The geek in me just loves reading about and watching documentaries about genre films so this was a no brainer that I was eager to get to grips with. Director Calum Waddell is well known to fans of horror movies having produced and directed an absolute ream of features that are watched as extras on some of our favourite films so it is good that he has been able to put this in depth piece together and by the looks of it has quite a few more planned for the future too.
So the slasher film or the stalk and slash movie. The sub-genre kind of says what it does on the blade. These are films with a killer generally pursuing a group of people (the more, the bigger the body count), they are traditionally teenagers and they are taken out one by one in a series of inventive ways. As far as I am concerned the sub-genre can be divided from here into two. You have the normal run of your mill serial killer and then you have those with a supernatural element. This is an incredibly useful tool for the film maker as it allows the killer to be at times almost impossible to kill, this of course leads to that tried and tested franchise as in the likes of Freddie Kruger & Michael Myers, the two most famous butchers of them all.
The 80 minute main feature has quite a lot of varied talking heads chatting about various facets of the slasher movie. We have the makers and the stars themselves and these range from the likes of Emily Booth and Alex Chandon to Corey Feldman, Tobe Hooper, Scott Speigal, Norman J Warren, J.S. Cardone and Fred Olen Ray. First they dissect the origins of the films and nearly all agree that 1960 saw the defining point with both Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock) and Peeping Tom (Michael Powell) opening the door ajar. They did not open the floodgates though and it was some time before Mario Bava really went for the throat with his most grizzly and banned in the UK work Bay Of Blood aka Blood Bath 1971, itself highly owing in debt to the likes of Agatha Christie for its plotting. It is good that the Italian’s actually got the chance to set up things for what is to come and that really happened in the late 70s and early 80s with the arrival of Halloween (John Carpenter 1978) Friday The 13th (Sean S Cunningham 1980) at the beginning of the decade. There had been some examples before, notoriously Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). It was the success of Myers and Mrs Vorhees however that made the 1980’s video shop rental market the golden age for those of us growing up in it. The slasher film exploded in more and more inventive ways and means than imaginable.
I had a list of films that I expected to be included in this fast edited documentary and as clips and stills flew by I had most of them ticked off. It is a pretty exhaustive trawl through the trash or treasure (however you consider them) which mainly came out of the USA. The interviewees talk about various important things such as the rules of how to survive the slasher (and if you don’t know them this is invaluable and could even save your life) as well as the last woman standing and their legacy. I was pleased at the fact that my favourite of all the USA slashers The Burning (Tony Maylam 1981) seemed to be a film that got plenty of kudos and despite the lack of foreign titles there was a fair bit of mention of Argento, and Fulci as well as Lamberto Bava’s Stagefright (1987) which I subsequently ticked off my list. I think a discussion on why there is so few films of this ilk outside the USA and UK would have been a good talking point personally, why not take a look at same Asian films such as Entrails Of A Virgin (Gaira 1986) Bloody Beach (In Soo Kim 2000) and Meat Grinder (Tiwa Moeithaisong 2000) just to name but a few? Europe is skimmed over in my opinion too, great that Jess Franco’s Bloody Moon (1981) got a look in but nothing on Haute Tension (Alexandre Aja 2003) a film that really defined the French new wave horror flick.
The resurgence of the slasher film is also discussed and to me it is easy to compare with the similarity to thrash metal. It never went away but it did suddenly get popular again, although as it came back there was very little different about it apart from the fact that it pandered to a new generation. Us cynics by this time had grown out of it and it is as easy as anything for us to say that Wes Craven murdered the slasher with Scream 1996, as it opened the floodgates again for a host of imitators and reboots that on the whole I have very little time for as with the new wave of thrash metal! It’s different to add something new to it although again I would have liked some of the newer and more ground breaking films such as Gutterballs (Ryan Nicholson 2008) and Murder Set Pieces (Nick Palumbo 2004) looked at rather than some of the vapid poster board teens in peril flicks that largely make up today’s version of the S&S film.
That aside, I am being picky as the documentary is very good. Also we have reams of extras here making up hours of entertainment. You can watch the film with a director’s commentary and there is footage from film festivals where it was shown and a question and answer session at the Glasgow film theatre with James Moran and Norman J Warren. Six of the people involved in the documentary also get their own outtake sections to talk more in depth about personal things such as the films they have been involved in. Some of these are a good length and give the likes of Adam Green to really get into the problems that the MPAA seem to have with his Hatchet films and J.S Cardone and Fred Olen Ray to reminisce about their careers. There’s also a music video for the Indie guitar driven theme song used in the documentary and no less than ten trailers mainly from the Charles Band Full Moon Entertainment stable, so literally hours’ worth of stuff to wade through.
But that’s not all as there is a second disc too!
Main feature here is a second shorter 37 minute documentary Don’t Go In The Backwoods’ dealing with the urban slasher movie, set in the boondocks with the inbreds if you will! Again I went into this with my own ideas and list and most boxes got ticked from the influence of HG Lewis 1964 classic 2000 Maniacs to the ‘post horror’ of John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972). John Russo pops in to mention his essential Midnight (1982) and the likes of Jeff Lieberman’s Just Before Dawn (1981) are cited. The influence of Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven is very much a case in point beyond the importance of Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Eaten Alive (1977) from Hooper and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Last House On The Left (1972) which I suppose fits the bill and gives a chance for David Hess RIP to briefly appear and Deadly Blessing (1981) which is sadly not mentioned by Craven. One film that was criminally overlooked in my opinion is David E Durston’s excellent 1970 film ‘I Drink Your Blood’ for shame!
Again it is slightly annoying that the people here seem lost at mentioning films outside the USA for which I had a list too. Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek (2005) and Xavier Gens Frontier(s) (2007) seem to be hurriedly remembered but some people here could do with sitting down and watching Fabrice Du Welz excellent Belgian feature Calvaire (2004) which was completely missed. That aside another highly entertaining documentary.
And there’s more! What’s the best thing to do after hearing about all these films and if you answer grab your sharpest knife and go out looking for dumb teenagers I am kind of with you but…. Nope the correct answer is sit down and watch 20 classic trailers of the films spoken about here ranging from 1960 to 1988 with an added option of directors commentary too. The best way to do this is naturally a) guess the film as quickly as you can and b) make a kill list of how many you have seen. Phew! 
If you are young and just getting into these sort of films and power to your elbow this is essential viewing and if like some of us you have lived through them in the past you are going to have great fun reminiscing about the featured films and may even want to track a few of them down again. Like the ‘Video Nasties definitive guide’ boxed set the idea of putting lots of trailers on is perfect and there are a couple of real obscurities included which could surprise. Slice And Dice is basically an education and a very informative one offering stacks of entertaining viewing. Put it on your chopping list right now, you would be a maniac to miss it!
(Pete Woods)
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