October 27, 2025 • 47 mins
Features and Buz Hasson dive headfirst into the bloody world of horror as Buz counts down his Top 5 Slasher Characters of all time! From the classics that defined the genre to the deep cuts only real horror fans know, the guys break down what makes these killers so iconic — the masks, the motives, and of course, the mayhem. Whether you’re Team Freddy, Jason, or Ghostface, this list is going to stir up some debate.
Let us know YOUR favorite slasher in the comments, and don’t forget to like, subscribe, and check out That Comic Podcast for more horror, comics, and pop culture chaos!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Right comic podcast. All raight, what's.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Buzz You missed that?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Chainsaw eh Man?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Listen. I'm glad to be on with you night. And
we're doing and I like this idea because you are
the horror officionado and I knew you and John had
did the uh you did? Yeah, you guys did the
last show where you talked about your top five zombies, right,
(00:39):
and tonight we're doing your top five slashers, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, And it's tough to do a top five, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm gonna tell you, like, as soon as you start
putting it together, it immediately goes past five and you
have to tailor it back because you know it's the
top five. So we're getting down to the course that
matters the most. This is maybe not everyone's favorite, maybe
not everyone's personal picks, but we're looking at elements around
(01:08):
the subject matter, which is slashers today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Honestly, I think I actually prefer slasher flicks when it
comes to horror, just because it's it's it's I think
it was probably the first kind of horror film I
was introduced to.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense, So.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
All right, I'm gonna be quiet for a moment. I'm
gonna let you take your fears. I'll you know, I'll
jump in.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely well out of curiosity, Like, what was
the first slasher movie that you've ever seen?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The very first slasher movie I remember, I want to
say it was Halloween. Okay, it had to be Halloween,
because I honestly, I don't think I've ever been more
afraid of Captain Kirk's face, right, failed out like that.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The classic.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You know, I saw a video of them making that.
How they make like so one of the camera guy's
name is Tommy Lee Wallace. Tommy Lee Wallace is the
direct of the original IT movies or TV series It
became a movie. But Tommy Woods did a video and
how he made the Michael Myers mask because it asks
for the characters called the shape, right, Okay, yeah, yeah,
(02:13):
it's not so much as Michael Myers. It's supposed to
be like the soulless, lifeless thing. So, you know, the
Shatner mask was popular at the time in seventy eight,
being like a Star Trek collectible from Don Pos Studios,
and so they took one and ripped off the sideburns
spray spray hair sprayed the hair back and then hit
the face, hit the face like with white, just kind
(02:34):
of casting it and so you still see some flesh
kind of around the sides and stuff. And that was
how they made it. The goal was to make this
mask that was unidentifiable, like faceless human, if you will.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And I don't even.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Think that like the whole Captain Kirk thing was like
a big deal at the time for using it, Like really,
no one caught onto that till like way later, and
I do fro won't I understand? Wayiam Shatner is pretty honored,
would be, Yeah, yeah, he is a he's a guy
that likes that stuff. So pretty cool, pretty cool factoid.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That is a pretty cool thing because I never knew
that that's how it worked. Monest scenes been.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it's a very low budget movie, Halloween, and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You know, they were kind of just working on the
floe they had and it happened to catch a wave
that you know, audiences responded to. And it's on the
list and we'll get to it list the top fivers.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yes, Now, now this this list, would you say, is
it's your personal or like a like a it's your
personal list, But I think a general list that you
think a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, it's got some of my you know, it's got
stuff on there that I can't deny, you know, personally,
would have to be a pick. Yeah. You know, my
tastes change as new stuff comes and goes, and there's
stuff that's hot right now and stuff that used to
be hot, and somebody is making something right now we
haven't seen yet that's.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Gonna be hot next.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But I picked these guys because I felt like these
five are the number one contributing slasher movies, slash franchise,
no pun intended, you know what I mean. So there's
like these there's like these super knots of slashers that
are undeniable, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Okay, top five starts you want me to start, We'll
go with five.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Would woll Do we want to start one or do
you know, let's start let's start from the let's start
from five.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, that's what I think that we build up to it.
So yeah, top five Number five for me. Coming in
at five for me was Scream with ghost Face, and
a lot of people would put him as number one
with the current trends and things like that. Okay, I
have him at five because it's Wes Craven, and he
(04:46):
is reinventing a genre that he already contributed to, which
we'll get into later. So he's coming back around for
like a second, a second serving, if you will, by
not quite lampooning a genre he got famous in for
another film we'll talk about, but sort of reinventing the genre.
When Scream came out in ninety six, the slasher had
(05:07):
died off, and so Scream reinvigorated a slasher genre. It
even took me a while to as much as I
loved the first movie, mm hmm, it took me a
while to accept that this guy was just this ghost
faced guy was just.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Gonna keep coming back. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Like I knew my other slashers and I was very
comfortable with them. And it wasn't that I wasn't open
or to a new slasher as much as it was like,
all right, well that was really good. Okay, you got
me on that, and you're and we talk about We're
gonna talk about tropes a lot this whole time, things
that are constantly reused in slasher films, and Scream gives
you almost all the tropes.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I think that's probably what may Scream. That's what pushed
Scream too. And I get the list. It was Scream
at the five. I totally understand that. And is it
because though they do list all the tropes in the
film as the.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Film is, I pick, I picked a Scream because A
it's still happening, still arounds, hanging on, you know that culture.
B It reinvigorated a culture that had already done well.
So it's responsible for bringing the Slashers back. So it
has to be in the list, okay, you know, and
you can dice out what what numbers you like if
(06:20):
you're like one, two, you know, three is kind of kooky.
And then they get into the other stuff. And then
they're rebooting it and they got some new stuff coming,
which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
But and you can see him, he's in the background
right there. But uh yeah, so they get on the
list for reinventing the genre. They get on the list
because they're still hanging around, they've got the longevity, and
they pick up on something we're going to talk about
often is this element of the black cloaked figure, This
this figure that is you don't know who it is,
(06:50):
you can't tell who it is, and everything you think
you know who it is, it's not that person. And
these are elements that come from the slasher genre. The
slasher genre sort of originates in Italian Giallo movies. I
know I sent you some links to the stuff. Yes,
Mario Bava is a great director in thatline, Dario Argento Giallo.
(07:12):
Just not to get too off topic on the list,
but Gilo I'm going to keep bringing up because it
is in a sixties Italian film style, using all the
tropes in slashers. First, dramatic kills, over the top, blood,
over the top, barbaric weapons, like they're bare hands.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
The killers are usually gloved with black gloves.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You don't know who they are, faceless in a mask
of some kind there, And if you go through a
lot of the Giallo stuff, it's like it's almost his
own genre, pre dating the slashers that are on our list.
So I wanted to bring up Gallo films for that reason.
There's a great one called Blood and Black Lace.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yes, I watched that trailer.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a great one.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Lots of great colors, dramatic kills, the beautiful one is
always like the victim.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, it could be one woman, it can be multiple women.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You'll think you'll know who the killer is and then
you'll find out that that person got killed. So the
Gallo style, they have crazy names for their movies and stuff,
and a lot of I know, our audience and stuff
is unfamiliar with that stuff. So if you're looking for
throwback slashers to sort of visit, they're all available for streaming.
Just look up Gallo film.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I think I think one that that people might be
more familiar with that that you sent me was it
was probably Black Christmas, because that did have a rebu.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Right, Yeah, and and thanks for bringing that up, because
the Gallo genre and Black Christmas are my two of
my three honorable mentions on the list. Nice you can't
deny them. Black Christmas is disturbing as all get out.
It's the first time you're getting POV of this of
(08:52):
the killer, the first movie to really sort of do that.
A lot of other times it would be camera pans
and someone's in the whist silhouette in the window, but
here we are in Black Christmas. They're in a sorority.
There's someone living in the attic. They have no idea
they're there, and they're calling them from inside the house,
you know, and you're seeing the camera is playing as
(09:15):
the stalker. The killer in Black Christmas is he is
the camera, so he's like watching them, you know, through
their closets and bedrooms and things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Hey, you know what, I think that kind of that
style is it makes the movie a little bit more
creepy because you as the audience are now like seeing
things happen through that you're doing. You're the killer at
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, it's not outside of the situation, You're inside of
the situation. And Black Christmas is really the first movie
that sort of does that for us. It's from like
the seventies and it puts you in the seat of
the killer and the victim at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And very disturbing film.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So definitely I must see if you're a slasher fan
you haven't seen it yet, and not the remake. The
remake is horrible. Make sure you catch out the original
Black Christmas Us.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You know what. Honestly, I think the original, especially when
I was watching the trailer, I was like, yeah, this
is kind of creepy. Like granted, like watching it now
because I'm so inundated with like CG effects and all,
you know, the movie itself is going to look like, uh.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's dated, Yeah, has dated look to it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It looks dated. But the creepy factor of it like
is one hundred yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes, the prefect run and then the noises excuse me
in the phone. He's using the phone the call, so
it's like ghost Face also using the thing to change
the voice. Yes, like you know, there's probably you know,
I hate to say that there's probably no original slasher
film because they're all kind of using what the one
before it did. You know, the directors who are making
these slasher films are fans of these other films we're
(10:44):
talking about. Yeah, that stuff, man, but can't can't say
enough good things about the giallo genre and Black Christmas.
