That’s not a slasher but it’s still from the horror mind of Stephen King, who has a high bodycount in his books and movies but his Freddy Krueger is Pennywise the Clown and his Chucky is Gage and his final girl is Carrie and his Jason Voorhees is a dog, but none of them are really slashers. Really if you want some truth then if you compare Mr. King with a little old lady then she’s probably done more to give the slasher legs and arms and a secret face than the acknowledged king. That’s right I’m talking about Agatha Christie and the next important slasher ingredient, which is the Reveal.
But first a reveal of my own if you don’t overmind. Since this is the 2nd week of class only that means this 2 pager in your extra credit box is me putting money in the bank. Because Halloween is going to be here before we know it.
So, the Reveal in the slasher is when all will be said out loud and made clear as to Who’s been doing all this and Why and also How. So when I’m mentioning Mrs.
Christie above what I mean from the one book of hers I mostly read titled And Then There Were None which has nearly as many titles through the years as A Bay of Blood, where people are dying and who’s doing it, who’s doing it, then at the end, SURPRISE! It was this one dude all along, and here’s why, and he’s showing his secret true face at the end.
Or if Scooby Doo is more your thing then that’s the very same thing, sir. I know he’s a hippie dog to you but he also faces ghosts and werewolves who all pull their masks off at the end and explain WHY they were doing all this, which made great money sense at the time to them even if it was a LOT of trouble, on par with some of the Joker’s schemes.
But in the slasher where there’s real necks getting the axe, how that works is, okay, pretend all the people who have been killed in the movie get to be alive again for five minutes in a living room and then the slasher comes in and explains to them why he did what he did to them and they all look at each and nod and say that, Yeah, they probably did sort of deserve this. It sucks that it had to hurt so bad and it was pretty scary and they really had other plans and their families are going to be sad and who’s going to feed their dog now, but they should have thought of that before doing whatever Bad Thing they did to someone who couldn’t protect himself or herself at that point, and for sure wasn’t even close to asking for it any way whatsoever. At which point any good slasher will unlimber his machete and kill them all over again, just paint that living room red.
However note that this is only for slasher movies of the mystery variety like Scream and not the supernatural variety like A Nightmare on Elm Street. Scream at the end has Billy Loomis giving a lecture REVEALING why he’s been doing this, while Nightmare has Freddy giving his lecture through the whole franchise with quips, because while Tina does pull his face off, showing his animatronic skull, Freddy’s really only more of himself without it, which isn’t really a Reveal, just a magnification.
Though if we’re talking Agatha Christie like this then we need to talk about fish and fishing, Mr. Holmes. Specifically, Red Herrings. Coming soon to an extra credit box near you.
VISITING HOURS
It’s not Rexall who fires Jade for leaving graffiti when she was supposed to be erasing it—that’s Hardy’s job—but she’s pretty sure he’s the one who ratted her out, either as payback for stealing his glory at graduation or because she never does slow-motion shirt changes under any of his spycams.
It’s kind of too bad, though. The no more money thing, sure —that means no more phone, next billing cycle—but she also had big plans for one of Rexall’s illicit recordings being instrumental in unmasking the slasher, or at least documenting a kill in grainy black and white.
But that’s Letha’s job, Jade reminds herself, staring across the lake while Hardy straightens his desk calendar and drones on about destruction of county property, broken trust, no more second chances, adult responsibilities, civic pride, misuse of cleaning tools checked out to her name, abuse of key privileges, Henderson Hawk school spirit or the lack thereof, and somewhere in there she unfocuses her eyes as much as humanly possible, wide enough to just float in some muted state of mind through the whole rest of her Sunday, wash up on the shore of Monday pushing slasher after slasher into her VCR, trying to find a line back to herself. She drifts off ten minutes into each, though. She tries to convince herself it’s about finding the right movie for her mood, but how can none of them be right, when they’ve all been right before?