Editing Slasher film (section)

==Definition==
Slasher films typically adhere to a specific formula: a past wrongful action causes severe trauma that is reinforced by a commemoration or anniversary that reactivates or re-inspires the killer.<ref name="Clover-1987">{{Cite journal|last=Clover|first=Carol J.|date=Fall 1987|title=Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film|url=http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/paranoid70scinema/HerBodyHimself.pdf|journal=Representations|issue=20|pages=187–228|doi=10.2307/2928507|jstor=2928507}}</ref><ref name="Grant-2009">{{Cite web|url=https://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com/2009/05/final-girl-studies.html|title=Film Studies For Free: 'Final Girl' Studies|last=Grant|first=Catherine|date=May 20, 2009|website=Film Studies For Free|access-date=May 14, 2018}}</ref> Built around stalk-and-murder sequences, the films draw upon the audience's feelings of [[catharsis]], [[recreation]], and [[Displacement (psychology)|displacement]], as related to sexual pleasure.<ref name="Vera Dika">{{cite book|title=Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Films of the Stalker Cycle|author=Vera Dika|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-8386-3364-9}}</ref> [[Paste (magazine)|''Paste'' magazine]]'s definition notes that, "slasher villains are human beings, or were human beings at some point ... Slasher villains are human killers whose actions are objectively evil, because they’re meant to be bound by human morality. That’s part of the fear that the genre is meant to prey upon, the idea that killers walk among us."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-20 |title=What Truly Was the First "Slasher Film"? A Paste Investigation |url=https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/horror-movies/first-slasher-movie-horror-halloween-psycho/ |access-date=2023-01-18 |website=pastemagazine.com |language=en}}</ref> Films with similar structures that have non-human antagonists lacking a conscience, such as [[Alien (film)|''Alien'']] or ''[[The Terminator]]'', are not traditionally considered slasher films (though many slasher antagonists are superhuman, have supernatural traits, or possess slightly warped or abstract anthropomorphic forms both physically and metaphysically).<ref>{{Cite web |last=on |first=Brent Dunham |date=2019-10-31 |title=The Best Slasher Movies (That Aren't Slasher Movies) |url=https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/best-unintentional-slasher-movies/ |access-date=2022-12-24 |website=StudioBinder |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Common tropes===
The [[final girl]] [[Trope (literature)|trope]] is discussed in [[film studies]] as being a young woman (occasionally a young man) left alone to face the killer's advances in the movie's end.<ref name="Clover-1987" /> [[Laurie Strode]] ([[Jamie Lee Curtis]]), the heroine in ''Halloween'', is an example of a typical final girl.<ref name="Grant-2009" /> Final girls are often, like Laurie Strode, virgins among sexually active teens.<ref name="Harper04">{{cite book |title=Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies|author=Jim Harper|publisher=Critical Vision|year=2004|isbn=9781900486392|page=34|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kAxPsnCDPWgC&q=laurie+strode+final+girl+slasher|access-date=August 25, 2015}}</ref> Others have called the trope "self-mythologising" based on a handful of especially high-profile examples, asserting that its prominence has been overstated – particularly the innocent, virginal qualities ascribed to putative final girls&nbsp;– and that, in the 21st century, the trope has been filtered through the lens of parody, subversion, and self-aware humour rather than deployed sincerely.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sweetman |first=Simon |title=In Praise of the "Final Girl" Trope |url=https://offthetracks.co.nz/in-praise-of-the-final-girl-trope |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230618193953/https://offthetracks.co.nz/in-praise-of-the-final-girl-trope/ |archive-date=June 18, 2023 |website=Off the Tracks}}</ref>

When slasher films become franchises, they typically take on villain protagonist characteristics, with the series following the continued efforts of their antagonists, rather than any of the killer's disposable victims, including any individual entry's heroes or final survivor(s) (who, in so far as they continue to appear within the series, are often killed off immediately after their next on-screen appearance, which has become its own trope). Examples of antiheroes around whom the respective series have become centered include [[Michael Myers (Halloween)|Michael Myers]], [[Freddy Krueger]], [[Jason Voorhees]], [[Chucky (Child's Play)|Chucky]] and [[Leatherface]].{{sfn|Kerswell|2012|p=161}} The antagonist is envisioned and embedded into the public psyche as the main and most marketable/recognisable character, even if his screentime is dwarfed in any specific film by the nominal protagonists. The [[Scream (franchise)|''Scream'' film series]] is a rarity that follows its heroine [[Sidney Prescott]] ([[Neve Campbell]]) rather than masked killer [[Ghostface (identity)|Ghostface]], whose identity changes from film to film, and is only revealed in each entry's finale.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sidney Prescott: More than a Final Girl|url=http://www.cinefilles.ca/2015/10/23/sidney-prescott|website=Cinefilles|access-date=May 14, 2018|archive-date=2017-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901195727/http://www.cinefilles.ca/2015/10/23/sidney-prescott/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Another alleged trope frequently associated with slasher discourse&nbsp;– and horror more broadly&nbsp;– is that of the "black character(s) dying first" (often formulated as "''always'' dying first"). Actual analyses of the films, such as a 2013 investigative piece in [[Complex (magazine)|Complex]], have found that the trope is largely self-mythologising as opposed to being a statistical reality (per Complex, in only 10% of the fifty analysed movies, all containing one or more speaking black characters, did any of them die first).<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/10/black-characters-horror-movies | title=Fact Check: Do Black Characters Always die First in Horror Movies? | website=[[Complex Networks]] }}</ref>