And before we get into number four, I will say
that it did not make the list because a lot
of audiences today don't know about it, so it would
be almost pointless. What don't forget the advent of Psycho
and Alfred Hitchcock, the famous shower scene. So I want
(11:08):
to just honorable mention, honorble mentioned. Psycho has to make
the list for aniable mentions. It's the first one in
an American audience that really was like you know, makes
you feel kind of a certain type of way. Yeah,
that sort of killer.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yes, Psycho was crazy though, Like, yeah, that is a
good one. But I can understand why it's honorable mentioned though.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Honorable mention. Yeah, I wanted to put them in there,
and it's a little bit out of order, but they're
they're they're going to help us figure out why these
other ones are here. The number moving on the number four,
I cannot leave him out at all, but I've got
to put in the Texas Chainsaw massacre as number four.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Now it doesn't have a ton of copycats.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
One of the things I'm going to get into later
on the list is taking from you know, we've just
got done talking about taking from the other genres, kind
of using some of the tropes again, right, and you know,
on it, Texas Chainsaw does something still to this day
of incredibly unique. Is it makes it like the grindhouse gritty,
You're it's real, you feel like it could really happen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, And the.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Storyline, you know, is taking from cultural lore, taking from
the edgen you know, Psycho took from ed Geen as well,
and Chainsaw, Texas Chainsaw is doing something that there's not
even like a ton of blood in it, you know
what I mean, It's mostly like this visceral real world scenario, right.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
People lost on the road, looking for help.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Now stranded.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
If you don't mind me asking, Uh, was Texas Chainsaw
Mask like one of the first films to kind of
like use like in real life lore like that, Well.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Psycho was using reflections of like the ed Geen stuff
where you know, he's keeping dead people in the house
and you know, he, like I believe ed Gane Like's mother,
He kept mother in the house like when she died,
and like that's kind of what what's his name Hitchcock
was doing with the Psycho Killer is you know the mom,
(13:09):
the mom he's dressing up as the mother to be
the killer. It's yeah, getting bizarre, you know what I mean.
Like these bizarre murders in American history absolutely influence these
kinds of movies. So yeah, you know, Texas Chainsaw is
taking from like cultural historic stuff. And I mean even
the intro of the movie it talks about how it
(13:30):
was like a real event and the kids were like
traumatized from it and like they were never seen again,
and then the movie starts. You know what I mean
you're getting that based on a true story. Yeah, visceral
like docu style, like you have no idea what you're
about to see kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But if I'm not mistaken, I do believe that when
it first came out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Some people thought it was real. They they were just
that's the power of movies.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, No, cap, I thought Texas Chainsaw was real. I
guess like, I don't think I'll ever drive down there.
No road trips for me, right.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Right, Let me stay out of Texas. Moving on to
number three. I you know, some of my first experiences
with Slashers was Nightmare on Elm Street.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Not not the first one, but the third one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So I'm coming in late, you know, as okay, seeing
the merchandising around this character as he becomes popular and
mixing again like horror with humor, like we talked about
in some of the zombie stuff. Yeah, Nightmare Elm Street
is number three on there for me because I feel
like it's got the most uh sequels and expansive of
(14:39):
the universe. I feel like it. I feel like it
merchandised itself. First, it was like people really fell in
love with you know when you talk about Slashers, you're
talking about the killer becoming the star of the movie.
You know, yeah, the final girl is absolutely the star,
but the killer haphazardly and the cultural movement becomes the
(15:00):
are the movie. People are getting them tattooed and they're
on their clothes.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So yeah, you know with Nightmare, Freddy Krueger another you know,
sort of visceral character, kind of getting at you in
your dream space, like he's kind of unkillable. It's the
idea of him that's fearful, not so much like this
physical thing you have to like outrun, right, But yeah,
I mean what started off Wes Craven you know who
(15:25):
did Scream is he gives this name right Elm Street,
with this visceral backstory about who this guy was in
real life and how just terrible he becomes in his death,
if you will, like in afterlife supernatural.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So with spawning such.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
A cavalclade of like sequels and spin off stuff, yeah,
he had Freddie had to be on the list people
did this day. I mean Rick and Morty your lampooning
the character, and I mean every kid who's never seen
the movie knows about the guys with the n and
the guy with the knives on his fingers. Like, so
this list is made up of what culturally like it
(16:01):
has held on.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You know, like like these are these are out It
sounds like to me like these are the goats of horror.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
These are the goats, you know, and there are a
lot of goats of horror. So I have to say again,
like if you're mad at me, let's talk in the comments,
because like this is me sort of just trying to
steal it down to the best spices in the spice rack.
Every spice is valuable, you know what I mean. But
this I got, I got five spices to pick. Man,
Like there's fifty spices like I get you know, you
(16:28):
only get five here. But yeah, Nightmare, You've got the marketing,
you've got the visceral feel, you've got the real world setting.
And then you know, it gets more extravagant as the
movies go on and and and it takes something that
probably wasn't intended to do so well, and it's like,
all right, now we've got this whole universe, right, And
you know, Robert England playing the character as the veteran
(16:51):
Freddy Krueger goes so far from two to three four.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know, some of them are as good as others.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
But yeah, I to me, I think my favorite one was,
uh probably Freddy's Dead.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, Freddie's Dead's wild. That's a wild one. A bunch
of you know, weird characters in that one too, And
that's something you'll see a lot, you know in slashers
is sort of this like gallery of human characters that
represent like each walk of life that's like trending in
the culture.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
The hot girl, the innocent girl, the stud the geek.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yes, yeah, a lot of token characters every time. But
you know what, though, it plays true, and I think
that's probably why the there's like this kind of well
horror it staff itself has a mass, such a large
following of from people from all different walks of life,
because that's what happens in those films. You got these
this ragtag group of people like either they are all
(17:52):
friends or they somehow get lump together for some reason
and that night is tonight where things go grazy.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
You know. It's interesting because as this slasher genre blew
up through the eighties, we started to get late seventies
into the eighties, we started to get reasonable killers. It
was like, you know, you've got the campground stuff, you've
got the maniac redneck, You've got you know, psychos, right,
(18:20):
and then you get into you know, you know these
other things where they're starting to copy each other and
using you know, those those types of kids that were
like talking about, you know, now they're doing things like
you've seen in screen where those kids.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Sort of become the killers.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yes, so you've got like a killer, and then within
the group of like survivors, the killer might exist also,
and so it's almost like a double edged sword for
slashing in movies. Is now that like the concept of
the slasher has infect the group that's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Be like beating them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, Like none of the kids in Nightmare on Elm
Street really sort of ever became Freddy. He played with
the idea and their dreams that they would have to
glove on and sort of be affected by it. It
was all illusory playing all through fears where you know,
when you get into Scream, it's like, oh crap, like
this this character who I think is surviving the attacks
from ghosts face I found out the next scene was
(19:24):
wearing the damn mask. So you know, these are elements
again from Giallo stuff. They would do it in Giallo
a lot. When you watch this Giallo films, these Italian films,
it was like, you know this this you know female
lead gets killed and then you think it's this other
female lead and then later you find out that like
they've been killed and they're not the killer. And so
(19:44):
again the tropes, man, the tropes are what make the
slasher so so uh.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
A quick question about about Freddie itself, right, because it
seems like I and I understand like most of the
slasher flicks, flicks that we watch or consume now, is
it's it's a human man or person in the suit
mass covered.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, but Freddie was very different in the sense of
like they they made it a supernatural thing. And I
remember listening, I'm sure the first Nightmare on El Street
caused a lot of insomnia.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, it's still a very dark movie and bizarre how
he You know what I'll say about Freddy that I
think a lot of people miss and even I miss
it sometimes because it's such a character and I fall
into the character and what he's doing next, and you
I always sort of forget this. But he's really like
(20:40):
the slasher on my list that gets a backstory, you know,
like we're all sort of still waiting for a Jason backstory,
you know, and and and Rob Zombies. Halloweens gave us
way more backstory than anybody thought they'd ever get from Michael.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But yeah, Freddy is you know, son of a thousand
Maniacs is what they used to call him, or son
of ten thousand.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Mania something like that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The yeah, you know, like in an asylum. And so
you're getting like all this disturbing detail for what mating
like who he is, and it's like, you know that
I think the lore around him and the humor they
would have good soundtracks with popular bands at the time,
and then the merchandise in the marketing, and really just
the accessibility of Robert Embellishing the character is a guy
(21:28):
that doesn't want to take the makeup off at the
end of the movie and never be related to it.
This is the guy to this day who was getting
a Hollywood Star on the Walk of Fame on Halloweens
for his role. So, you know, kudos to mister England,
who is an amazing gentleman and so dedicated to the
character and the longevity and the lore and obviously it
(21:50):
means so much to him. So I think Freddy is
top three because becomes a cultural icon. He's crossing boundaries,
you know. I think he appeared in the in the
Goldbergs like a couple of years ago in one of
those characters like dreat like Robert England put.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The makeup back on, you know what I mean, Like, Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
He's crossing over you know. So, yeah, he's a heavy
hitter in that in that respect, but yeah, he gets
that backstory that you're not seeing. You're not really seeing
the backstory in Texas Chainsaw as much as it's just
kind of who they are, you know, it's just for
real people, and you're not getting a backstory so much
in screen because they keep changing it to keep you guessing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You know, you have some backstory, but to keep switching.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
So you know, Freddy's cool in that way that he's
You're getting so much more law for him, and you've
had a lot of time to do.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All that lore.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, and then it was the Glove and the Glove, right,
I think that put Freddy over the top. Definitely, that glove, That's.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
What I'm saying, Like in the Giallo's the weaponry was
always like a cleaver or a butcher knife or a scalpel,
you know what I mean, or a straight razor. So
that's the sixties, you know, like Night More, Hump Street's
the eighties. So twenty years later, you know, it's in
pots for Craven to not have been influenced by these,
like these murder movies from Italy as a young filmmaker
(23:08):
and then want to bring that stuff into his own character.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
So shout out the West because he did a truth.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
He did it twice. Yeah, he did it twice. You
know it's ironic. He very dedicated to the craft. But yeah, man,
moving into number two, you know, we're not gonna play around.
We're going right to Frida of the Thirteenth, who you know,
was the one of the first independent horror films to
get a wide screen release. So it made so much
money and establishes a new genre, you know, the campground killer.
