1940’s the novelty of these types of films had worn off. After World War II, movie producers changed the object of the terror from zombies, werewolves and mummies to mammoth insects and alien beings. These science fiction horror films appealed to the public because they vented fears of nuclear war and expressed a general mistrust of science and technology.

In the 1950’s the old Hollywood studio system was in decline at the same time American society was experiencing important lifestyle changes. The motion picture industry was irrevocably altered by television and teens. Television quickly grew to challenge movies as a source of entertainment for the mass audience. And foremost among the changes that would influence the production of horror films was the rise of a separate teen culture. Teenagers had money and leisure time; they soon became the core of Hollywood’s audience. Film producers recognized the enormous potential market for "exploitation teenpics."

The 1957 movie The Curse of Frankenstein shocked audiences by showing blood and gore in color; teenagers loved it. Hollywood responded with a series of "horror teenpics." Most were made by independent filmmakers with relatively small budgets.

Herschell Gordon Lewis, the self-proclaimed "guru of gore," invented the "gore film" in 1963 with the release of Blood Feast. Made in four days and costing $24,000, Blood Feast differed from other horror teenpics in that it featured the stalking and mutilation of beautiful women. Lewis went on to use this successful formula to make movies such as 2000 Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red and The Gruesome Twosome. In these movies, and others like it, the main attraction was scenes showing young, good-looking females being tortured and killed.

As years passed, young audiences required that gruesome images become more intense and explicit for them to become scared. Advances in special effects allowed movie-makers to satisfy viewers’ insatiable appetites for dismemberment and blood. Some of these movies became much more commercially successful than others and have since reached cult status. Notable examples include Night of the Living Dead (1968) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). In 1978, a movie called Halloween not only sold more tickets than any other horror film, it broke all previous box-office records for any type of film made by an independent production company.

Hollywood immediately tried to tap into the success of Halloween. Films such as Friday the 13th, Don’t Go In the House, Prom Night, Terror Train, He Knows You’re Alone, and Don’t Answer the Phone were all released in 1980. All hoped to imitate the profits of Halloween. These movies, which are some of the first slasher films, were extremely successful. However, with their increasing popularity came strong criticism. Slasher films were condemned for frequently portraying vicious attacks against mostly females and for mixing sex scenes with violent acts.

Criticisms of Slasher Films

One condemnation of slasher movies is the widely-held view that they single out women for injury and death. For example, a Los Angeles Times film critic claimed that the "brutal victimization of women (is) a recurring and obviously popular theme in such films" (Broeske, 1984, p. 19). During the ABC news show Nightline, correspondent Gail Harris summed up slasher films as "short on plot and long on brutality and violence, much of it sexual, almost all of it directed at women" (cited in Meyer, 1988). Film critics Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert made similar claims on their television program Sneak Previews. This assumption about the content of slasher films has also been made by social scientists who have investigated what negative effects these films might have on audiences. For example, Daniel Linz and Edward Donnerstein have consistently stated that "the victims are nearly always female" in research studies they have published on slasher films (e.g., Linz, Donnerstein & Penrod, 1984).

Slasher films have also been criticized for mixing extreme violence with sex. For example, a New York Times film critic has written that the violence in slasher films is "usually preceded by some sort of erotic prelude: footage of pretty young bodies in the shower, or teens changing into nighties for the slumber party, or anything that otherwise lulls the audience into a mildly sensual mood" (Maslin, 1982, p. 13). Again, Linz and Donnerstein have shared this perception with the film critics. They have reported that slasher films often include the mutilation of women in scenes that include sexual content. It is important to know whether slasher films often portray sexual aggression. Some have claimed that mixing erotic and violent scenes causes viewers, especially males, to associate sex with aggression in their everyday lives.

Testing the Claims Made About Slasher Films

How do we know whether slasher films do portray females as victims of violence more often or repeatedly have scenes where sex is shown right before or during violence? One method of answering such questions is to take a sample of films, carefully watch them, and keep track of how many times certain events happen in each of the films viewed. This research method is called "content analysis." At least three content analyses have taken samples of slasher films and recorded whether each act of violence portrayed was performed against a male or a female character, and the number of times some type of violent behavior occurred right after or during a scene containing some element of sexuality.

Cowan and O'Brien (1990) randomly selected 56 horror movies from local video outlets and content analyzed each movie to test the assumption that females suffer most in slasher films. These researchers found no significant differences between the number of male and female victims in the sample of films. The same result was found by Weaver (1991) who examined the 10 slasher films with the highest box-office earnings through 1987. Molitor and Sapolsky (1993) content analyzed 30 slasher films, 10 films released in 1980, 1985 and 1989. Females were found to be no more often the victims of violence than were males. These three studies, which looked at a total of 83 different slasher films all found that, contrary to popular beliefs, females are not singled out for attack in such films.

The three content analyses found that as many males were portrayed as victims as were females, but possibly more acts of violence were being committed against females. Molitor and Sapolsky looked at the number of violent acts committed against victims. Males were found to suffer more acts of violence than did females. This finding provides further evidence which contradicts claims that females are more often the recipients of brutality in slasher films.

Molitor and Sapolsky also recorded the number of seconds male and female victims in slasher films were seen in terror, scared for their lives. Females were found to be shown in fear significantly longer than were males. The average amount of time males were seen in fear per film was under two minutes; females were seen in terror over nine minutes in the average slasher film. Thus, the portrayal of fear is one form of victimization wherein females have clearly received more attention. We will return to this point later in examining the "Final Girl."

