Black Christmas

 And this week's Friday night movie has been... Black Christmas!

Original image located here. Accessed 17th October 2025

Its well documented that I have a strong distaste for slasher movies. But, for some reason I will never understand, I still ended up watching this one. 
In this case, this movie has reputation for being one of the earliest entrants in the slasher genre. Some even say that the mighty Halloween owes a considerable debt to.

Watching this movie, there is a lot going for it: The 'dumb teenagers' trope that so frustrates me with slasher movies is thankfully absent. The tension is unbearable. The trick of 'what you can't see' is put to good use. And the killer is nothing less than unsettling.
The real treat however is the cast - in particular there are some names I have seen previously: Olivia Hussey (1968 Romeo and Juliet), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Margot Kidder (Superman). It is indeed a treat seeing these faces in roles completely different from what I' knew them from. Kidder in particular is a treat to see as a smoking/hard drinking curmudgeon. 

So yeah, a slasher that does things differently is always welcome in my book. 
Still not sold on the genre though...

Student Bodies

   And this week's Friday night movie has been... Student Bodies!

Original image located here. Accessed 13th October 2023

I hate to sound like I'm repeating myself but this movie got viewed through a number of familiar threads: 1) October is the time to watch horror movies, 2) the tradition of watching horror movies at October may also include some shlock 3) I like horror movies that mock both the tried & tested tropes and the acts of idiocy and 4) It had been on my watch list for so long that I'd forgotten why I put in on there to begin with. 

It would be fair to say that Scary Movie wouldn't exist without this movie, as it tells the same jokes: Mocking tropes in slasher movies all through a rather puerile eye. That being said, this movie is amateurish (at best) and completely stupid (at worst) with many jokes range from the obvious to the cringy and the complete misfire. But there are some moments that got a decent chuckle out of me (ie the R-18 rating announcer, the on-screen body count tally). 
My cup of silliness? Well since you put it that way....

Braindead

And this week's Friday night movie has been... Braindead (Dead Alive)!

Original image located here. Accessed 16th October 2020

Like most of the world, I only knew of Kiwi director Peter Jackson through the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So it is somewhat inevitable that I would eventually take a trip to the low budget horror movies that Jackson was making before he struck gold with bringing Middle-Earth to the screen.

I have previously stated that I'm not a fan of slasher movies because they are populated with idiots - but saying that only misses the point. Because the whole point of slasher movies, and by extension it's cousin-in-horror the zombie movie, is seeing HOW the hapless fools on screen get taken out. And it is to this end that Braindead succeeds: The kills are indeed (and I can't believe i am typing this out) creative, bloody, gruesome and hilarious - and often all at once.
So there is certainly is a lot going for this movie with it's ingenious special effects, bonkers model design, pitch-black humor and enough blood to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool (apparently much of Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings movies are a lot like this).
But personally, this movie strikes me as someone trying to remake Psycho but instead opted to do it drunk. And is all the better for it.

Slumber Party Massacre

And this week's Friday night movie has been.....The Slumber Party Massacre!

Original image located here. Accessed 26th October 2018

I may have said this before but let's be clear: Slasher movies aren't my favorite movie genre. My reasons are varied but chief among them are a) their misogynist nature and b) the fact that they tend to be populated by idiots who subsequently get hacked to death (granted that may be precisely the point but still...).
However I may be kinder to slasher movies that parody the genre and mock a lot of the familiar tropes. And that's what made me aware of this movie. That and the fact that this is a slasher movie written by a woman and produced/directed by a woman. So perhaps a different perspective may result in a different movie?

Well there are some solid moments of tension, some decent parody scenes and a truly chilling performance from the guy playing the baddie. But in the end it's not enough to distinguish it from the other slasher movies out there. As a result, I'm still not sold on the slasher genre.
Easy come, easy go?

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

And this week's Friday night movie has been.....Tucker and Dale vs Evil!

Original image located here. Accessed 20th October 2017

As mentioned last week, I have no love for slasher movies but I am prepared to make an exception if said movie takes the tried & tested tropes and makes fun of them. Because seriously, the slasher genre is definitely a genre in need of being mocked.

That being said, coming to this movie was somewhat inevitable. And to be honest i can't recall watching a movie that made me laugh so hard. On paper, a comedy of errors shouldn't work as a slasher movie, but here it does!
Highly recommended - if anything just for the wood-chipper scene

There's Nothing Out There

And this week's Friday night movie has been.....There's Nothing Out There!

Original image located here. Accessed 13th October 2017

Has anyone heard of this? It's a B-Movie / Slasher Movie from the early nineties (although it looks like it was made in the previous decade).
I am not a fan of Slasher movies. Largely because they are populated by idiots - the type that don't fight back and instead do ridiculously dumb things. Granted, seeing such idiots getting hacked to bits is kinda the whole point of slasher movies but I will only indulge in a slasher movie if it does something different on a formula that, let's face it, has been well and truly run into the ground.
Which is where There's Nothing Out There comes in: I was drawn to it on the premise that's a parody with horror movie tropes pointed out. It's the film that did Scream's schtick well before Scream - and, according to some, did it better.

As for the movie itself, yeah it was all right. Getting past the B-Movie nature of it I found it to be entertaining. The jokes were dead on and it certainly is welcome to see people in this type of movie who aren't complete idiots.
So I went in to see a kick in the balls for the slasher genre and I sorta got it. That's good enough for me