(23:39):
You're getting your you're getting backstory, you know what I mean,
but you know, not like as much as Freddie, but
you're getting some backstory to kind of you know, motivate
the character. And it spawned like thirty knockoffs the next year,
like the next year, like all these movies came out.
I couldn't bother. I couldn't bother remember half of them?
You know, Uh, the Final Terror is one of them.
(24:02):
Is another great one. It's a campground killer. Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
You know it's a rare movie, but the VHS market
blows up.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
These movies do well in rental, and then you know,
it does so well that they're like everyone's like, we
need we need a campground, we need a wooded area killer,
we need a camping murderer thing. And then you get
like sleep Away Camp which spawned like three or four movies.
And so you know Friday thirteenth, number two, Jason, you
know you didn't wear the hockey mask in the first one.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
The moms the killer in the first one.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The second one he's got the pillowcase over his head,
and then the third one you get the hockey mask.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But you know, I.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Think he needs Nightmare because the hockey mask is still
to this day, it's like the Supermans. As soon as
you see a hockey mask, you're thinking, Jason, you're not
thinking actual hockey as a sport at all.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Mean, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It's another one where too, where anybody can put it
on and all of a sudden become like that you're Jason. Yeah.
Freddie particularly is a certain character. Sure, but you know
that hockey mask man, you know, you know, uh, Kane
Hodter is notorious for playing him the most. He's the
one that brought in the heavy breathing, you know, to
seem like he was like possessed. And uh, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Jason's one of my favorites because so many things have
been done with them.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You know, you get, you get all the way to
where you know, he's becoming almost a supernatural thing. And
like Jason goes to Hell, yes, and he goes to
space and part ten or x Jason x so and
and those are wacky takes. But I love the fact that, Okay,
we're just playing with the the unkillable evil that ken Yeah,
I mean back.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
You know what I mean, And you know what I
love that about Friday the thirteenth. As a matter of fact,
I have I have the whole digital box set and
I've watched the box set before. I love Friday the thirteenth.
I think my favorite one is Jason. Jason goes to Manhattan.
It takes Manhattan yeah, it takes my head. Yeah yeah,
and it's it was here's this what see? It was
(26:00):
a wake up call for me, uh because I used
to I used to always watch horror films be like,
why doesn't anybody ever try to fight back? Have we
just given up?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
That's the one where he's the fell what would roof?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And gets his head knocked off?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But you know it's funny because I remember seeing these
movies when they came out, and.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
That was the mindset.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The mindset the time was if were if you you know,
it's it's doing the walking dead thing, like what would
you do if you were in this scenario?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, you know kids.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Growing up in those times, in those late eighties, they're like, oh,
you know, I'd whip I'd whip his ass.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know I would do this. I didn't even think.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
It's like so everyone's sort of like he hasn't been killed,
We're already on part eight. He's unkillable, regenerating, and it's like,
all right, well, what who hasn't taken a shot at him?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You know what, he's.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Gonna hold onto a rudder, He's gonna go all the
way into the harbor from New Jersey out.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Of a lake. Okay, yeah, but yeah, it's awesome, dude.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That the ending of that, when he's in this tunnels
and the sewage goes and melts over me, it turns
into like the little kid. He's like all crying. It's
like he was just a boy, you know what I mean.
So it's fun to play with that character. I hope
we get some new stuff soon for him, because there
hasn't been anything new in a while.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But we're getting that new TV show.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I'll accept a new Friday the thirteenth, I think, uh,
I think one of the well a lot of people
didn't like this one remake, but I enjoyed it. It
was the one that showed him actually running at people
and I'm like, okay, he was top speed. Yeah yeah,
and I was like this, this is perfect. I needed
to see that because that was the other question, and
(27:33):
I think it was the I had that same question
for Michael Myers. It's like, all right, so if we're
going to run away and we noticed guy's just walking,
but why how do we not escape?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
How do I think?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
I know? I think the fast killer chasing you down
like is scary for sure, but the one that is
moving slow at you gives you time to sort of
witness your own demise. Yeah, you don't really have a
lot of time. I'm when you're hyper and running and
going crazy, it is intense and it's.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Visceral for the audience to watch.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
But the slow burn kill those the slow stalk toward
you sort of funneling you into a trap and you
can't get away. And sometimes they trip and fall and
unbeknounced like to whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Sometimes they just get to.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
A locked door. But it's like you're giving the viewer
and the final character time to kind of watch their
death creep up on them, which is sometimes more disturbing
than it just all being racing and fast right in
your face.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah. And you know what I thinking about it now
is like that is a little bit more menacing just
being walked down.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah. I mean I like them both, like they work
really well, you know. And I love Derek Mehers in
the two thousand and nine Friday thirteenth remake because he's
more brutal, kind of like what Rob Zombie did with
Michael Myers and his remake made it more brutal. There's
a great take on this stuff. But you know, going
back to like sort of those original tropes again, is.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That slow burn kill.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's like it kind of like you kind of you
watch the sort of like insanity build versus it just
all beating your face.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So this is interesting that you have Friday the thirteenth
at the two slot. So I think I know who
the the number one is.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It's gotta be Halloween man.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
And I'm curious why why Michael Myers over Jason Michael Myers.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Culturally it's that mask. They love that guy and that
I mean, I could watch tiktoks all day if people
freaking out in their car just seeing somebody shove in
the corner with the mask on man, and it's and
it's like, you know, Halloween in seventy eight, Carpenter does
something that we had not seen before. So yeah, you know,
(29:46):
well in American audiences because again he's a fan of
the Giallo stuff or the Giallo stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
How you pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So he's bringing that stuff that slow stalk, the mask killer,
using barbaric ways to kill peop, closing in on you slow,
you know what I mean, never finding out who it is,
you shoot it, it disappears, you know what I mean.
So the mystery the shadow element, the silence. There's like
(30:16):
nothingness to it. So it's like you want more, right,
you know, And you're watching you know, Laurie run through
the movie and just slowly go crazy, you know what
I mean. Yeah, the movie was only supposed to be
a one off, and so it's supposed to be a
spree killer sort of thing where it's like it was
random and there was gonna be no explanation for it.
And those are all tropes out of the Giallo stuff
(30:38):
is they don't always explain everything. They just lead you
down this demented corridor of like what could happen? And
you're now in it. And the movie obviously had so
much success that spawned a sequel and then a whole
generation of movies that go off on a tangent in
directions with the concept and get some go good, some
go bad. In my opinion, people are fans of all,
but it's got remakes now, So Halloween gets the first
(31:02):
one because of how much impact it had and how
much impact it's still having to this day. And you know,
Friday the thirteenth is sort of that annual thing. It's like, oh,
it's Friday the thirteenth. The date came up, you know
what I mean, So it brings it up. But Halloween,
you know, is coming every October, and these movies are
going to recirculate and we don't always need a new one.
Sometimes going back and watching the original is like just
(31:23):
as good, you know. And Halloween two, as an honorable mention,
expands the storyline and gives you more backstory on who
who he actually was and stuff like that, which is
kind of fun, but it wasn't necessary to do well
as a standalone, and.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, it bred a franchise.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It's also the first thing to do the steady cam,
so you're like watching, you know, the camera that kind
of follow the scene, whereas like Black Christmas.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
At the POV, which is like you are the killer
from the camera.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
So you know, there's these there's these things that it
brings in that you're you know, the steady cam is
now used in almost every horror movie as you pan
across a room or across a cabin or across the background.
So you know, they're doing things in with it again
to expand on the on the genre and also bring
in elements from the giallo stuff in the sixties that
(32:11):
the audience is watching Halloween don't know about because the
movies are more rare and kind of giving you like
an American take on them, which is what this entire
list is.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And you know what, when you when you talk about
like certain techniques that they brought from, like previous generations
of horror movies or directors, one of one of those
things I think, which really it makes like horror films
unsettling for me, is like there's this one trick that
I think I think Alfred Hitchcock started. It's using absolute silence,
(32:44):
so you can only like so by the time of
the actual unliving of HD person, you hear the the
you hear the life almost leave, you hear the footsteps,
you hear the gut stabs, and it's like, like you said,
very guttural and visceral. So as you're hearing, you're like,
oh my goodness, this is terrible, right.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny too, because like
when you look at big Blackbuster movies, there's so much
sound and effect and like it's like sensory overload, and
like those are cool, you know, I mean from Marvel,
I think when it comes to horror, you want to
play more on the senses, the natural senses. Yes, and
you've got eyes and you've got ears in front of
(33:25):
the movie, so why not use them? You know, surround sounds.
It sounds like it's coming from behind you. You know,
you need to play and the absence of something to
focus on can cause fear and anxiety because there's nothing
there that's capturing your attention. So seeing a kill and
shadow or seeing something that goes off screen into black
(33:47):
and you just hear the sound, you know, that's going
to make it more horrific. And Hitchcock used all those techniques.
It's gonna make it more horrific because your mind is
gonna fill the blank in more so than having to
see like the needle go in the eye or something
like that, you know, right, because don't get me wrong, Yeah,
don't get me wrong, Like those this oral visual kills
(34:11):
do more, you know what I mean, to the senses
of the viewer.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
But you don't need a whole.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Lot to you know, just Dracula's hands coming across in shadow.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's enough to make chills up your spine. So sometimes
less is more when it comes to the slasher genre.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know what, I believe that as well, and I
think I think when it comes to, like, you know,
the later movies enfranchise when it kind of gets a
little bit ridiculousness, because I think it's because they do
start adding a little bit too much to it.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, everyone's looking for a way to like reinvent it.
