Exploring the origins and psychology of slasher flicks

I just remembered a little-known movie from the 50's or early 60's called Peeping Tom, that caused a huge scandal in England where it was made, and I think almost ended or maybe it did end the carreer of the exceptionally talented director (whose name I don't recall). Another one that merged sexual deviation and the pathologized Freudian superego with the stalker/predator/serial killer thing. And I'll bet if I look into the production history of that one, it's based on some real-life serial killer, possibly the same one Psycho was based on.

As soon as Halloween is over (it's very near the end now, it's paused in the living room as I type this up) I'm gonna watch Carrie. I guess it's a P J Soles double feature night.

From Halloween​

From Carrie (on the left)​

Did a little searching, and turned up some disturbing facts—not surprising in retrospect, but I never heard of it before. Apparently most if not all serial killers began as peeping toms. They like the sense of power they get from knowing the victim isn't aware of their presence, and that they could do anything they want to them. Spooky and creepy. They'll often spend years at that stage, and then advance to entering while the victim is either home or gone, and stealing from them or otherwise breaking their boundaries and the boundaries of polite society and civilization. From there they move on to sexual assault, rape, kidnapping and/or killing.

Wow—ok, no wonder the connection is made in so many serial killer movies (Silence of the Lambs comes to mind). I feel stupidly naive for not knowing this, I should have made the connection. Now it seems blatantly obvious.

I don't want to write about this, and I really don't want to read any more about it. It's deeply disturbing stuff. But here's a link (not for the faint of heart):

• The Predator Lurking Outside: The Dangerous Training Ground Where Many Prolific Serial Killers Get Their Start

And that doesn't even get into the really disturbing stuff, just how they ramp up through voyeurism and breaking/entering to get their sexual/fetishistic kicks. A little more searching turns up all kinds of Freudian/psychological connections, that Hitchcock and Michael Powell (the director who made Peeping Tom) were very well aware of.

I think I'm done here. I don't care to research any deeper into this stuff, it's turning my stomach already. Don't expect to see an analysis on slasher movies from me in the future. I'm heading for greener pastures.

Color symbolism in opening title sequence

Ok—just because I'm done researching into the really nasty apsects of serial killers doesn't mean I can't still look into symbols and subtext in the movie (that's the fun part anyway, the part I'm drawn to). Right away I noticed some very strong color coding going on in the title credits, that then carries on through the movie. Take a look:

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The shifting colors of the words are based on the flickering of the candle inside the jack-o-lantern. As it gets darker it turns dim and red, and as it gets brighter it turns more yellow or orange. Actually it shifts through orange and into yellow, but that's getting too technical. The important thing is the two colors, red and orange. And black too, it's like each new group of words ramps up from the black screen (death?) through red (blood) to a bright cheery Halloween organge, possibly representing the commercial, decoration aspect of the holiday and the rituals. Sorry, I'm thinking out loud here. These are rough early notes, not a finished analysis. I need to suggest and ponder multiple ideas at this stage.

The words make the same shift, starting red, lightening up to orange, and then fading back to red. The color of blood. I see several possible meanings here, and this kind of symbolism isn't meant to be precise or to carry a super specific meaning, just to suggest things.

For one, the flickering of the candle inside the jack-o-lantern could represent the spirit or the soul, the life inside a person, with the jack-o-lantern standing in for a human head.

But what stands out to me, that I'm sure is deliberate on Carpenter's part, is the fading of the color to blood red and then to black. This represents the horror of sudden attack by Michael on unsuspecting victims, and their murder. It's as if each group of words represents another person who will die at Michael's hands. Which makes sense considering each group of words is another actor's name. Wow! It's fun to notice something like this, then look closer into it, and start to see the symbols take on more meaning and suggest more things. The game is definitely afoot now.

Orange and red are used rather obviously in many parts of the movie. I'd need to check more carefully to see if it's always slightly before an attack, or maybe in a place where there will be one, or maybe in reference to a threatened character.

I just watched it again, and the camera slowly moves in close to the jack-o-lantern until only one eye and the nose are visible, and at the end of the sequence of course the light gutters out through red to black, representing death. Then from that solid black screen the movie itself emerges.

Contined

Color symbolism in the movie itself

A very early scene:

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I can guarantee Carpenter chose the orange book for her to carry and made sure it's visible. In fact she seems to check a couple of times to make sure it is. The red patches painted on curbs were probably already there, though I've never seen curbs painted like that before, and the red hood on the VW was also probably incidental. But check the kid's jacket. Definitely chosen for colors. These characters are already marked for death.That doesn't mean they're going to die, but that they're under severe threat and will be attacked.

Something I noticed though, and this might be where some money had to be spent—none of the trees seem to actually be turning colors, except maybe at the very beginning, in a separate shot maybe (need to check on it again). I recall seeing some nearly defoliated trees right at the beginning, but once we get to the people walking down the street all the leaves in the trees are green, and none have fallen yet. Shot out out of season, which means they added all the brown and red and organge leaves on the ground. Did some poor overworked props crew have to paint them all?

