Essay

In the past, films that would have fitted under the slasher genre title were known simply as horror movies. One of the first slasher movies to be made was ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock which was made in 1960 the famous shower murder scene proved to make the film successful as the audience found the suspense and anxiety within the scene very appealing and interesting.

This then led to a whole new type of genre which was taken from horror and developed into its own genre. In the same way, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper was another slasher genre movie that was made in 1974 The connotations of a typical horror genre were prominent in this as well except this time the slasher genre began to be well known to audiences.The ways that the slasher scenes in ‘Psycho’ were portrayed were not as brutal and violent as those in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. In the era that ‘Psycho’ was made, the slasher genre was not recognized as much and this resulted in less violence shown on screen.

The famous shower scene was more about creating anxiety and suspense rather than giving the audience something gory to look at. However, now that the slasher genre is recognized well, the way in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ portrayed its horror scenes was in a more violent way because at the time it was created it was catering to a younger audience who enjoyed watching violent scenes. An issue that can be raised though is the fact that when ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, the director was setting out to re-created real life events and this my have therefore resulted in harsher scenes as this was the reality.‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, also uses less music and relies on more diegetic sounds such as the chainsaw and the screaming to create suspense for the audience while in ‘Psycho’, the music is the main thing that makes the movie as tensed as it is. This is also an issue which can be raised because its appeal comes from what is heard and not what is seen. However, a debate that can be raised is that ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ uses more sexual imagery to appeal to its target audience, while ‘Psycho’ uses only some to appeal to its audience. This means that over the years the slasher genre has needed to incorporate these elements to appeal to its target audience. Also, over the years the violent images have become more real. For example, the way in which the victim is killed in ‘Psycho’ is not literally shown to the audience because this would have been too explicit for the audience but in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, the scenes are more brutal and way in which the blood and flesh is shown throughout is more visual than in ‘Psycho’.There are other elements that have changed with time such as the last girl which is prevalent in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. It happens with the virgin of the film, while the other girl who has slept with her boyfriend dies during the film. In ‘Psycho’, the female dies in the middle of the film and there is no last girl, but there is a last couple who go in search of the killer together. This shows that the generic form of the slasher genre has changed overtime.

The whole link of a virgin to survival can be raised as an issue because it may outline the way society favours those who have more respect for themselves and do not give into their weaknesses. This in the movie could be showing that there is a connection to how those seen as mentally and emotionally strong in real life are also strong in the same way in movies.The killer is ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is also very different from the one in ‘Psycho’ because he is actually deformed to the audience and does not look like a human however, in ‘Psycho’, the audience sees the killer as a human and this differs a lot from ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. This could outline that now the audience of the slasher genre may want something more than just the human form to be shown as a killer. However, this can again be viewed as a debate because what happens in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is actually true life events.Overall, I believe that the way in which the slasher genre has evolved overtime has been due to the fact that the audience demands much more from what they are viewing. The genre itself has developed because people get too bored with watching the same old storylines and ask for something more than that, so as time has gone by the slasher genre has developed too.