You know. I was gonna say earlier one of my
favorite slashers that didn't make the list, but I would
love to put it on. It is my Bloody Valentine
because it's like this you're using now the holidays, you
know what I mean. So you've got April Fool's Day
as another slasher movie. You've got New Year's Evil, which
(35:01):
is another slasher movie. You've got Silent Night Deadly Night,
which is the Christmas Killer, which, like people were so
appalled by that film that they mixed such a happy
holiday with like a killing, and it was like, yeah,
so Halloween and Friday the thirteenth really at our top
two slots. Spawned all these ideas that people were like,
(35:21):
what if we did this, and you're seeing it now
with Terrifier being like, what if people don't like clowns,
they don't like killers and slashers, Let's put it together
and make something like different for people. And now you've
got the clown slasher which is ripping his way through
the culture and sort of captivating audiences around the world,
you know, and twenty years and now I'll be interesting
(35:42):
to see, you know, how that fan base holds up
for that, for that character as well, because you know,
the Top five is made up of all those that
sort of like bent and bred the genre in a balkway.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Now, I have I have a question, and it has
to do not so much as with the Top five,
but slasher flicks in general. Right, I think I think
we can always have a new slasher flick, right, and
it can always be good. Would you say slasher flicks
maybe now more so depend on the slasher more so
(36:17):
than like the like the story itself, because like you said,
sometimes it's like they don't have to explain it, it's
just something happening.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Right, Yeah, I think you have to be careful because
you know, you can you can have a good idea
for a slasher and you can go out and do
it and they can just miss and fall flat.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And I think it has to.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Be centered around things like you're seeing it now with
like black phone and like all these other movies coming out,
you know, you know, because they're doing something that is
like I don't want to say new, but more timely
with where maybe like people are in the world, and
and like because that's the thing, Like there's a there's
(36:56):
a ton of horror movies where cell phones didn't exist,
so you could do a lot with that. And now
you've got you know, everyone's has the cell phone all
the time, and so that you have to consider that
now in like your story writing. And I don't necessarily
think it's a bad thing. I just think the landscape changes,
you know, and you know, obviously in Black Christmas, you know,
(37:16):
they're on a rotary phone and like the police are
less responsive.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, so you're just looking at the times there's the
slasher genre is here to stay and there's always going
to be a new way to do it. And you know,
I think there's so many I need to get caught
up on myself because I've spent so much time studying
these old ones that these new ones are piling in
and you're getting like interesting takes on stuff, and I
think it's it's all coming from the top five. But
(37:45):
I think you know, you can It's like mixing colors
together to make a new color, and the slasher genre
is sort of like an open canvas for doing that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
The tropes, it's all but the tropes. The tropes are there.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
One trope that will always make me mad and I
people in the comments if after you watch them you
get to this, put chime in, let me know what
you think. But when people fall in the chase scenes,
it really bothers me because sometimes there's nothing to actually triple.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Was tied together? How did you do that?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Like I would be leaping over stuff that was taller
than me in fear to get away, like I'm galing fences.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
You know, I'd be doing.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Man, I gotta get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Uh. There's an interesting movie I don't know if you
ever seen it called Cabin in the Woods, and it
it takes all of the tropes and every genre slasher
genre puts them all in one movie, and it kind
of is the kill shot slasher movie of all slasher movies.
And it's definitely worth a view. And it's a little
bit older but still relevant in horror history and slasher
(38:50):
genre because it kind of does everything all at once
and it's a it's a far out concept. But Cabin
in the Woods, if you guys didn't checked that.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
On, yeah, I've heard Cabin in the Woods is very crazy.
I have to sit down and watch that.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Hemsworth is in it before he was before he was
thore So it's definitely it's definitely worth checking out. Story
story wise, I don't want to spoil too much of it,
but it's there is a like underground organization that is
creating these slasher scenarios, and so people think they're going
on like a regular cabin trip, but the cabin is
(39:25):
rigged by this like intelligence group who are working technology
to create to you know, to the point where they're like,
all right, release the fog, you know what I mean,
And like they've got cameras on everything, and the victims
don't know they're in it. And there's this other group
of people that are also betting on whether or not
they'll make it, and so they're taking like all the
(39:45):
tropes and the slasher genre to the next level by
sort of just putting everything all in one. You know.
There's just like this sort of secret group that's sort
of causing it all and it's another dynamic, you know,
and it's it's worth a mention because it adds a
dynamic to the slasher genre or that I had never
seen before. I seen them a lot of CGI. You
know something, it doesn't hold up, but I'm still a
cool concept.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Okay, so let me ask you because there are you know,
there's there's a new age of slasherfflix. Now, if if
you had to, or if you wanted to, what would
you say, would be like a current top five?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Oh, it's it's the top five currently is absolutely well,
I probably reverse some things. I'd go Top five probably
be rough, it's tough. Well, I know number one would
be Terrifier, and I know number two would be still
ghost Face because he's still doing stuff. You know, Number
three would could be you know if you know, if
(40:41):
if you're it's not really slasher, you know number number three?
You know you can caught me off guard on that one.
I know it's Terrifier. I know it's ghost Face.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Okay. For three, they could be building this black phone
thing in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I saw it a first one. I don't know if
it needed a second, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Right but when they get sequels, it's proving something, you know,
what I mean. I don't necessarily you know, think they're
the best or anything like that. But you know, we're
we're looking at top five right now. I'm looking at
what is currently active like right now, you know what
I mean. Yeah that frankly man, I'll go out on
a limb here. You know What's what's what's catching on
(41:23):
to is this like made on video to be to
look real stuff on YouTube? Like the VHS franchise. Yeah,
like you know, my stepdaughters are into it. I kind
of watch what like the kids are into to see.
You know, what's what's there? You know, maybe Pennywise is
on that list, you know what I mean. You know,
I don't know. It depends on how well this Crystal
(41:45):
Lake TV series does. That's like rebooting the Friday the
Thirteenth franchise, you.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Know what I would. I would check that out and
hopefully they do right by it, because you know, I
sometimes I don't think certain certain jobs need to be touched.
Like you can all on, but I just don't change.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah. Like like like Blumhouse just did three Halloween movies
and there was a lot of misfire there and a
lot of people were unhappy with them. And as much
as I love James Jude Courtney in the role of
the shape and the way the mask looks and some
of the directing and Jamie Lee coming back, you know,
I support all of it, but it just didn't land
(42:26):
where a lot of us kind of wanted it to land.
And yeah, that's what happens when you dip back in,
you know what I mean. Like people didn't like Rob
Zombies Halloweens, really they were. It wasn't an It was
a split crowd for years until the new Halloweens from
Blumhouse came out and failed, and then the split crowd
was like, Oh, that Rob Zombie stuff wasn't so.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Bad because I didn't like what I just saw, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
But like going as like a top five for right now,
I mean, it's it's nothing but ghost Face and Terrifier art,
the clown, ghost Face Terrifier. It's just non stop scream
and Terrify, scream and Terrifier, And I think that's gonna
be a tough Those are gonna be tough to outdo,
Like somebody's gonna have to commit to something new for
Friday the thirteenth to claim that Crown back.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You know that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You know, Terrifier didn't make my top five because it's
still new, it's still got to go through the test
of time. The top five are the guys that busted out.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
The gate on it.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
So moving forward, I don't I mean, they can keep
going with Scream, will they keep going with Terrifier? I
know they have a fourth one coming out. I don't
know how much more they're gonna do after it. Money talks,
you know what I mean, if things do well, they'll want.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
To do it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I know in movie making that if you make the
money back you spent, people are usually willing to spend
the money again to see if you can double down.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
And that's why you get so many sequels.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
And folks that are watching this. Let us know what
your top five slash your please, Yeah, let's have this
talk something.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
What else can we talk about? I think that's pretty
much it. Man, that's the top five.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, that is the top five. But top five I
would not disagree with that. All actually rides along the
lines of my horror film experiences.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Nothing in that list that you know you didn't expect, right, Yeah,
it's a pretty like I was saying, it's a pretty
cut and dry list, and I almost feel like I
don't even need to do it, you know, I feel
like everybody kind of has their top five in their head.
They also everybody has their number one for sure. But yeah,
you know, Halloween nineteen seventy eight still holding strong, you know,
(44:34):
still scaring people in the streets.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Oh yeah, And like you said earlier, though, I think
the ones that you have listed, those are the undeniable.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, and that's why they're my top five, because they're undeniable.
I would love to put Black Christmas in my top
five for being the first POV, because the POV is
like very common nowadays. Yeah, but they you know, there's
only really one of those movies, whereas like the others
have all spawned you know, sequels and ripoffs and remakes
and they need to be there. So but yeah, that
(45:05):
is it. That is my top five Slashers. I don't
know what I'll do next. Maybe top five horror movies
of all.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Time, of all time, of all time.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Oh rather, yes, across all genres, across Yes, please do
to five.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Horror across all genres.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
All.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It's not gonna be about money as much as it's
gonna be about cultural impact and cultural longevity, things that
are still hanging around, you know what I mean, like
a little sneak peek into it. Frankenstein is gonna be
on that list. He's not going away. No, they keep
doing Frankenstein stuff, you know.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I mean, I'm not gonna give you my top five
horror movies yet, but expect.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Things that you you know, you've heard of and you've
seen a lot of, because there's just some stuff that's
not going well.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Buzz I love the Top five slash inflicks. I'm glad
I was on this show with you.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, man, thanks for checking out the trailers. You know,
it's not these aren't for somebod These movies aren't for everybody,
but you know, for the cinephile fan. And you know,
I'm always a big fan of the legacies. You know,
who comes before who? Who? Does?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
You see it?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
In sports? You see it and all kinds of things,
And I think horror has legacy and that's something that
needs to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
It does. I think the history of things is always
very important because without it, where do you go from
you know, or where you start from?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You don't know where you've been, you don't know where
you're going. There, you go wrap it up all right.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
You can find us at that Comic podcast on all
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pot hit us up like comic, subscribe on YouTube. Even
more importantly, so definitely follow us on YouTube. Our channel
is growing. Please be a part of the growth. We
(46:48):
are still pretty new, but join us for the ride.
