Slasher films reflect society

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- As if high school -- with its harder classes and its social cliques, not to mention raging hormones -- wasn't bad enough, teens face challenges like high divorce rates, rampant availability of drugs and school shootings.

But it could be worse.

They could be confronting a demonic, butcher knife-wielding escaped mental patient wearing a soulless Halloween mask who refuses to die no matter how many times he's shot, incinerated, run over and otherwise dispatched until the next sequel.

Still, the plight of young Laurie Strode, the Jamie Lee Curtis character from John Carpenter's 1978 horror movie classic "Halloween," isn't as far removed from the experiences of the average teen-ager as you might think, according to a University of Illinois professor.

Celluloid shot of culture

"Halloween," "Friday the 13th," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and other "teen slasher films" that popped up in the late 1970s and early 1980s reflected issues kids were facing in real life, says Pat Gill. A UI media studies professor, Gill specializes in studying how pop culture, especially the movies, addresses things going on in society at large.

And with "Jason X," the 10th installment of the "Friday the 13th" series, and "Halloween: Resurrection," teen slasher films and movies in general continue to offer an avenue or looking at our culture and ourselves, Gill said recently.

"It's important to see these films as not mere entertainment," she said. "They're really products of the culture."

Not that the movies don't entertain Gill too.

"I like teen slasher films," she said. "They make me laugh. I like state-of-the-art gore. I'm interested in the technology."

Her interest in the genre prompted Gill to make a study of teen slasher films that became an article for the Journal of Film and Video and this year turned into a course at the UI. Next year's course will be in gangster movies.

"I pick topics that I think will engage my students and I try to make them think very hard," said Gill.

The class discussed the firms in terms of art, literature, philosophy, religion, race and gender.

Gill said it's not surprising the films appeared during the late '70s "Me Decade" atmosphere of hedonism and after a decade of soaring divorce rates.

She noted that teen slasher films are characterized by parents and other adults who either aren't there to help.