Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

xxxiv
Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986; dir. Hooper) used no supernatural elements, but
undercut the horror with both overt socio-political statement and broad comedy.
One exception from 1986 is Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (dir. McNaughton),
which, while using elements of the horror genre, structurally differs greatly from the
other slasher films from the period, and owes as much to trends in cinema verité as it
does films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. So, while Henry: Portrait of a Serial
Killer is a stand out film of 1986, it fails to represent overall trends in the genre,
which the Friday the 13 th series does. Jason Lives! advanced the slasher by applying
supernatural elements in order to revitalise a financially diminishing franchise, but
this innovation only occurred as a reactionary result of other more innovative
properties, most particularly, the A Nightmare on Elm Street films.
The New Blood incorporated more supernatural plotting into the narrative by
making the protagonist, Tina, a telekinetic. 10
This follows on from the story line of
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985; dir. Sholder;), in which
Freddy kills his victims by possessing a teenage boy. While this directly translates
into the later Jason Goes to Hell, it still becomes indicative of the divergence of the
Friday the 13 th series from the narrative slasher format of the earlier films. There is
also a close link to A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988; dir.
Harlin), in which the female protagonist, Kristen, has the ability to draw others into
her dreams, allowing her to assemble a group of people to defeat Freddy. This
further addresses the appeal of psychic powers as they are included into slashers
during this period. The New Blood was also released the year following the release
of The Evil Dead 2 (1987; dir. Raimi), which similarly demonstrates the
10 Caryn James’s contemporary review of the film for The New York Times describes Tina, the
protagonist, as “a Carrie clone” (1988), in reference to the telekinetic protagonist from the Stephen
King novel (1974) and Brian DePalma’s 1976 film adaptation.