It's going to be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Man, this is your podcast.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yes, hit that bell so you get notified of every
time we drop something new for you guys. One and
I've been features
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Time Donald mm hmmmmmmmm
Right comic podcast. All raight, what's.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Buzz You missed that?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Chainsaw eh Man?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Listen. I'm glad to be on with you night. And
we're doing and I like this idea because you are
the horror officionado and I knew you and John had
did the uh you did? Yeah, you guys did the
last show where you talked about your top five zombies, right,
(00:39):
and tonight we're doing your top five slashers, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, And it's tough to do a top five, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm gonna tell you, like, as soon as you start
putting it together, it immediately goes past five and you
have to tailor it back because you know it's the
top five. So we're getting down to the course that
matters the most. This is maybe not everyone's favorite, maybe
not everyone's personal picks, but we're looking at elements around
(01:08):
the subject matter, which is slashers today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Honestly, I think I actually prefer slasher flicks when it
comes to horror, just because it's it's it's I think
it was probably the first kind of horror film I
was introduced to.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense, So.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
All right, I'm gonna be quiet for a moment. I'm
gonna let you take your fears. I'll you know, I'll
jump in.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely well out of curiosity, Like, what was
the first slasher movie that you've ever seen?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
The very first slasher movie I remember, I want to
say it was Halloween. Okay, it had to be Halloween,
because I honestly, I don't think I've ever been more
afraid of Captain Kirk's face, right, failed out like that.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
The classic.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You know, I saw a video of them making that.
How they make like so one of the camera guy's
name is Tommy Lee Wallace. Tommy Lee Wallace is the
direct of the original IT movies or TV series It
became a movie. But Tommy Woods did a video and
how he made the Michael Myers mask because it asks
for the characters called the shape, right, Okay, yeah, yeah,
(02:13):
it's not so much as Michael Myers. It's supposed to
be like the soulless, lifeless thing. So, you know, the
Shatner mask was popular at the time in seventy eight,
being like a Star Trek collectible from Don Pos Studios,
and so they took one and ripped off the sideburns
spray spray hair sprayed the hair back and then hit
the face, hit the face like with white, just kind
(02:34):
of casting it and so you still see some flesh
kind of around the sides and stuff. And that was
how they made it. The goal was to make this
mask that was unidentifiable, like faceless human, if you will.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And I don't even.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Think that like the whole Captain Kirk thing was like
a big deal at the time for using it, Like really,
no one caught onto that till like way later, and
I do fro won't I understand? Wayiam Shatner is pretty honored,
would be, Yeah, yeah, he is a he's a guy
that likes that stuff. So pretty cool, pretty cool factoid.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
That is a pretty cool thing because I never knew
that that's how it worked. Monest scenes been.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it's a very low budget movie, Halloween, and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You know, they were kind of just working on the
floe they had and it happened to catch a wave
that you know, audiences responded to. And it's on the
list and we'll get to it list the top fivers.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yes, Now, now this this list, would you say, is
it's your personal or like a like a it's your
personal list, But I think a general list that you
think a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, it's got some of my you know, it's got
stuff on there that I can't deny, you know, personally,
would have to be a pick. Yeah. You know, my
tastes change as new stuff comes and goes, and there's
stuff that's hot right now and stuff that used to
be hot, and somebody is making something right now we
haven't seen yet that's.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Gonna be hot next.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But I picked these guys because I felt like these
five are the number one contributing slasher movies, slash franchise,
no pun intended, you know what I mean. So there's
like these there's like these super knots of slashers that
are undeniable, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Okay, top five starts you want me to start, We'll
go with five.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Would woll Do we want to start one or do
you know, let's start let's start from the let's start
from five.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, that's what I think that we build up to it.
So yeah, top five Number five for me. Coming in
at five for me was Scream with ghost Face, and
a lot of people would put him as number one
with the current trends and things like that. Okay, I
have him at five because it's Wes Craven, and he
(04:46):
is reinventing a genre that he already contributed to, which
we'll get into later. So he's coming back around for
like a second, a second serving, if you will, by
not quite lampooning a genre he got famous in for
another film we'll talk about, but sort of reinventing the genre.
When Scream came out in ninety six, the slasher had
(05:07):
died off, and so Scream reinvigorated a slasher genre. It
even took me a while to as much as I
loved the first movie, mm hmm, it took me a
while to accept that this guy was just this ghost
faced guy was just.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Gonna keep coming back. You know.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Like I knew my other slashers and I was very
comfortable with them. And it wasn't that I wasn't open
or to a new slasher as much as it was like,
all right, well that was really good. Okay, you got
me on that, and you're and we talk about We're
gonna talk about tropes a lot this whole time, things
that are constantly reused in slasher films, and Scream gives
you almost all the tropes.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I think that's probably what may Scream. That's what pushed
Scream too. And I get the list. It was Scream
at the five. I totally understand that. And is it
because though they do list all the tropes in the
film as the.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Film is, I pick, I picked a Scream because A
it's still happening, still arounds, hanging on, you know that culture.
B It reinvigorated a culture that had already done well.
So it's responsible for bringing the Slashers back. So it
has to be in the list, okay, you know, and
you can dice out what what numbers you like if
(06:20):
you're like one, two, you know, three is kind of kooky.
And then they get into the other stuff. And then
they're rebooting it and they got some new stuff coming,
which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
But and you can see him, he's in the background
right there. But uh yeah, so they get on the
list for reinventing the genre. They get on the list
because they're still hanging around, they've got the longevity, and
they pick up on something we're going to talk about
often is this element of the black cloaked figure, This
this figure that is you don't know who it is,
(06:50):
you can't tell who it is, and everything you think
you know who it is, it's not that person. And
these are elements that come from the slasher genre. The
slasher genre sort of originates in Italian Giallo movies. I
know I sent you some links to the stuff. Yes,
Mario Bava is a great director in thatline, Dario Argento Giallo.
(07:12):
Just not to get too off topic on the list,
but Gilo I'm going to keep bringing up because it
is in a sixties Italian film style, using all the
tropes in slashers. First, dramatic kills, over the top, blood,
over the top, barbaric weapons, like they're bare hands.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
The killers are usually gloved with black gloves.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You don't know who they are, faceless in a mask
of some kind there, And if you go through a
lot of the Giallo stuff, it's like it's almost his
own genre, pre dating the slashers that are on our list.
So I wanted to bring up Gallo films for that reason.
There's a great one called Blood and Black Lace.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yes, I watched that trailer.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, it's a great one.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Lots of great colors, dramatic kills, the beautiful one is
always like the victim.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, it could be one woman, it can be multiple women.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
You'll think you'll know who the killer is and then
you'll find out that that person got killed. So the
Gallo style, they have crazy names for their movies and stuff,
and a lot of I know, our audience and stuff
is unfamiliar with that stuff. So if you're looking for
throwback slashers to sort of visit, they're all available for streaming.
Just look up Gallo film.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
I think I think one that that people might be
more familiar with that that you sent me was it
was probably Black Christmas, because that did have a rebu.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Right, Yeah, and and thanks for bringing that up, because
the Gallo genre and Black Christmas are my two of
my three honorable mentions on the list. Nice you can't
deny them. Black Christmas is disturbing as all get out.
It's the first time you're getting POV of this of
(08:52):
the killer, the first movie to really sort of do that.
A lot of other times it would be camera pans
and someone's in the whist silhouette in the window, but
here we are in Black Christmas. They're in a sorority.
There's someone living in the attic. They have no idea
they're there, and they're calling them from inside the house,
you know, and you're seeing the camera is playing as
(09:15):
the stalker. The killer in Black Christmas is he is
the camera, so he's like watching them, you know, through
their closets and bedrooms and things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Hey, you know what, I think that kind of that
style is it makes the movie a little bit more
creepy because you as the audience are now like seeing
things happen through that you're doing. You're the killer at
this point.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, it's not outside of the situation, You're inside of
the situation. And Black Christmas is really the first movie
that sort of does that for us. It's from like
the seventies and it puts you in the seat of
the killer and the victim at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And very disturbing film.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So definitely I must see if you're a slasher fan
you haven't seen it yet, and not the remake. The
remake is horrible. Make sure you catch out the original
Black Christmas Us.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You know what. Honestly, I think the original, especially when
I was watching the trailer, I was like, yeah, this
is kind of creepy. Like granted, like watching it now
because I'm so inundated with like CG effects and all,
you know, the movie itself is going to look like, uh.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It's dated, Yeah, has dated look to it.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
It looks dated. But the creepy factor of it like
is one hundred yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes, the prefect run and then the noises excuse me
in the phone. He's using the phone the call, so
it's like ghost Face also using the thing to change
the voice. Yes, like you know, there's probably you know,
I hate to say that there's probably no original slasher
film because they're all kind of using what the one
before it did. You know, the directors who are making
these slasher films are fans of these other films we're
(10:44):
talking about. Yeah, that stuff, man, but can't can't say
enough good things about the giallo genre and Black Christmas.
