Author’s note: This essay contains a number of hyperlinks. I recommend opening them in a new tab/browser window, whenever possible.
By 1988, the basic tropes of the slasher film were firmly in place. Two movies in particular, John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Sean Cunningham’s Friday the 13th (1980), had, early on, established the premise of a silent, masked maniac systematically killing off teenagers and young adults.
