I Was a Teenage Slasher

The first slasher films served as critiques of class comfort and security. With the rise of the upper-middle class in the wake of World War II, the suburbs emerged as a convenient hub for respite and community engagement, allowing businessmen who worked in the city and their families to engage within their social class. Living in the suburbs became a popular aspirational symbol throughout the United States, expediting its spread through mass-produced housing and the development of nearby malls and shopping centers.

Consequently, the year 1978 saw the arrival of the first true slasher movie in John Carpenter’s Halloween. Carpenter’s film poked a hole in the bubble of comfort that the suburbs offered, allowing his iconic slasher Michael Myers to roam from house to house with relative ease. Halloween was followed by the success of Fred Walton’s When a Stranger Calls the following year, where the slasher stalks a babysitter from inside the house. Tangentially, both of these movies also resonated with the emerging social phenomenon of serial killings, such as those committed by Ted Bundy and Ed Kemper throughout the decade. During this time, the FBI began to profile their behavior, turning American households more cautious, protective, and suspicious of one another.

In 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States marked a cultural turning point in the history of the slasher film. The Reagan era was marked by an aggressive push toward cultural conservatism, which affected slasher films both in terms of production and thematic content. Early slasher movies were seen as repulsive for their violent content, a view that aligned with the Reagan administration’s drive to tamp down on public displays of lewdness and depravity while also exacerbating the economic conditions that necessitated such violence in the first place. At the same time, the 1980s also saw the popularization of home video, where slasher movies found their footing, as well as their true audience in young teenagers. These trends translated into a shift within the genre as slasher films began to display conservative resentment for teenagers, criticizing their behavior through a moralistic lens to warn them away from liberal behaviors.

The first Friday the 13th film, released in 1980, reveals that Jason Voorhees drowned as a young child when the camp counselors who were supposed to look after him ended up leaving to have sex. Voorhees returns as an invincible slasher from the second film onwards, taking revenge against any camp counselor who comes in his way. This includes the final girl, an archetypal character usually depicted as a popular innocent who refuses to participate in her peers’ “immoral” activities. The final girl’s behavior is thus more closely aligned with conservative values. These genre patterns are visible in similar films like Sleepaway Camp (1983) and The Slumber Party Massacre (1982).

The 1980s also saw the introduction of supernatural elements into the slasher film. Where the original Halloween presented Michael Myers as a physical force of nature, its successors would eventually underscore the role of religion in defeating the slasher. In 1989, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers suggests that Michael Myers is empowered by a pagan cult. Earlier in the decade, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) would prominently feature religious icons and imagery as an emotional salve for the torments of slasher Freddy Kreuger. The common implication between these two staple characters was that slashers were demonic forces who only victimized the teens that gave in to liberal behaviors.

These cultural developments play directly into Stephen Graham Jones’s concerns in I Was a Teenage Slasher. Set in 1989, the novel weaponizes the decade’s fixation on resentment and revenge to inform Tolly Driver’s actions as a slasher. Although Tolly does not feel in control of himself whenever his slasher persona emerges, he becomes aware of the “slasher logic” that dictates his movements. This logic consists in seeking retribution for the way Tolly has been ostracized by his peers. The same pattern is visible in the character of Justin Joss, who seeks revenge for his accidental death. That death was a direct result of Justin’s aspiration for social acceptance, which is a prevailing theme in the novel. Evidently, Justin is a cautionary tale for Tolly.