Slasher films were all the rage in the 1980s. Thanks to the likes of Michael Myers in Halloween and Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise, along with their many clones, it seemed like a new slasher was coming out every other week. There were so many that they became filled with tropes you could see coming a mile away. That either made those movies more fun for some, or predictable and boring. Scream did a great job of poking at those tropes, and a new Spanish film, Slasher, from first-time director Alberto Armas Diaz (who also wrote it), is the latest to explore the subgenre's rules. In the beginning, it feels like this will be a fresh and fun take on all of those masked villains, but sadly, it quickly becomes little more than a paint-by-numbers slasher that forgot what it was trying to be in the opening scene.
What Is 'Slasher' About?
Slasher's synopsis is one you've heard a hundred times before. A group of young, carefree friends decides to go on a road trip. Among those friends, you have the usual tropes. From the moment we meet the sullen Ursula (Fabiola Muñoz), we know she's our final girl. She's upset with her jealous boyfriend, Lucas (Mario Gallardo). Accompanying them are another male friend, Mario (Rafa Blanes), and party girls Shayla (Cristina Bravo) and Lore (Anna Hastings). Slasher separates their personalities by having Shayla obsessed with her phone, while Lore is the stereotypical horny one who flirts constantly and is so annoying that Mario can't stand to be around her.
As these friends go on a trip, they speak about the Red Demon who is said to hunt the area around the home they will be staying in. Many who have ventured this way have disappeared, and although that is taken seriously by a few, the rest treat it like a joke. As the audience, we already know that the Red Demon is real thanks to an intriguing opening scene. In it, we witness not a demon but a man wearing a mask made of wood. He is cloaked in red and dragging a bag containing a still-living man. When he gets to his basement, the silent killer hands the knife to his young son, Julio, to finish the job. Julio looks at his father with awe, wanting to be just like him. This killer has a family who knows all about his morbid past time and they're supportive of it.
Ten years later, the killer's father is no longer in the picture, but for the shy and awkward now teenage Julio (Sergio Alguacil), it's his birthday, and the family tradition has been passed down to him. He is given his own mask and sent out to kill. He finds the perfect victims in Ursula and her friends at the isolated house, but will he be able to go through with it?
'Slasher' Can't Decide What Kind of Movie It Wants To Be
Before Julio puts on the mask, his mother passes down the rules of being a killer. It's a wink to slasher movie fans for Julio to be told that he will become more silent, slower, stronger, and emotionless with each victim he kills as if he is turning into this movie's version of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. It makes you wonder if this is going to be more of a meta love letter to horror like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon or The Cabin in the Woods, but alas, this is not the case.
The moment Julio puts on the mask and goes into the night, Slasher changes and becomes the most cookie-cutter of slasher movies. The second act is a slog, as we go into the house and watch our heroes get high. That's not just a stereotype for these types of movies, but a major flaw. Our lead characters are uninteresting, so to be stuck with them and taken out of Julio's story makes us just want to watch them die already. Even Ursula, the final girl, isn't all that interesting. Because she has a mean boyfriend, we're supposed to sympathize with her, but she has little character development beyond that.
It's here where Slasher also starts to really struggle with its tone. What started out as a serious, partially meta film turns into a silly comedy that follows the main characters as they get high. Scenes with Mario and Lore being so baked that they can barely function around others are supposed to be funny, but they fall flat. All of this goes on for so long that Julio disappears and Slasher no longer feels like it's his story at all.
Julio Falls Short of Being a New Slasher Icon
Although there is a lot to criticize about Slasher, there are some elements that pull you in. Beyond the opening scene, Julio is easily the most complex character. It's probably not a good thing when the villain is more likable than the protagonists, but since this is his movie, it's welcome. This makes it frustrating that Julio isn't explored more. He is excited to get his mask and to go out killing, but when he strikes, he struggles, having never done this before, meaning that we get to see an amateur killer in the making rather than another run-of-the-mill hulk in a mask who slashes through everyone with ease. While Slasher doesn't have many inventive kills, Julio's initial lack of skills leads to an improvised death scene that is not only fitting for its victim but inventive in its creation.
Slasher needed much more of that inventiveness and exploration into who Julio is. Instead, everything is surface-level. Out of nowhere, Julio decides he can't kill anymore, only to quickly go back to doing it. Seeing more of an internal struggle would have been a nice touch to make Slasher more than the stereotypes it's born from. It falls short the most with Julio's father. He is the focus of the first scene, only to disappear without any explanation. Now, a horror movie that over-explains is never a good thing, but Slasher goes so far in the other direction, explaining nothing, that we don't have a reason to be invested. Who is Julio's father? Where do the powers come from? Why does he wear a wooden mask? Not giving us any of these answers makes it hard to care.
Slasher leads to a rather anticlimactic showdown between Julio and Ursula, but stay tuned in for the after credits scene. Here, we get a twist and perhaps an unsaid explanation for why Slasher struggles to find its way. Has the film been a set up for a sequel and a franchise all along? That could have worked, but you have to make the audience excited about the first film for them to want anything that might come after. Slasher has its moments, but Julio is not going to be the next masked killer icon.
Slasher is out on VOD and digital on October 8.
Comments
Post a Comment