And before we get into number four, I will say
that it did not make the list because a lot
of audiences today don't know about it, so it would
be almost pointless. What don't forget the advent of Psycho
and Alfred Hitchcock, the famous shower scene. So I want
(11:08):
to just honorable mention, honorble mentioned. Psycho has to make
the list for aniable mentions. It's the first one in
an American audience that really was like you know, makes
you feel kind of a certain type of way. Yeah,
that sort of killer.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yes, Psycho was crazy though, Like, yeah, that is a
good one. But I can understand why it's honorable mentioned though.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Honorable mention. Yeah, I wanted to put them in there,
and it's a little bit out of order, but they're
they're they're going to help us figure out why these
other ones are here. The number moving on the number four,
I cannot leave him out at all, but I've got
to put in the Texas Chainsaw massacre as number four.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Now it doesn't have a ton of copycats.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
One of the things I'm going to get into later
on the list is taking from you know, we've just
got done talking about taking from the other genres, kind
of using some of the tropes again, right, and you know,
on it, Texas Chainsaw does something still to this day
of incredibly unique. Is it makes it like the grindhouse gritty,
You're it's real, you feel like it could really happen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, And the.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Storyline, you know, is taking from cultural lore, taking from
the edgen you know, Psycho took from ed Geen as well,
and Chainsaw, Texas Chainsaw is doing something that there's not
even like a ton of blood in it, you know
what I mean, It's mostly like this visceral real world scenario, right.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
People lost on the road, looking for help.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Now stranded.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
If you don't mind me asking, Uh, was Texas Chainsaw
Mask like one of the first films to kind of
like use like in real life lore like that, Well.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Psycho was using reflections of like the ed Geen stuff
where you know, he's keeping dead people in the house
and you know, he, like I believe ed Gane Like's mother,
He kept mother in the house like when she died,
and like that's kind of what what's his name Hitchcock
was doing with the Psycho Killer is you know the mom,
(13:09):
the mom he's dressing up as the mother to be
the killer. It's yeah, getting bizarre, you know what I mean.
Like these bizarre murders in American history absolutely influence these
kinds of movies. So yeah, you know, Texas Chainsaw is
taking from like cultural historic stuff. And I mean even
the intro of the movie it talks about how it
(13:30):
was like a real event and the kids were like
traumatized from it and like they were never seen again,
and then the movie starts. You know what I mean
you're getting that based on a true story. Yeah, visceral
like docu style, like you have no idea what you're
about to see kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But if I'm not mistaken, I do believe that when
it first came out.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Some people thought it was real. They they were just
that's the power of movies.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, No, cap, I thought Texas Chainsaw was real. I
guess like, I don't think I'll ever drive down there.
No road trips for me, right.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Right, Let me stay out of Texas. Moving on to
number three. I you know, some of my first experiences
with Slashers was Nightmare on Elm Street.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Not not the first one, but the third one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
So I'm coming in late, you know, as okay, seeing
the merchandising around this character as he becomes popular and
mixing again like horror with humor, like we talked about
in some of the zombie stuff. Yeah, Nightmare Elm Street
is number three on there for me because I feel
like it's got the most uh sequels and expansive of
(14:39):
the universe. I feel like it. I feel like it
merchandised itself. First, it was like people really fell in
love with you know when you talk about Slashers, you're
talking about the killer becoming the star of the movie.
You know, yeah, the final girl is absolutely the star,
but the killer haphazardly and the cultural movement becomes the
(15:00):
are the movie. People are getting them tattooed and they're
on their clothes.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So yeah, you know with Nightmare, Freddy Krueger another you know,
sort of visceral character, kind of getting at you in
your dream space, like he's kind of unkillable. It's the
idea of him that's fearful, not so much like this
physical thing you have to like outrun, right, But yeah,
I mean what started off Wes Craven you know who
(15:25):
did Scream is he gives this name right Elm Street,
with this visceral backstory about who this guy was in
real life and how just terrible he becomes in his death,
if you will, like in afterlife supernatural.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So with spawning such.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
A cavalclade of like sequels and spin off stuff, yeah,
he had Freddie had to be on the list people
did this day. I mean Rick and Morty your lampooning
the character, and I mean every kid who's never seen
the movie knows about the guys with the n and
the guy with the knives on his fingers. Like, so
this list is made up of what culturally like it
(16:01):
has held on.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You know, like like these are these are out It
sounds like to me like these are the goats of horror.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
These are the goats, you know, and there are a
lot of goats of horror. So I have to say again,
like if you're mad at me, let's talk in the comments,
because like this is me sort of just trying to
steal it down to the best spices in the spice rack.
Every spice is valuable, you know what I mean. But
this I got, I got five spices to pick. Man,
Like there's fifty spices like I get you know, you
(16:28):
only get five here. But yeah, Nightmare, You've got the marketing,
you've got the visceral feel, you've got the real world setting.
And then you know, it gets more extravagant as the
movies go on and and and it takes something that
probably wasn't intended to do so well, and it's like,
all right, now we've got this whole universe, right, And
you know, Robert England playing the character as the veteran
(16:51):
Freddy Krueger goes so far from two to three four.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
You know, some of them are as good as others.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
But yeah, I to me, I think my favorite one was,
uh probably Freddy's Dead.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, Freddie's Dead's wild. That's a wild one. A bunch
of you know, weird characters in that one too, And
that's something you'll see a lot, you know in slashers
is sort of this like gallery of human characters that
represent like each walk of life that's like trending in
the culture.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
The hot girl, the innocent girl, the stud the geek.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yes, yeah, a lot of token characters every time. But
you know what, though, it plays true, and I think
that's probably why the there's like this kind of well
horror it staff itself has a mass, such a large
following of from people from all different walks of life,
because that's what happens in those films. You got these
this ragtag group of people like either they are all
(17:52):
friends or they somehow get lump together for some reason
and that night is tonight where things go grazy.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
You know. It's interesting because as this slasher genre blew
up through the eighties, we started to get late seventies
into the eighties, we started to get reasonable killers. It
was like, you know, you've got the campground stuff, you've
got the maniac redneck, You've got you know, psychos, right,
(18:20):
and then you get into you know, you know these
other things where they're starting to copy each other and
using you know, those those types of kids that were
like talking about, you know, now they're doing things like
you've seen in screen where those kids.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Sort of become the killers.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yes, so you've got like a killer, and then within
the group of like survivors, the killer might exist also,
and so it's almost like a double edged sword for
slashing in movies. Is now that like the concept of
the slasher has infect the group that's supposed to.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Be like beating them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, Like none of the kids in Nightmare on Elm
Street really sort of ever became Freddy. He played with
the idea and their dreams that they would have to
glove on and sort of be affected by it. It
was all illusory playing all through fears where you know,
when you get into Scream, it's like, oh crap, like
this this character who I think is surviving the attacks
from ghosts face I found out the next scene was
(19:24):
wearing the damn mask. So you know, these are elements
again from Giallo stuff. They would do it in Giallo
a lot. When you watch this Giallo films, these Italian films,
it was like, you know this this you know female
lead gets killed and then you think it's this other
female lead and then later you find out that like
they've been killed and they're not the killer. And so
(19:44):
again the tropes, man, the tropes are what make the
slasher so so uh.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
A quick question about about Freddie itself, right, because it
seems like I and I understand like most of the
slasher flicks, flicks that we watch or consume now, is
it's it's a human man or person in the suit
mass covered.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, but Freddie was very different in the sense of
like they they made it a supernatural thing. And I
remember listening, I'm sure the first Nightmare on El Street
caused a lot of insomnia.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yeah, it's still a very dark movie and bizarre how
he You know what I'll say about Freddy that I
think a lot of people miss and even I miss
it sometimes because it's such a character and I fall
into the character and what he's doing next, and you
I always sort of forget this. But he's really like
(20:40):
the slasher on my list that gets a backstory, you know,
like we're all sort of still waiting for a Jason backstory,
you know, and and and Rob Zombies. Halloweens gave us
way more backstory than anybody thought they'd ever get from Michael.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But yeah, Freddy is you know, son of a thousand
Maniacs is what they used to call him, or son
of ten thousand.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Mania something like that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The yeah, you know, like in an asylum. And so
you're getting like all this disturbing detail for what mating
like who he is, and it's like, you know that
I think the lore around him and the humor they
would have good soundtracks with popular bands at the time,
and then the merchandise in the marketing, and really just
the accessibility of Robert Embellishing the character is a guy
(21:28):
that doesn't want to take the makeup off at the
end of the movie and never be related to it.
This is the guy to this day who was getting
a Hollywood Star on the Walk of Fame on Halloweens
for his role. So, you know, kudos to mister England,
who is an amazing gentleman and so dedicated to the
character and the longevity and the lore and obviously it
(21:50):
means so much to him. So I think Freddy is
top three because becomes a cultural icon. He's crossing boundaries,
you know. I think he appeared in the in the
Goldbergs like a couple of years ago in one of
those characters like dreat like Robert England put.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The makeup back on, you know what I mean, Like, Wow.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
He's crossing over you know. So, yeah, he's a heavy
hitter in that in that respect, but yeah, he gets
that backstory that you're not seeing. You're not really seeing
the backstory in Texas Chainsaw as much as it's just
kind of who they are, you know, it's just for
real people, and you're not getting a backstory so much
in screen because they keep changing it to keep you guessing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You know, you have some backstory, but to keep switching.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
So you know, Freddy's cool in that way that he's
You're getting so much more law for him, and you've
had a lot of time to do.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
All that lore.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, and then it was the Glove and the Glove, right,
I think that put Freddy over the top. Definitely, that glove, That's.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
What I'm saying, Like in the Giallo's the weaponry was
always like a cleaver or a butcher knife or a scalpel,
you know what I mean, or a straight razor. So
that's the sixties, you know, like Night More, Hump Street's
the eighties. So twenty years later, you know, it's in
pots for Craven to not have been influenced by these,
like these murder movies from Italy as a young filmmaker
(23:08):
and then want to bring that stuff into his own character.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
So shout out the West because he did a truth.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
He did it twice. Yeah, he did it twice. You
know it's ironic. He very dedicated to the craft. But yeah, man,
moving into number two, you know, we're not gonna play around.
We're going right to Frida of the Thirteenth, who you know,
was the one of the first independent horror films to
get a wide screen release. So it made so much
money and establishes a new genre, you know, the campground killer.
(23:39):
You're getting your you're getting backstory, you know what I mean,
but you know, not like as much as Freddie, but
you're getting some backstory to kind of you know, motivate
the character. And it spawned like thirty knockoffs the next year,
like the next year, like all these movies came out.
I couldn't bother. I couldn't bother remember half of them?
You know, Uh, the Final Terror is one of them.
