The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies (Mammoth Books)

by Peter Normanton

  In less than five years Bava had perfected his skills, so much so he was considered a cinematographer in his own right, although he preferred to be looked upon as cameraman; the idea of being a cinematographer was a little too ostentatious for his liking. After making his debut feature in the early 1940s, his name very quickly became associated with some of the major stars of the era such as Gina Lollobrigida and Aldo Fabrizi as he worked to add his magic to this celluloid world which offered so many possibilities. In 1958 alongside Paolo Heusch, he co-directed a low-budget feature on a single stage that would have gone virtually unnoticed outside his Italian homeland, Le Morte Viene Dallo Spazio or The Day the Sky Exploded. This was Italy’s first venture into science fiction and with very little money his team created an image of a crashed alien spacecraft that would one day be repeated on a far grander scale in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). For the next two years, Bava continued to polish his skills and then sat in the director’s chair to create a film that was to become a landmark, Black Sunday (1960). This feature would be one of five films released in a year that would have a considerable bearing on the future of cinematic horror. His film opened with probably the most callous scene so far committed to celluloid as Barbara Steele endured the agony of having her face cruelly gouged in a spiked iron mask. The image would alarm censors across the globe, leading to this episode being heavily edited before it was allowed into many countries. It was Bava’s artistic manipulation of light and dark, however, amidst a series of Gothic-styled sets filmed in an ominous monochrome, that really defined this feature. When he introduced colour to I tre volti della paura, better known as Black Sabbath (1963), his expressionistic technique prompted similar acclaim, and was later emulated by Martin Scorsese, who held Bava in such high esteem. Both films were shot in around twelve days and as he departed each set, he already had a clear vision as to how he would edit each feature.

  Between 1963 and 1964, he embarked upon two films that would mark the beginning of something new and exciting in Italian cinema, the giallo. La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo, also known as The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963), and Sei Donne Per L’Assassino, provocatively entitled Blood and Black Lace (1964), would have a major influence on the stalk and slash movies that became all the rage during the 1980s. Then there came Terrore Nello Spazio or Planet of the Vampires (1965), which later inspired Dan O’Bannon when he penned the script for Alien. Having already given birth to the giallo, Bava created the film that would become the blueprint for the deluge of slasher movies, which started just as the decade came to an end: Reazione a Catena, released in the US as A Bay of Blood and was also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971). His later films were blighted by continual problems with distribution, which led to his retirement in 1978, although he couldn’t resist becoming involved with some of the special effects for Dario Argento’s Inferno before he passed away in 1980 aged 65. His son Lamberto, who had worked as his assistant director, now followed the family tradition and in turn directed several memorable additions to the genre. Lamberto would be the first to admit he could never match his father; few directors ever could, for Mario Bava was a genius whose influence still resonates over thirty years after his death.

  Jörg Buttgereit

  (December 20, 1963–)

  West Berliner Jörg Buttgereit was brought up on films; among them was the excitement of the original Japanese Godzilla movies, a subject upon which he would one day put pen to paper to write his own book. He was like so many kids of his age, a monster maniac eagerly collecting the Creature Feature bubble gum cards that were being issued during the early 1970s. His life was transformed on the day of his First Communion when he received a Super-8 camera. From the age of fourteen, he began experimenting with film with his first feature encapsulating so much of his boyhood fascination for the terrors of the silver screen, Interview With Frankenstein.