A second, important assumption made about the content of slasher films is that violence is connected to sex. In addition to keeping track of the number of males and females killed in the sampled slasher films, each content analysis noted whether acts of violence occurred during or after sexual or erotic images. The three content analyses found that scenes where sex is mixed with a female’s death only occur about one time per film. Of course, murder is only one form of violence seen in slasher films. For example, a victim could be stabbed, shot or punched, and still not die. Molitor and Sapolsky found only two instances of major injury during or after a sexual display in the 30 films they examined.

The three content analyses also found that acts of sexual aggression are not commonly portrayed in slasher films. Cowan and O'Brien found less than one portrayal of "forced sex" in the 56 films they examined. Weaver reports two scenes of sadomasochism as the only depictions of sexual violence in 10 slasher films. In the 30 films viewed by Molitor and Sapolsky, five occurrences of rape were observed, along with 19 instances involving a female forced to kiss and/or endure fondling against her will. Given these findings, and the rare instances wherein a female is killed during or after a sexual situation, it can be concluded that the oft-repeated claim that sex and violence are frequently linked in slasher films is unfounded.

Sadistic Violence

Content analyses have helped to clear up misconceptions about the images of violence and sex in slasher films. Results have shown that men suffer as often as do women, maybe more, and that when sexual images are seen, they rarely take place before or during an act of violence. There is an additional assumption made about the content of slasher films - that they contain acts of extreme violence which are portrayed in graphic detail. To ascertain the level of brutality in slasher films, Molitor and Sapolsky (1993) categorized the various types of violent acts occurring in their set of 30 films. They found an average of more than 50 aggressive acts per film. One in four assaults was judged to be "extreme" - stabbing resulting in a major injury or death, burning, dismemberment, beheading and bludgeoning. Clearly, slasher films provide viewers with a heavy dose of extreme brutality and sadistic victimization.

Trends in Slasher Violence

Have the complaints about the violent content and impact of slasher films led producers to alter the level of violence in such entertainment? Molitor and Sapolsky’s study provides a glimpse at changing levels of victimization across three years: 1980, 1985 and 1989. When innocent victims of violence are considered, the number of violent acts against males increased across the three years; in contrast, injury and death decreased for females. Thus, across the decade males had to endure a greater share of the brutality as producers toned down their attacks against females.

The Final Girl

Content analyses provide consistent evidence that females are not the predominant victims in slasher films. While attention has been paid to critics who have claimed that females are inordinately victimized, less attention has been given to those who focus on the female as survivor, hero and victor. Figurative analyses have examined the sex-gender system in slasher films; of particular relevance here is the "girl-victim-hero." Clover (1992) refers to the surviving female in slasher films as the "final girl":

Summary

Slasher films are an outgrowth of "gore" cinema, a 1960’s genre of teenpics that featured the gross-out butchering and eating of human flesh. Slasher films, referred to by some critics as "women-in-danger" or "violence-to-women" films, have been blasted for disproportionately showing vicious attacks on women, linking images of violence to sex, and dwelling on extreme brutality augmented by often remarkable special effects.

Analyses of many slasher films have called into question some of the assumptions made about their content. Females have not been found to be the primary victims. Moreover, the pairing of sex and violence is rare. However, slasher films do display a substantial level of extreme violence.

What are the consequences of these findings? Social scientists have expressed concern over the negative effects that slasher films may have on audiences. In particular, exposure to scenes that mix sex and violence is believed to dull males’ emotional reactions to filmed violence, and males are less disturbed by images of extreme violence aimed at women (Linz, Donnerstein & Adams, 1989). These effects on male viewers are said to derive from "classical conditioning": Arousal from sexual images is classically conditioned to subsequent violent scenes. However, the finding that slasher films only infrequently pair sex and violence calls this explanation into question. If arousing sexual portrayals rarely occur in conjunction with violence, then conditioning is not likely to occur.

The concern over potential negative effects of exposure to slasher films remains. Possibly, depictions of violence directed at women as well as the substantial amount of screen time in which women are shown in terror may reduce male viewers’ anxiety. Lowered anxiety reduce males’ responses to subsequently-viewed violence, including violence directed at women. Accordingly, the desensitizing effects of slasher films may result from a form of "extinction" and not from classical conditioning.

The heyday of slasher films has come and gone. Producers continue to search for new blends of death and mayhem to entertain and scare young audiences. It remains to be seen how far filmmakers will go to achieve these effects, and how audiences will react to what will no doubt be new levels of explicitness, deviance, and gore.

Broeske, P. H. (1984, September 2). Killing is alive and well in Hollywood. Los Angeles Times. pp. 19-22.

Clover, C.J. (1992). Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Cowan, G. & O’Brien, M. (1990). Gender and survival vs. death in slasher films: A content analysis. Sex Roles, 23, 187-196.

Linz, D., Donnerstein, E., & Adams, S.M. (1989). Physiological desensitization and judgments about female victims of violence. Human Communication Research, 15, 509-522.

Linz, D., Donnerstein, E., & Penrod, S. (1984). The effects of multiple exposures to filmed violence against women. Journal of Communication, 34, 130-147.

Maslin, J. (1981, November 1). Tired blood claims the horror film as a fresh victim. New York Times, section 2, pp. 15, 23.

Meyer, M. (1988, March). Keeping a lid on gore and sex. Video Magazine, pp. 75-76.

Molitor, F. & Sapolsky, B.S. (1993). Sex, violence and victimization in slasher films. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 37, 233-242.

Weaver, J.B., III (1991). Are "slasher" horror films sexually violent? A content analysis. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 35, 385-392.