- Blood Rage
This past weekend the Music Box dedicated half of its midnight programming to the seasonal standby Halloween, John Carpenter’s trendsetting masterpiece. The slasher film to which all others are compared, Halloween sparked a glut of similar kinds of pictures, and though many of them are mere imitations and copycats looking for a cash grab, a fair amount were legitimately inventive and wholly original works. The genre proved popular for decades after, but five or so years following Halloween‘s 1978 release represents a sort of golden age in slasher cinema. Below, you can find my five favorite films from the era.
- The Slumber Party Massacre (dir. Amy Jones, 1982) The titles of golden age slasher films tend to be absurdly self-explanatory and The Slumber Party Massacre is no exception, but it doesn’t indicate the feminist framework and subversive dark humor that make this seriocomic New World picture such an enduring and increasingly appreciated staple. Screenwriter Rita Mae Brown envisioned the film as a sort of parody—while those elements were eventually dialed back, a self-referential quality remains.