  When as an independent filmmaker he set out to create Nekromantik in 1987 armed with his Super-8, he had very little money at his disposal. He was, however, gifted with a talented young crew, who were prepared to offer their services free of charge. Nekromantik became more than just the most debauched horror movie of its day; it was a challenge to West Germany’s implacable attitude towards censorship. Very few extreme horror films ever made it into the country at this time, and those that did were heavily cut. With the images for his creation already being vividly played out in his mind, he set to work on a film that would have major repercussions, not just in West Germany but for the industry as a whole. Ultimately, this vision would play a significant part in breaking down the barriers that divided art and the cinema-going public’s attitude towards exploitation, but he was to suffer many years in the wilderness as his film was banned in many parts of the world. It would be the first of several films that confronted his audience’s thoughts on death, films that were inevitably driven underground. This would continue with his experimental feature on suicide and violent death in the seven short pieces that made up Der Todesking, which saw him step up to 16-mm filming during 1989. It was banned in the US and Australia and is still awaiting release to DVD. Controversy barked at his door once again when Nekromantik 2 (1991) was finally completed. It was seized by police in Munich following accusations of glorified violence. Buttgereit admits to being alarmed by this turn of events, but it didn’t prevent him from returning to make Schramm in 1993, the film that was to affirm his place as a visionary auteur.

  Recent years have seen the cult director writing books and plays in addition to directing rock videos. He now despairs of so much of his country’s horror cinema, feeling there is little to challenge the existing order, although he confesses he has seen almost nothing of the work of Germany’s modern-day underground terrors, Olaf Ittenbach and Andreas Schnaas. His back catalogue of films is no longer banned and are now considered to be a veritable form of art, but he laments the film streaming of the Internet and its damaging effect on independent filmmakers.

  John Carpenter

  (January 16, 1948–)

  John Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, and at the age of five moved to the small farming community of Bowling Green Kentucky. From an early age, he was hooked on going to the movies, at first caught up in the action and excitement of the westerns and then more significantly he was drawn to the B-grade science fiction and weird horror movies of the 1950s. Upon leaving the theatre he wanted to make his own films using his own ideas and soon after began to make his own horror shorts using 8-mm film. Among his early teenage efforts were Revenge of the Colossal Beasts (1962) and Terror From Space (1963). He boldly took the decision to change course while at university in 1968, leaving Kentucky to go to the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Soon immersed in his studies he was tempted by the possibility of making his own features, among which was The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970), where he contributed to the production as the film’s co-writer, editor and composer. It went on to win an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film after gaining a theatrical release courtesy of Universal Studios.

  After graduating in 1971 he took to the director’s chair to make a film that has long since been acknowledged as a cult favourite, the low-budget darkly comedic science fiction spectacle Dark Star (1974). Co-written with Dan O’Bannon, Carpenter scored the music and worked on the production over a four-year period, but never saw a penny for his efforts. That same year he wrote the script for Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) and was then asked to direct Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). Again, with little money he wrote the script and put the music together as well as carrying out the post-production editing, effectively launching his career. The film had little impact in the United States, but in Europe it was a box office delight. In 1978 he collaborated with Debra Hill on the film that gave birth to the slasher genre, yet another low-budget production, Halloween, written in only two weeks, which went on to become one of the highest grossing independent productions of all time. In its wake came a decade of hack and slash and final
girls, each of whom had the strength of mind to overcome their masked assailants. Then followed The Fog (1980), where he was so disappointed with the final cut he insisted about a third of the movie had to be re-shot. His commitment was rewarded; the film remains a celebrated entry in the annals of horror cinema, generating a return of over $21 million. Further success followed with Escape From New York (1981), which introduced his style of filmmaking to a more mainstream audience. Twelve months later, the same summer that saw E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial break the cinema-going public’s hearts, he suffered his first commercial failure with The Thing. This graphic portrayal with its blood-splattered special effects was a retelling of one of his own favourites from the past, The Thing from Another World (1951), although it adhered more closely to John W. Campbell Jr.’s novella, Who Goes There? Gore fans loved it, but it was lost on mainstream audiences who preferred the more spiritually uplifting E.T. However, this was the dawn of the video market and very soon Carpenter’s seeming failure turned to the welcome familiarity of success.