(24:02):
Is another great one. It's a campground killer. Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
You know it's a rare movie, but the VHS market
blows up.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
These movies do well in rental, and then you know,
it does so well that they're like everyone's like, we
need we need a campground, we need a wooded area killer,
we need a camping murderer thing. And then you get
like sleep Away Camp which spawned like three or four movies.
And so you know Friday thirteenth, number two, Jason, you
know you didn't wear the hockey mask in the first one.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
The moms the killer in the first one.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The second one he's got the pillowcase over his head,
and then the third one you get the hockey mask.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But you know, I.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Think he needs Nightmare because the hockey mask is still
to this day, it's like the Supermans. As soon as
you see a hockey mask, you're thinking, Jason, you're not
thinking actual hockey as a sport at all.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Mean, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It's another one where too, where anybody can put it
on and all of a sudden become like that you're Jason. Yeah.
Freddie particularly is a certain character. Sure, but you know
that hockey mask man, you know, you know, uh, Kane
Hodter is notorious for playing him the most. He's the
one that brought in the heavy breathing, you know, to
seem like he was like possessed. And uh, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Jason's one of my favorites because so many things have
been done with them.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You know, you get, you get all the way to
where you know, he's becoming almost a supernatural thing. And
like Jason goes to Hell, yes, and he goes to
space and part ten or x Jason x so and
and those are wacky takes. But I love the fact that, Okay,
we're just playing with the the unkillable evil that ken Yeah,
I mean back.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
You know what I mean, And you know what I
love that about Friday the thirteenth. As a matter of fact,
I have I have the whole digital box set and
I've watched the box set before. I love Friday the thirteenth.
I think my favorite one is Jason. Jason goes to Manhattan.
It takes Manhattan yeah, it takes my head. Yeah yeah,
and it's it was here's this what see? It was
(26:00):
a wake up call for me, uh because I used
to I used to always watch horror films be like,
why doesn't anybody ever try to fight back? Have we
just given up?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
That's the one where he's the fell what would roof?
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And gets his head knocked off?
Speaker 1 (26:16):
But you know it's funny because I remember seeing these
movies when they came out, and.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
That was the mindset.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The mindset the time was if were if you you know,
it's it's doing the walking dead thing, like what would
you do if you were in this scenario?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yes, you know kids.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Growing up in those times, in those late eighties, they're like, oh,
you know, I'd whip I'd whip his ass.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know I would do this. I didn't even think.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
It's like so everyone's sort of like he hasn't been killed,
We're already on part eight. He's unkillable, regenerating, and it's like,
all right, well, what who hasn't taken a shot at him?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You know what, he's.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Gonna hold onto a rudder, He's gonna go all the
way into the harbor from New Jersey out.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Of a lake. Okay, yeah, but yeah, it's awesome, dude.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That the ending of that, when he's in this tunnels
and the sewage goes and melts over me, it turns
into like the little kid. He's like all crying. It's
like he was just a boy, you know what I mean.
So it's fun to play with that character. I hope
we get some new stuff soon for him, because there
hasn't been anything new in a while.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
But we're getting that new TV show.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I'll accept a new Friday the thirteenth, I think, uh,
I think one of the well a lot of people
didn't like this one remake, but I enjoyed it. It
was the one that showed him actually running at people
and I'm like, okay, he was top speed. Yeah yeah,
and I was like this, this is perfect. I needed
to see that because that was the other question, and
(27:33):
I think it was the I had that same question
for Michael Myers. It's like, all right, so if we're
going to run away and we noticed guy's just walking,
but why how do we not escape?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
How do I think?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
I know? I think the fast killer chasing you down
like is scary for sure, but the one that is
moving slow at you gives you time to sort of
witness your own demise. Yeah, you don't really have a
lot of time. I'm when you're hyper and running and
going crazy, it is intense and it's.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Visceral for the audience to watch.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
But the slow burn kill those the slow stalk toward
you sort of funneling you into a trap and you
can't get away. And sometimes they trip and fall and
unbeknounced like to whatever reason.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Sometimes they just get to.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
A locked door. But it's like you're giving the viewer
and the final character time to kind of watch their
death creep up on them, which is sometimes more disturbing
than it just all being racing and fast right in
your face.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah. And you know what I thinking about it now
is like that is a little bit more menacing just
being walked down.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah. I mean I like them both, like they work
really well, you know. And I love Derek Mehers in
the two thousand and nine Friday thirteenth remake because he's
more brutal, kind of like what Rob Zombie did with
Michael Myers and his remake made it more brutal. There's
a great take on this stuff. But you know, going
back to like sort of those original tropes again, is.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That slow burn kill.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It's like it kind of like you kind of you
watch the sort of like insanity build versus it just
all beating your face.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
So this is interesting that you have Friday the thirteenth
at the two slot. So I think I know who
the the number one is.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
It's gotta be Halloween man.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
And I'm curious why why Michael Myers over Jason Michael Myers.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Culturally it's that mask. They love that guy and that
I mean, I could watch tiktoks all day if people
freaking out in their car just seeing somebody shove in
the corner with the mask on man, and it's and
it's like, you know, Halloween in seventy eight, Carpenter does
something that we had not seen before. So yeah, you know,
(29:46):
well in American audiences because again he's a fan of
the Giallo stuff or the Giallo stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
How you pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
So he's bringing that stuff that slow stalk, the mask killer,
using barbaric ways to kill peop, closing in on you slow,
you know what I mean, never finding out who it is,
you shoot it, it disappears, you know what I mean.
So the mystery the shadow element, the silence. There's like
(30:16):
nothingness to it. So it's like you want more, right,
you know, And you're watching you know, Laurie run through
the movie and just slowly go crazy, you know what
I mean. Yeah, the movie was only supposed to be
a one off, and so it's supposed to be a
spree killer sort of thing where it's like it was
random and there was gonna be no explanation for it.
And those are all tropes out of the Giallo stuff
(30:38):
is they don't always explain everything. They just lead you
down this demented corridor of like what could happen? And
you're now in it. And the movie obviously had so
much success that spawned a sequel and then a whole
generation of movies that go off on a tangent in
directions with the concept and get some go good, some
go bad. In my opinion, people are fans of all,
but it's got remakes now, So Halloween gets the first
(31:02):
one because of how much impact it had and how
much impact it's still having to this day. And you know,
Friday the thirteenth is sort of that annual thing. It's like, oh,
it's Friday the thirteenth. The date came up, you know
what I mean, So it brings it up. But Halloween,
you know, is coming every October, and these movies are
going to recirculate and we don't always need a new one.
Sometimes going back and watching the original is like just
(31:23):
as good, you know. And Halloween two, as an honorable mention,
expands the storyline and gives you more backstory on who
who he actually was and stuff like that, which is
kind of fun, but it wasn't necessary to do well
as a standalone, and.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yeah, it bred a franchise.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It's also the first thing to do the steady cam,
so you're like watching, you know, the camera that kind
of follow the scene, whereas like Black Christmas.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
At the POV, which is like you are the killer
from the camera.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
So you know, there's these there's these things that it
brings in that you're you know, the steady cam is
now used in almost every horror movie as you pan
across a room or across a cabin or across the background.
So you know, they're doing things in with it again
to expand on the on the genre and also bring
in elements from the giallo stuff in the sixties that
(32:11):
the audience is watching Halloween don't know about because the
movies are more rare and kind of giving you like
an American take on them, which is what this entire
list is.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And you know what, when you when you talk about
like certain techniques that they brought from, like previous generations
of horror movies or directors, one of one of those
things I think, which really it makes like horror films
unsettling for me, is like there's this one trick that
I think I think Alfred Hitchcock started. It's using absolute silence,
(32:44):
so you can only like so by the time of
the actual unliving of HD person, you hear the the
you hear the life almost leave, you hear the footsteps,
you hear the gut stabs, and it's like, like you said,
very guttural and visceral. So as you're hearing, you're like,
oh my goodness, this is terrible, right.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny too, because like
when you look at big Blackbuster movies, there's so much
sound and effect and like it's like sensory overload, and
like those are cool, you know, I mean from Marvel,
I think when it comes to horror, you want to
play more on the senses, the natural senses. Yes, and
you've got eyes and you've got ears in front of
(33:25):
the movie, so why not use them? You know, surround sounds.
It sounds like it's coming from behind you. You know,
you need to play and the absence of something to
focus on can cause fear and anxiety because there's nothing
there that's capturing your attention. So seeing a kill and
shadow or seeing something that goes off screen into black
(33:47):
and you just hear the sound, you know, that's going
to make it more horrific. And Hitchcock used all those techniques.
It's gonna make it more horrific because your mind is
gonna fill the blank in more so than having to
see like the needle go in the eye or something
like that, you know, right, because don't get me wrong, Yeah,
don't get me wrong, Like those this oral visual kills
(34:11):
do more, you know what I mean, to the senses
of the viewer.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
But you don't need a whole.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Lot to you know, just Dracula's hands coming across in shadow.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's enough to make chills up your spine. So sometimes
less is more when it comes to the slasher genre.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
You know what, I believe that as well, and I
think I think when it comes to, like, you know,
the later movies enfranchise when it kind of gets a
little bit ridiculousness, because I think it's because they do
start adding a little bit too much to it.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, everyone's looking for a way to like reinvent it.
