Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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Argument
Friday the 13 th is an extremely significant high grossing slasher film
franchise and has consistently been marginalized both critically and academically.
There has been much academic debate on what the term “slasher” entails, but for my
research purposes, it will indicate a sub-genre of horror that isolates the detailed
actions of a serial murderer and his victims. The plots of slasher films involve an
aggressor, sometimes working in tandem with supernatural forces, stalking and
dispatching victims. The events lead to a climactic confrontation with the killer.
There is minimal concentration on plot and character development, with the focus
directed largely toward the final or surviving victim and the killer. Although fear
and suspense traditionally characterize horror, slasher films focus mostly on the
cause of death, with particular attention to details of bodily mutilation. Friday the
13 th and its nine sequels comprise one of the franchises central to the popularity of
the slasher film over the last thirty years.
There is also a noticeable lack of formalist aesthetic analysis within horror
research, which is overwhelmed by theoretical and psychoanalytical speculation
concerning the themes the horror genre addresses. A link between the rareness of
aesthetic analysis in the horror genre and the lack of serious research on the Friday
the 13 th series is noticeable. However, the simplicity of plot and character
development in the Friday the 13 th films creates difficulty for analysts discerning
meaning, which can be seen through the frequent sideline references of the series,
such as in works by Carol Clover (1992), Reynold Humphries (1991), Robin Wood
(2003) and others, and fewer in-depth case studies of the series. However, the series
does invite an analysis of form, despite the supposed complications that arise from