Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Gray
Halloween is personally one of my favorites but it was not the first of the slashers, that title goes to Black Christmas. Of course that could be argued as well as there were some forerunners in Thirteen Women, Peeping Tom, Psycho, Dementia 13, Blood Feast, and many of the Italian Giallo films. Silent Night, Bloody Night and Savage Weekend also came before Halloween. What Halloween had over these others was the huge box office success which is the reason that so many slasher films were made.
|
I never said that Halloween (1978) was the first slasher, merely the one that sparked the Slasher Age. Additionally, many later slashers were specifically modeled after Halloween (1978) because of its tremendous commercial success. Traditionally, Black Christmas (1974) is regarded as the first slasher, although films such as Psycho (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960) had tremendous influence on the genre. Bloodfeast (1963) raised the amount of gore that was tolerable in a film, along with such films as The Night of the Living Dead (1968) (i'm sure that giallo films had a simliar effect). Silent Night, Bloody Night might have been a slasher, though not particularly influential. Why Halloween (1978) was the one that sparked it is a matter of debate.