Ok yeah, I looked back at the scene, and it starts with a separate shot where some trees are defoliated almost completely, but the rest are full and all the leaves are green. Strange. Then a hard cut to the long moving scene with actors in it, where all trees seem to exist in summer mode. Lol, at least no prop crew had to pluck hundreds or thousands of leaves from trees and paint the remaining ones in autumn colors! It would have made it more realistic (though I doubt anybody really notices unless they've seen the movie many times), but it wouldn't have been Carpenter's typical low budget movie anymore either. There's a charm to the way he makes them.

Something else I noticed (just watched the scene again)—right at the end when Michael steps out in extreme closeup as Laurie walks away, she's singing "I wish I had you all alone, just the two of us." It seems odd, because it sounds too close, like it isn't her singing but someone much closer to the camera. The singing was done separately and added in post production. And it suddenly occurred to me why it was done a little too loud, as if it's someone much closer to the camera—because in one sense it's really what Michael is thinking about her! He wants to kill her, possibly because she just came to his house and disturbed him where he's hiding out, but also because she's an attractive young woman about the same age his sister was when he killed her—at the age when they become sexually active and attractive.

But at the same time it shows that she's thinking about some boy, romantically, or more probably sexually, since he kills when sex is had or contemplated.

I also noticed several more instances of red in the shot, including the steps on a house just before they get to Michael's house. There's no red on his house, which seems odd, except for the name Strode, on the real-estate sign right in front of it. Her dad owns the company Strode real estate, it's actually her last name. So her name is written in blood red right in front of Michael's house! hah! I mean, it works on both levels, symbolically because she's now marked for death by him, but also because her dad is trying to sell the house.

Ah, I enjoy doing this.

"in one sense it's really what Michael is thinking about her! He wants to kill her, possibly because she just came to his house and disturbed him where he's hiding out, but also because she's an attractive young woman about the same age his sister was when he killed her—at the age when they become sexually active and attractive.

But at the same time it shows that she's thinking about some boy, romantically, or more probably sexually, since he kills when sex is had or contemplated."

Hold on. Ok, so right at the beginning, already sex or sexual desire is tied in to Michael's desire to murder young women. Damn! There's a lot more going on in these deceptively simple scenes at a symbolic level than I ever realized. We're being conditioned as viewers already, when we see a desirable young woman, especially in a state of partial undress, or getting frisky with her boyfriend, or demonstrating loose morals in relation to drinking, smoking or drugs, we should associate the desire we feel with Michael's desire to murder. The two drives are intimately tied up in him. Hey, I know it's rough, as I said I'm just beginning to work out my ideas. You do it by proposing hypotheses like this and checking them for validity as you go forward. But I think this one's pretty solid.

And this tying up of sexual desire with the desire to murder is a huge theme across a lot of horror movies, not just slasher flicks. I've said before somewhere that I looked into the production of the movie Cat People, directed by Paul Schrader, and he said he would continually "Build up to sex and instead deliver violence," and then at times he'd build up to violence and instead deliver sex. I'll bet this is a pretty standard thing in many horror movies. And quite likely it all derives from the fact that serial killers begin as peeping toms and their own desires are all tangled up—the sexual desire they feel for the women they watch and stalk is mixed in inextricably with the desire to break boundaries and to rape and murder.

Nastassja Kinski in Cat People​

It seems I can't really do this without occasionally returning to the nasty stuff. Even though I don't want to look any deeper into what drives serial killers, I'm glad I did look that deep—it helps me understand this so much better.

I Hear the Train A-Comin'...

I don't think I'm gonna find much more as far as symbolism and subtext in this movie, except for one other thing—the Death Train! If you go back up and watch just the very beginning of the clip where Lori and the little boy go walking down the street, you can hear a strange whistle sound right at the beginning—it starts even before the word Haddonfield appears. It's a little hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a distant train whistle. It kinda sounds more like a teakettle or something.

Now take a look at this:

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A red pickup truck (uh-oh!). And also a red matchbook. Symbolic, yeah, but that's not the important thing. What I want to point out is the train that goes thundering past. A train with a red patch right on the front of it, almost as if it's hit somebody or some animal. Very symbolic, just before the camera pans over and we see the dead body. Michael has been here, he's already killed, and now he's headed for Haddonfield and home. Or rather is already there.

That train is the unstoppable juggernaut that is Michael Meyers, and we subliminally hear it arriving in Haddonfield at the beginning of that scene.

Ok, well that's enough. I may or may not continue, but I won't post about the rest if I do. I don't really think there's much more there, but you never know. A really good filmmaker like John Carpenter knows how to use symbolism and subtext and does it very subtly. But I just thought it would be fun to sort of walk through the basics of how I set out to find this stuff in movies. And of course, learning to find it in movies helps you to do similar things in writing.