  While the mass market was to elude him in the years that followed, the apocalyptic Prince of Darkness (1987), featuring Alice Cooper, became another unsettling addition to the world of cinematic terror. Carpenter continued to direct during the 1990s; among his half dozen films of the decade was yet another addition to his occasionally apocalyptic narrative, the psychological terror In Mouth of Madness (1994). Recent years have witnessed a preference for scriptwriting, but Halloween remains his legacy: the film that he would loved to have seen as a kid!

  Wes Craven

  (August 2, 1939–)

  Only a handful of horror directors have left their mark on the genre and Wesley Earl Craven is certainly one of them. He was brought up in Cleveland, Ohio, by a family who were from a strict Baptist background and didn’t encourage his watching of films, with the notable exception of Walt Disney’s family oriented features. Wes can recall his parents being appalled when Psycho was released; but their disgust only aroused his interest and would be the inspiration for his unforgettable prelude to Scream (1996). He graduated with a combined honours degree in English and Psychology and later attained a Master’s degree in Philosophy. He then started teaching English before ascending to become a Professor of Humanities. While he was teaching, he made a short action feature with a student film club in Potsdam, New York, which to his surprise actually made a return. This proved to be a life-changing experience, for it was then that he was ensnared by the bug for filmmaking, and was soon enticed by the more lucrative world of pornographic cinema and the hopes of setting up his own film company. Under a series of pseudonyms, he would learn his craft, which would lead to his first feature film, the bold but notorious Last House on the Left (1972). Five years later, he sat in the director’s chair, this time for what many consider the second milestone in his career, The Hills Have Eyes (1977).

  In 1984, when the slasher movie had been quite literally done to death, Wes reinvented the entire genre and at the same time created one of the largest franchises in American cinema with the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Twelve years later, he repeated this success when Scream came to the big screen. With people like Wes lurking behind the scenes, the slasher was never going to be consigned to the grave. Prior to this, in 1988, he had stepped into the domain of George A. Romero and Lucio Fulci, with his acclaimed zombie movie The Serpent and the Rainbow. This film, based upon the book by Wade Davis, was a far cry from the excess of their movies; rather, it dwelled on the superstitious rituals and black magic of Haiti at the time of the overthrow of “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Recent years have seen the Scream series continue to be a box office revelation and remakes of both The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Last House on the Left (2009) have maintained his position as one of horror’s most innovative directors.

  Sean S. Cunningham

  (December 31, 1941–)

  Raised in New York, Sean Sexton Cunningham graduated from Stanford University with a Master’s degree in Drama and Film. From there he went on to develop a career in managing theatre companies, among which were productions at New York’s Lincoln Center, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Mineola Theatre on Long Island. His first film was a semi-documentary entitled Together (1971), produced with Wes Craven. He hoped their collaboration would improve on the same idea he had used in his exploitative but unusually gainful “white-coater”, The Art of Marriage (1970). The film starred Marilyn Chambers, but Cunningham now admits to being embarrassed with his involvement. The return on this venture, however, was enough to allow both Cunningham and Craven to embark upon one of the most controversial films of the decade, Last House on the Left (1972). This unrelenting rape revenge tale, based on Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring (1960), featured one of horror cinema’s first chainsaw murders, two years before Tobe Hooper shocked the world with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. More exploitation followed, and then in 1977 he turned to comedy with Here Come the Tigers. His efforts weren’t to catapult him to stardom, but the transition finally came when, on seeing the success of Halloween (1978) and Alien (1979), he decided to capitalize on the revitalized craze for horror.

  Before he even had a script for Friday the 13th, he had gone to Variety to announce his film and made sure no one else could use the name. At that point, it was only an idea, but what an idea! Its graphic violence was by no means as mean spirited as that which shocked American audiences in Last House on the Left, but it was a bloody showing, which, unlike Carpenter’s film, left nothing to the imagination. After Friday the 13th there came a whole deluge of carved-up teenagers, and Paramount had an unexpected success on their hands, one that, while occasionally problematic, would generate an immensely lucrative franchise, and would provide Cunningham with plenty of work overseeing the ensuing sequels. Jason wasn’t like the other bad guys of the cinema; when he picked up an axe the audience were firmly behind him and with Tom Savini creating the gory effects horror fans were in for the rarest of treats. A series of House films would follow during the 1980s, but nothing would compare to the horror spawned by Jason Voorhees.

