Do you know the difference between a survival movie and a slasher movie ?

This article is for my Best friend for ever from INA SUP Romain who wanted to give me a lesson about horror movie in my last article. He wrote “You could also talked about "The Last House on the Left", directed by Wes Craven and released in 1972, which gave the basis of the slasher movie, before it was glorified by The Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas”

 The Last House on the Left is not a slasher movie.  I am going to take to tell you what is the difference between a survival movie and a slasher movie

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The Wes Craven ‘s movie is a survival, an adaptation of the Swedish movie The Virgin Spring by Ingmar Bergman based on the 13^th century Swedish ballad ”Töres dotter i Wange” (Thank you Wikipedia).

The plot of the film give you the clues to understand why this movie is not a slasher. So I am a nice girl and I am going to summarize the story.  The young and very beautiful Mary plans to celebrate her 17^th birthday with her friend Phyllis (I hate this name). They decides to go to a concert. At the first time her parents express concern but they accept and give her a necklace as a gift .

On the road to the concert, the two girls hear a news report about the recent prison escape, involving a very bad guys by the names of Krug Stillo, a rapist and serial killer, his son Junior, Sadie a psychopath and sadist and Fred”Weasel” Podowski a child molester, peeping tom and murderer. Clearly the kind of guys that you don’t want to meet on the road. 

After the concert, Mary and Phyllis doesn’t want to go home, they prefers to find some marijuana. Bad luck they meets Junior, follows him to his apartment  where they are immediately trap by the criminals. Bad things happens, Phyllis is raped and tortured. The next morning the girls are locked in to the car and taken to the countryside because the villains wants to leave the state. Unfortunately, the car has a problem front of the house of Mari where the police are in her home talking with her parents about her disappearance. 

Removed from the car,   the girls are violently raped and tortured in the forest, close to a lack (very strong and violent scene) as May realizes she is close to her house. Phyllis escapes but the villains are chased them while Mary stays with Junior and try to convict him to save her and she gives him her necklace. The bad guys finds Phyllis and kill her after she hits Sadie. Mary is lonely with the villains and Krug decides to “play” with her and tortures and rapes her. Mary is shoot by Krug whereas she was cleaning herself in the lack. 

During the night the villains finds refuge in the house of Mary’s parents. But when the mother of Mary sees Mary’s necklace, Junior exposes their identity. So Mary’s parents goes into the lack and finds Mary ‘s body.  After that the parents decides to revenge their daughter.

I give you five reasons why this movie is not a slasher but a survival:

-They are no Boogeyman : Every slasher needs a Boogeymann with his own weapon.

-A Boogeyman follows a ceremonial when he is killing his victim.

-Usually, the slasher’s murders are not so sexualized : with lot of raped and perversion.

-The Identity of the Boogeyman is a secret, hide by a mask, for many of them we don’t know if they are humans.

-Revenge is very rare in slasher movie, it’s more a survival code. 

I give a short list of survival movie:

• Deliverance by John Boorman (1972)
• The Hills have eyes by Wes Craven (1977)
• Frontière(s) by Xavier Gens (2007)
• The Descent by Neil Marshall (2005)
• Cabin fever by Eli Rothe (2003)
• Eden Lake by James Watkins (2008)

A survival movie is when you and friends or family have to survive to a killer or a group of killers. Even if survival and slasher are closed the big difference is the Boogeyman. 

So, my dear Romain, next time you  can tell me that I forgot to talk about Freddy on my article about slasher movie. Shame on me !

Sarah.