X vs. Scream (5); or, the Slasher Film in 2022

With cascades of high-pitched screams and buckets of red syrup-style blood, if you don't love a good slasher flick you may as well be dead already.

The genre, like many cinematic regulars, can be accredited to a multitude of sources. Many of the famous slasher predecessors include the French Les Diabouliques (Clouzot, 1955), whose mere invention sparked a chain reaction that led us all the way to where we are now, the sleazy British absurdity Peeping Tom (1960, Powell) which notoriously sabotaged the remainder of its directors career) and of course Psycho (1960, Hitchcock) from the master of suspense himself, often cited as the “first'' slasher film.

But many hardcore fans of the genre love to cite the John Carpenter film Halloween (1978) as the first “true” slasher fillm, utilizing the tropes and visionary freedoms of the still-fresh New Hollywood to deliver a genuine experience of suspense; and what Halloween lacks in bloodlust it makes up for in sheer body count and chilling, eerie tone. The suburbs were the Northstar of housing for American families, so if that could happen in Haddonfield to Laurie Strode and her friends, it could happen to you and yours too.

And just after Halloween’s unveiling, the world was granted almost a full decade of new movies of various budgets, all celebrating various kinds of serial killers, both realistic and supernatural, off-ing their victims (usually adolescents and young adults) one by one.

As tired back then as the superhero genre is today, we saw varying iterations of the slasher genre, many of which came with a new mascot, usually in a mask (i.e. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Chucky, etc) some even going as far as to paint other classic characters and mythos in a more disturbing light (see Leprechaun or even Pinocchio’s Revenge). Some of them have become forgotten back-room videotapes at abandoned Blockbusters, while others are here to stay (whether it’s necessary or not).

But this past month, I took a friend of mine (with whom I frequently watch movies) to see two separate films that fit the slasher mold, which is a rare thing to be able to do in 2022. One was wholly original and new with no pre-existing franchise ties (X), whilst the other was a fifth installment in an arguably tired series (Scream). Seeing these two films back-to-back brought about an itch to compare them in terms of reception, aesthetics, and various other takeaways (aside from Jenna Ortega’s sudden rise as a “Scream Queen”).

We saw Scream first. It’s technically Scream 5 but for the purposes of its meta connotations it’s just officially named Scream again.

The first Scream in 1996 was a true work of art for pop-culture enthusiasts. While committing to being a slasher film it refused to formally adhere to all of the genre’s traditions (spoilers ahead) such as the killer being a single person, the killer being by some means immortal, and of course its melding of other genres such as comedy and “whodunit” style mystery.

But the true genius of the first Scream is something that has thankfully tracked into every sequel as well, and that’s its meta commentary on horror films (particularly the slashers) and the culture that surrounds them. It opens with Drew Barrymore, a rising celebrity in the ‘90s, answering a phone call from the killer and, after an increasingly hostile back-and-forth and reluctant horror film trivia, Drew Barrymore is gutted before the film’s ten-minute mark, much to the shock of anyone who saw the poster.

The film is not just a slasher film, but an “ode” to them, and every installment thereafter has made sure to continue that tradition, something I was pleased to see in the fifth Scream, the first installment in a world without the original’s writer/director Wes Craven. The sequel manages to be about horror sequels, whereas the third covers trilogies, the fourth remakes, and the fifth covers the bizarre (and frankly awkward) trend of “spiritual sequels” or “remake-quels” most easily described as something that takes place in the original’s universe, but nevertheless feels very much like a do-over.

And despite the standard M.O. in the fifth Scream that we are used to (frantic paranoia, body count, the big reveal), I still managed to find many moments of true suspense and comedic relief in-between somewhat forced conversations and god-awful character decisions. And the directors, who’d previously worked on Ready or Not and horror anthologies like V/H/S and Southbound, most certainly knew how to articulate the spirit of the first four; while the characters said and did things that were inherently absurd, it felt to be truly canon in the hellish cycle of Woodsboro youth. Sidney Prescott will clearly not catch a break anytime soon.

About a week later, with the same friend as before, I attended a screening of the new feature-length film by Ti West entitled simply X. This was my first time viewing a film by West ,and based solely on the self-aware yet gritty tone of X, will likely not be the last one I see.

X leans into the meta connotations of films about filmmaking, this time in the setting of a pornographic production in the 1970s. And of course one of our six leads is a pretentious director guising the “smut” (as his girlfriend puts it) as “art.” And in the true spirit of modern horror, there’s an actor who primarily daylights as a musician in the world of pop or hip-hop (i.e. Trey Songz in Texas Chainsaw 3D, Busta Ryhmes in Halloween: Resurrection), Kelly Rowland in Freddy vs. Jason), this time a man named Scott Mescudi, better known as Kid Cudi.

