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Men (boys?) are killed in slasher films as frequently as girls, but they're killed much quicker--and their bodies are usually found by the girls, simply to heighten the amount of torture the girl goes through before she is eventually killed. The girls are chased, cut, and terrorized much more than the males. All this is of course "foreplay" in terms of what is going on up on the screen.
Hooper acknowledged this in TCM when Sally offers to have sex with The Family; what she doesn't realize is that by their terms, they already ARE. He also addresses this in 2 when Leatherface prods the girl with his saw, and then again in Funhose when the girl offers her body to the killer if he'll let her live (but he kills her---having his cake and eating it, too).
And as Argento said: "Killing is a sexual act. I like women so my killers kill women."
In the old days of Hollywood, a man could kill another man on screen, but not a woman. Not because it was conisdered meaner, but it was too much like showing sex. Dracula couldn't go for a man's neck on screen because it was deemed gay.
I'm NOT saying I agree with old Hollywood's ruling, simply that killing, at least on a subconcsious level, is seen by many man as sexual act---if not even a sexial fantasy. And I DO think the more violent slashers play on this. Just look at those bozoes who paid three thousand bucks to go on Bambi hunts, chasing naked women through the woods and shooting them with paint guns.
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