You know. I was gonna say earlier one of my
favorite slashers that didn't make the list, but I would
love to put it on. It is my Bloody Valentine
because it's like this you're using now the holidays, you
know what I mean. So you've got April Fool's Day
as another slasher movie. You've got New Year's Evil, which
(35:01):
is another slasher movie. You've got Silent Night Deadly Night,
which is the Christmas Killer, which, like people were so
appalled by that film that they mixed such a happy
holiday with like a killing, and it was like, yeah,
so Halloween and Friday the thirteenth really at our top
two slots. Spawned all these ideas that people were like,
(35:21):
what if we did this, and you're seeing it now
with Terrifier being like, what if people don't like clowns,
they don't like killers and slashers, Let's put it together
and make something like different for people. And now you've
got the clown slasher which is ripping his way through
the culture and sort of captivating audiences around the world,
you know, and twenty years and now I'll be interesting
(35:42):
to see, you know, how that fan base holds up
for that, for that character as well, because you know,
the Top five is made up of all those that
sort of like bent and bred the genre in a balkway.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Now, I have I have a question, and it has
to do not so much as with the Top five,
but slasher flicks in general. Right, I think I think
we can always have a new slasher flick, right, and
it can always be good. Would you say slasher flicks
maybe now more so depend on the slasher more so
(36:17):
than like the like the story itself, because like you said,
sometimes it's like they don't have to explain it, it's
just something happening.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Right, Yeah, I think you have to be careful because
you know, you can you can have a good idea
for a slasher and you can go out and do
it and they can just miss and fall flat.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And I think it has to.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Be centered around things like you're seeing it now with
like black phone and like all these other movies coming out,
you know, you know, because they're doing something that is
like I don't want to say new, but more timely
with where maybe like people are in the world, and
and like because that's the thing, Like there's a there's
(36:56):
a ton of horror movies where cell phones didn't exist,
so you could do a lot with that. And now
you've got you know, everyone's has the cell phone all
the time, and so that you have to consider that
now in like your story writing. And I don't necessarily
think it's a bad thing. I just think the landscape changes,
you know, and you know, obviously in Black Christmas, you know,
(37:16):
they're on a rotary phone and like the police are
less responsive.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, so you're just looking at the times there's the
slasher genre is here to stay and there's always going
to be a new way to do it. And you know,
I think there's so many I need to get caught
up on myself because I've spent so much time studying
these old ones that these new ones are piling in
and you're getting like interesting takes on stuff, and I
think it's it's all coming from the top five. But
(37:45):
I think you know, you can It's like mixing colors
together to make a new color, and the slasher genre
is sort of like an open canvas for doing that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
The tropes, it's all but the tropes. The tropes are there.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
One trope that will always make me mad and I
people in the comments if after you watch them you
get to this, put chime in, let me know what
you think. But when people fall in the chase scenes,
it really bothers me because sometimes there's nothing to actually triple.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Was tied together? How did you do that?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Like I would be leaping over stuff that was taller
than me in fear to get away, like I'm galing fences.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
You know, I'd be doing.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Man, I gotta get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Uh. There's an interesting movie I don't know if you
ever seen it called Cabin in the Woods, and it
it takes all of the tropes and every genre slasher
genre puts them all in one movie, and it kind
of is the kill shot slasher movie of all slasher movies.
And it's definitely worth a view. And it's a little
bit older but still relevant in horror history and slasher
(38:50):
genre because it kind of does everything all at once
and it's a it's a far out concept. But Cabin
in the Woods, if you guys didn't checked that.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
On, yeah, I've heard Cabin in the Woods is very crazy.
I have to sit down and watch that.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Hemsworth is in it before he was before he was
thore So it's definitely it's definitely worth checking out. Story
story wise, I don't want to spoil too much of it,
but it's there is a like underground organization that is
creating these slasher scenarios, and so people think they're going
on like a regular cabin trip, but the cabin is
(39:25):
rigged by this like intelligence group who are working technology
to create to you know, to the point where they're like,
all right, release the fog, you know what I mean,
And like they've got cameras on everything, and the victims
don't know they're in it. And there's this other group
of people that are also betting on whether or not
they'll make it, and so they're taking like all the
(39:45):
tropes and the slasher genre to the next level by
sort of just putting everything all in one. You know.
There's just like this sort of secret group that's sort
of causing it all and it's another dynamic, you know,
and it's it's worth a mention because it adds a
dynamic to the slasher genre or that I had never
seen before. I seen them a lot of CGI. You
know something, it doesn't hold up, but I'm still a
cool concept.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Okay, so let me ask you because there are you know,
there's there's a new age of slasherfflix. Now, if if
you had to, or if you wanted to, what would
you say, would be like a current top five?
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Oh, it's it's the top five currently is absolutely well,
I probably reverse some things. I'd go Top five probably
be rough, it's tough. Well, I know number one would
be Terrifier, and I know number two would be still
ghost Face because he's still doing stuff. You know, Number
three would could be you know if you know, if
(40:41):
if you're it's not really slasher, you know number number three?
You know you can caught me off guard on that one.
I know it's Terrifier. I know it's ghost Face.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Okay. For three, they could be building this black phone
thing in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
I saw it a first one. I don't know if
it needed a second, but I don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Right but when they get sequels, it's proving something, you know,
what I mean. I don't necessarily you know, think they're
the best or anything like that. But you know, we're
we're looking at top five right now. I'm looking at
what is currently active like right now, you know what
I mean. Yeah that frankly man, I'll go out on
a limb here. You know What's what's what's catching on
(41:23):
to is this like made on video to be to
look real stuff on YouTube? Like the VHS franchise. Yeah,
like you know, my stepdaughters are into it. I kind
of watch what like the kids are into to see.
You know, what's what's there? You know, maybe Pennywise is
on that list, you know what I mean. You know,
I don't know. It depends on how well this Crystal
(41:45):
Lake TV series does. That's like rebooting the Friday the
Thirteenth franchise, you.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Know what I would. I would check that out and
hopefully they do right by it, because you know, I
sometimes I don't think certain certain jobs need to be touched.
Like you can all on, but I just don't change.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah. Like like like Blumhouse just did three Halloween movies
and there was a lot of misfire there and a
lot of people were unhappy with them. And as much
as I love James Jude Courtney in the role of
the shape and the way the mask looks and some
of the directing and Jamie Lee coming back, you know,
I support all of it, but it just didn't land
(42:26):
where a lot of us kind of wanted it to land.
And yeah, that's what happens when you dip back in,
you know what I mean. Like people didn't like Rob
Zombies Halloweens, really they were. It wasn't an It was
a split crowd for years until the new Halloweens from
Blumhouse came out and failed, and then the split crowd
was like, Oh, that Rob Zombie stuff wasn't so.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Bad because I didn't like what I just saw, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
But like going as like a top five for right now,
I mean, it's it's nothing but ghost Face and Terrifier art,
the clown, ghost Face Terrifier. It's just non stop scream
and Terrify, scream and Terrifier, And I think that's gonna
be a tough Those are gonna be tough to outdo,
Like somebody's gonna have to commit to something new for
Friday the thirteenth to claim that Crown back.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
You know that.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
You know, Terrifier didn't make my top five because it's
still new, it's still got to go through the test
of time. The top five are the guys that busted out.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
The gate on it.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
So moving forward, I don't I mean, they can keep
going with Scream, will they keep going with Terrifier? I
know they have a fourth one coming out. I don't
know how much more they're gonna do after it. Money talks,
you know what I mean, if things do well, they'll want.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
To do it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I know in movie making that if you make the
money back you spent, people are usually willing to spend
the money again to see if you can double down.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
And that's why you get so many sequels.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
And folks that are watching this. Let us know what
your top five slash your please, Yeah, let's have this
talk something.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
What else can we talk about? I think that's pretty
much it. Man, that's the top five.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, that is the top five. But top five I
would not disagree with that. All actually rides along the
lines of my horror film experiences.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Nothing in that list that you know you didn't expect, right, Yeah,
it's a pretty like I was saying, it's a pretty
cut and dry list, and I almost feel like I
don't even need to do it, you know, I feel
like everybody kind of has their top five in their head.
They also everybody has their number one for sure. But yeah,
you know, Halloween nineteen seventy eight still holding strong, you know,
(44:34):
still scaring people in the streets.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Oh yeah, And like you said earlier, though, I think
the ones that you have listed, those are the undeniable.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, and that's why they're my top five, because they're undeniable.
I would love to put Black Christmas in my top
five for being the first POV, because the POV is
like very common nowadays. Yeah, but they you know, there's
only really one of those movies, whereas like the others
have all spawned you know, sequels and ripoffs and remakes
and they need to be there. So but yeah, that
(45:05):
is it. That is my top five Slashers. I don't
know what I'll do next. Maybe top five horror movies
of all.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Time, of all time, of all time.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Oh rather, yes, across all genres, across Yes, please do
to five.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Horror across all genres.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
All.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It's not gonna be about money as much as it's
gonna be about cultural impact and cultural longevity, things that
are still hanging around, you know what I mean, like
a little sneak peek into it. Frankenstein is gonna be
on that list. He's not going away. No, they keep
doing Frankenstein stuff, you know.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I mean, I'm not gonna give you my top five
horror movies yet, but expect.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Things that you you know, you've heard of and you've
seen a lot of, because there's just some stuff that's
not going well.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Buzz I love the Top five slash inflicks. I'm glad
I was on this show with you.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, man, thanks for checking out the trailers. You know,
it's not these aren't for somebod These movies aren't for everybody,
but you know, for the cinephile fan. And you know,
I'm always a big fan of the legacies. You know,
who comes before who? Who? Does?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
You see it?
Speaker 1 (46:07):
In sports? You see it and all kinds of things,
And I think horror has legacy and that's something that
needs to be remembered.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
It does. I think the history of things is always
very important because without it, where do you go from
you know, or where you start from?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
You don't know where you've been, you don't know where
you're going. There, you go wrap it up all right.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
You can find us at that Comic podcast on all
socialstat's Instagram, Facebook, except on the export of that comic
pot hit us up like comic, subscribe on YouTube. Even
more importantly, so definitely follow us on YouTube. Our channel
is growing. Please be a part of the growth. We
(46:48):
are still pretty new, but join us for the ride.
It's going to be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Man, this is your podcast.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yes, hit that bell so you get notified of every
time we drop something new for you guys. One and
I've been features
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Time Donald mm hmmmmmmmm
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