These six unsuspecting cinematic wannabes go out to a Texan farm to make their avant-garde porno only to be knocked off one by one come nightfall. The film is very similar to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in a number of ways other than just its setting, including its various shot compositions (particularly inside the homeowner’s house, its depraved elderly characters, its willingness to let much of the runtime pass before “getting to the action” so to speak, and course its body count.

And while I maintain the ‘70s Texas Chain Saw as one of my favorites in the horror genre, I have never claimed it to be perfect. The Tobe Hooper film left much to be desired in terms of character work and making the rather inactive first part truly interesting. For a film that ends with several depraved scenes, there’s an awful lot of meandering when the five friends from that film are just hanging out at their old family home. And criticisms aside, Ti West creates inherently more intriguing characters than its Texas predecessor with X, sparking interesting (if not heavy-handed) arguments on the sometimes blurry line between art and pornography, the “free love” of that 1960s-70s time period, and the relevance and importance of maintaining sexual identity and activity, even when past the ages of “peak” sexual drive (delivered in a way that I doubt anyone asked for, but delivered nonetheless).

But still, I can’t say as of this writing how interested (if at all) I’d be in seeing X again. While I felt I got my money’s worth in intrigue and especially entertainment, the film left me cold and indifferent. Say what you will about poor writing Texas Chain Saw, the fact remains that when I first saw it (circa 2011) my teenage self would think of very little outside the realm of that film’s ending (spoilers ahead for both). Seeing the sunrise in the backdrop of Sally Hardesty laughing and screaming hysterically, likely never to recover, paired with Leatherface and most of his family still alive, liable to go on doing as they had been before the film’s beginning, was far more haunting than anything X hoped to deliver. Films like Texas Chain Saw and The Shining and The Last House on the Left and even more recent films like Hereditary had endings that were not just disturbing and cruel, but also ambiguous and foreboding.

X, on the other hand, ends with Mia Goth running over an older woman (humorously enough, one played by Goth also) and driving away. We then learn through “old” (equally fictitious) footage and audio that she, a porn star, is the daughter of a famous (possibly infamous) pastor, one whose theatrics and “edgy” nature of voicing his beliefs were likely things that had honed the narcissism and rebellious acts of Goth’s younger character in the first place. While that ending made sense on some levels, there was something about it in regards to the survivor getting away unscathed (physically and mentally) paired with a corny and meta joke by police the next morning that made the ending feel contrived and dull.

Both X and Scream (2022) managed to have the “modern” slasher tropes that inherited 1970s-1980s nostalgia and plot structures whilst also relying on more metal commentary. And while they both bring about new ideas to this trend (a trend that is frankly growing tired in my opinion) they both manage to be very different in terms of aesthetics, but strikingly similar in that they are both only worth watching once (in this writer’s opinion).

While Scream (2022) is much more entertaining, especially in regards to granting the audience what they came for in terms of bloodlust, its additions to the “conversation” of horror films that the Scream series is famous for, while up-to-date, don’t save it from some trite character work as well as poor dialog, structural tiredness, and a reveal that I’d personally seen coming. Whereas X, on the other side of the spectrum aesthetically, a “slow-burn” film with more directorial control and more clear passion for how everything looks and smaller nuances, manages to both do what Scream (2022) did wrong and un-do what it did right. Its characters are much more compelling, and while it bore more interesting things to say thematically, it did not prevent it from not having enough to say (especially in its first half) to justify its snail pace. And when things turn eventful in X, one can’t help but think some of the deaths only occurred from West thinking things like “Okay, she’s been around too long, feed her to an alligator,” or “I don’t know what to do with her anymore, feed her a stray bullet,” and it comes across as simply messy. I do not regret seeing either for full ticket price, but the fact remains that I am unlikely to purchase either or tell my friends they have to see them (as I am known to do).

Overall, this is not an argument for the full execution of the slasher genre, nor is it an obituary saying it’d died years ago. I think there are many slasher films that take the genre and create more innovative and interesting notions, stylizing it and using it to communicate new perspectives and ideas. It Follows is one of them, creating a world that exists solely to be an homage to the genre with its timeless setting, sleek musical score and its comments on the sexual habits of people in their late teens/early twenties. Midsommar, which playfully balances both slashers and folk horror, is another, taking characters down one-by-one (in a Swedish cult setting) and eventually relaying its protagonist on a psychological/spiritual journey that reflects on the nature of how we both rely on and manipulate one another. Film genres, even when as specific as the “slasher” genre, are not things that I think should come with strict sets of rules but instead act as mere templates, where filmmakers and writers can toy with what’s been done and what they can bring to it next to the best of their abilities.