  Lucio Fulci

  (June 17, 1927–March 13, 1996)

  Born in Rome in 1927, Lucio Fulci began his working life as an art critic and ironically, given the context of the films on show in these pages, opted for a course in medicine. He later moved into scriptwriting with the Experimental Film Studios, which gave him the chance to make several documentaries working under Federico Fellini and Mario Bava. Although he originally intended to pursue a career as a writer for film, Fulci took the opportunity to step into the director’s chair with Il ladri or The Thieves (1959) and so followed a series of comedies. By the mid-1960s, he had expanded his horizons and progressed into adventure films, which included work with Franco Nero. Then in 1969, he directed his first giallo, Una sull’altra, which saw release outside Italy as One On Top of the Other, and also acquired the emotive title of Perversion Story. The content wasn’t quite as lurid as that suggested by the title; rather, its premise contained an undercurrent that would become increasingly evident in Fulci’s work, the perversity of human nature. This was manifest in his film Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971), which was hugely controversial in its depiction of violence and almost brought charges of animal cruelty owing to Carlo Rambaldi’s shocking special effects. However, it also proved to be a resounding success at the Italian box office.

  The small town tale of maniacal murder Non Si Sevizia un Paperino or Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) was to reveal the director’s growing predilection for violence of the more graphic kind. While the splatter in this film wasn’t the match of his later visceral relish, it paved the way for him to succeed Herschell Gordon Lewis as the “Godfather of Gore”. After directing the spaghetti western Silver Saddle (1978), so inspired was he by George A. Romero’s groundbreaking Dawn of the Dead (1978) he set out to emulate this success with a script conceived by Dardano Sacchetti, who for the next few years assisted Fulci in creating some of his most memorable films. Thei
r partnership resulted in a low-budget onslaught of the living dead, Zombi 2 (1979) as it was known in Italy, which was re-titled as Zombie Flesh Eaters in the United Kingdom. It would be later packaged as Zombie and Island of the Living Dead and was unofficially marketed as the sequel to Romero’s flesh-eating frenzy of 1978 with its violent excess making it an instant success. With Sacchetti at his side, he followed with a series of films his fans labelled the Gates of Hell trilogy, each of which was rife with the putrescent creatures that were by then all the rage. Fulci’s releases between 1979 and 1983 were described by his critics as being among the most violent and gory films ever made; his fans for quite different reasons weren’t too averse to such criticism. City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), House by the Cemetery (1981), The Black Cat (1981) and The New York Ripper (1982) were among his biggest hits, all of which featured unprecedented levels of on-screen blood and cruelty, with at least one scene of eye gouging in each film. Censors across the world would come down heavily on his efforts with understandable accusations of misogyny. His unrated films went straight to the passion pits of the drive-ins much to the delight of hordes of horror fanatics across the US.

  Sadly, for the last ten years of his life Fulci did not enjoy the best of health, constantly plagued by the suicide of his wife in 1969 and the death of his daughter, and then came the acrimonious split with his scriptwriter Dardano Sacchetti. These occurrences were to detract from his later works, with many of his later films being badly written and cheaply produced, although Aenigma (1987) and Voices From Beyond (1991) hinted at the man who had once almost been on a par with Dario Argento and a creditable mention should be given to House of Clocks (1989). The two great Italian horror directors met in 1995 and looked to work together on a new horror feature they called Wax Mask, a remake of House of Wax (1953), but Fulci died before filming could begin. While his films remain virtually unknown outside the genre, his admirers celebrate his stylish cinematic compositions of extreme gore set against a backdrop of delirious hallucinatory vistas with their seductive images and almost incoherent narrative. Fulci was a man who truly deserved the distinction as the “Godfather of Gore”.