Glossary

Ok so here are the terms that you will see used reguarly throughout a SLASH above. Just so that you know…

• Abusive Parent – Want to set up a massacre in about 30 years? You too can be responsible for the death of numerous teens in slasher land. All you need to do is: a) Smash up your child’s puzzle of a naked chick b) Get it on with your partner who is dressed in a Santa suit c) Have an affair d) Take up a career in prostitution and let your child watch e) Put a bag on your nipper’s head f) Parade them at a circus freak show or g) Dress them as the opposite sex to what they are. Any of the above will result in your child growing up to become a mute, disfigured psycho killer – guaranteed!
• B-Movie – 95% of all slasher films are categorised here.
• Bogeyman – The monster of the feature. Can be a ghost, zombie, demon or normal human as long as he kills with a blade or something similar. Guys/Girls in a mask are the best and most common.
• Bunny/Bunnies – Usually sorority girls who are there only to flirt, scream and die (in that order)
• Campfire tale – Usually a background on the killer featured in the movie. One of the cast will give everyone a jolly good scare
• Chase scene – The Killer will pursue intended victim for two or three minutes until he/she falls over, stops or runs in to a dead end. Result depends on whether it is a background character or heroine (see final girl).
• Cheeseball – See cheesetastic
• Cheesetastic – Corny over the top rubbish that seems to run amok in these features
• Cheesy Wotsit – See cheesetastic
• Fancy Dress Party – True cheesy slashers NEED one of these. Helps for the killer in mask to blend in.Usually accompanied by a Rock Group of some kind.
• Final Girl – Despite killing every muscle bound jock extremely easily with no fight whatsoever, our maniacs generally have a problem overpowering goodie goodie women. If a female seems a tad too angelic/intelligent, you can bet your bottom dollar that she’ll survive
• Goo – bloody special effects are kinda like the Christmas decorations for a slasher flick
• Halloween – The source code. Lord of all things slasher. Mentioned a lot as a reference point
• Heavy Breath POV – A shot through the eyes of the killer. Oh and slasher villains tend to have asthma worthy breathing difficulty when they are about to kill someone.
• Heavy Metal – Very common throughout the eighties. It was cool back then for kids to listen to this.
• Hot Chicas – a personal one. Women that I find eminently attractive in these features, but won’t let the Mrs work it out.
• Inept Police Force – Every officer of the law in a slasher is as dumb as hell; it’s a must. They ignore patent evidence, never believe a heroine and die quite easily if confronted by the killer (see Jock)
• Jock – Muscle-bound insensitive ‘cool guy’ who looks like he could lift a bus off the road but is usually one of the easiest dispatched. Don’t expect much of a fight… it rarely happens.
• Killer Guise – The psychos in these things usually have an intriguing sense of style. Dress code is generally a boiler suit/ mask combo or a fedora and black gloves, but every now and then, you get boring ones who go for a plaid shirt and tie or a green jacket. Points are given for intriguing masks.
• Killer in the Woods – A group of victims stalked amongst the trees or in a forest. Big part of the genre after Friday the 13th
• Lady Lumps – The two lovely parts of the female anatomy that your mum warned you would make you go blind/told you that men would go mad for.
• Low Budget – It is relatively easy to make a slasher film, so some of them are produced on the kind of funding that you use for your birthday party
• Nut Job – See Bogeyman
• Proto-slasher – Film released before 1978 that incorporates some of the rules prior to Halloween defined them
• Rock band – Slasher victims love having one at their party – big hair and bubblegum rock is the general music style
• Score – What good would horror be without an eerie orchestra piece of music to accompany it? Or if it is a penny pincher, expect a synthesizer.
• Shot on shrooms – a title so weird that the filmmakers must have been dosed up on LSD or mushrooms of the ‘magic’ variety
• Skin Suit – You should find a female (sometimes male) dressed in this at one point during a slasher, it is, in effect, what you were wearing when you were first born.
• Slasherettes – Female slasher fans! In a more male populated community, it’s nice to speak with the odd slasherette
• Slashtastic – Very good or very much in vogue with the general slasher theme of things
• ‘Teens’ that are thirty – Why oh why? Why do these film crews hire actors well in to their thirties and say that they are teenagers? No one knows, but it happens loads
• Unmasking – The point in a film, where you say, ‘damn, I never knew it was him/her that was killing everyone’ (very rarely)