The 1980s were the heyday of the slasher movie. Well, the decade was the heyday of the mainstream slasher movie. It was the time when slashers ruled the theatrical screen, taking the top spot for horror. Slashers haven’t gone away, by any means, but they definitely aren’t the theatrical force that they used to be. There might be a handful that come out in theaters now. In the 1980s, though, there was an abundance of slashers getting a theatrical push.
Halloween and Black Christmas made that possible. Their successes in the mid-to-late 1970s had piqued the interest of many filmmakers. They gathered people they knew, put out a casting call, and started making their own slashers. A boom of slashers resulted, with many of them becoming classics or cult classics. Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, The Burning, and a bunch of others hit at the beginning of the decade. They paved the way for sequels, derivative knock-offs, and a late 1980s fall-off of popularity for the genre. At the beginning of the decade, though, slashers were huge.
A lot of filmmakers took ideas from the slashers that came before them. Black Christmas and Halloween utilized a time of year. My Bloody Valentine followed suit. Friday the 13th was set on a bad luck day. The Burning and Sleepaway Camp took the camp setting from Friday the 13th. Slaughter High used April Fool’s Day. New Year’s Evil used New Year’s Eve. After those first two slashers became hits, every one that followed was just trying to jump on a trend and keep it going.
One of the other films that looked for a foothold in the saturated slasher market was Graduation Day. Anne Ramstead (Patch Mackenzie) returned to her hometown following her sister’s death during a track meet. People blamed the track coach George Michaels (Christopher George) for pushing the team too hard. Someone started to kill the track team, member by member. It was only a matter of time before people found out why.
Graduation Day hinged upon elements from other slasher films of the time. It took the idea of a specific time of year from Black Christmas and Halloween. Instead of Christmas or spooky season, the movie was set during the end of the school year in the days approaching graduation. It also took the high school setting from many of its contemporaries like Prom Night, which had come out a year earlier. It let the school grounds play into the action unfolding, as the track and field team was being picked off with school equipment in places they had been accustomed to.
One other element that was borrowed from other slashers was the murder mystery element. This side of slashers became popularized by Scream, with people pointing to that movie as the one that revolutionized the mystery element of slashers. That isn’t an entirely true statement, however. Slashers had been playing up the mystery of the killer many years before. Friday the 13th had a mystery killer, as did Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, and Sleepaway Camp. Graduation Day was in the mix, with many of the deaths happening from the point of view of the killer, who was wearing black gloves. If anything, Graduation Day was taking from giallo horror, which was the real trendsetter for mystery slashers.
The mystery wasn’t as enrapturing as it should have been. It was built more to play to the audience than to include the characters. The audience was able to see the mysterious, masked figure attacking the track team. The POV shots with black gloves began everything. Things later transitioned into the killer wearing sweats and a fencing helmet, chasing victims around the school grounds. Watching the movie, it was easy to wonder who could be behind that mask. The characters in the movie didn’t even know there was a killer, though. They thought people were running late or hadn’t shown up to places they were supposed to be. Until the end, nobody suspected that people were being killed. Thus, the mystery that Graduation Day presented to viewers wasn’t a mystery to the characters.
One thing that didn’t carry over to Graduation Day was the violent deaths that would become a staple of slasher films. It might have simply been a year or two too early for that. My Bloody Valentine and The Burning would come out that same year and set the tone for the violence to come. Graduation Day felt tame by comparison. Sure, there was some blood and effects work, but the movie was tame when compared to some of its contemporaries. When one character’s death involved being impaled by a football with a fencing sabre attached to it, and all that was shown was the victim holding the football to his stomach, it was easy to see that Graduation Day was pulling punches. It wasn’t hitting nearly as hard as it could, thus taking away some of the entertainment value of the deaths.
Graduation Day wasn’t the best example of the slasher genre. It took a bunch of beats and story elements from other, better slasher flicks of the time. It felt like a lesser rehash of those other, better slashers. But something made it work. Maybe it was the way that the killer picked off track team members. It gave a sense of reason behind what could otherwise be senseless murders. Perhaps it was the unhinged coach played by Christopher George, a shining light in an otherwise mostly poorly acted film. It could have even been seeing the familiar faces of Linnea Quigley and Vanna White before their peak popularity. There was also a fun musical performance by Felony. Graduation Day may have been a messily put together movie, but enough of the elements were enjoyable that it made for an extremely watchable, if forgettable, early 1980s slasher.
Many slashers cribbed details from the slashers that came before them. Graduation Day was no different. If one piece of the slasher subgenre was successful, other filmmakers would try to copy it. It led to a massive growth in the subgenre in a short amount of time. By the mid-1980s, the market was oversaturated. There was only one way for things to go. A downward trajectory was coming. By the end of the decade, the slasher subgenre would be on the outs with movie fans.
Black Christmas and Halloween started a subgenre of horror that is still going strong to this day. It had its moment in the spotlight, in the early 1980s. It then faded from the mainstream as the movies got more derivative and faltered in quality. There would be another high moment for the subgenre in the mid 1990s when Scream brought it back. It would fade again a few years later and has lived under the surface since. Slasher movies are still being made, adding to the vast wealth of movies that already exist. There’s nothing better than visiting one from the 1980s, though. There’s nothing like visiting one of the many derivative slasher entries and seeing how it holds up to its contemporaries.
Let’s see how these notes hold up:
- A few slashers covered in Sunday “Bad” Movies were mentioned in this post. They were Sleepaway Camp (week 150), Slaughter High (week 279), and New Year’s Evil (week 318).
- Denise Cheshire was in both Ed (week 11) and Graduation Day.
- Graduation Day featured Carmen Argenziano, who was in The Single Moms Club (week 179).
- Graduation Day wasn’t the first appearance of Linda Shayne in Sunday “Bad” Movies. She was also in Screwballs (week 292).
- Finally, Patrick Wright made a pretty quick return in Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was in Track of the Moon Beast (week 454) and Graduation Day.
- Have you seen Graduation Day? What did you think of it? Are there any other derivative 1980s slashers that you enjoy? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
- If you’re on Twitter or in the comments, you could also suggest movies for me to watch. I’m open to any suggestions and might even include them in a future blog post.
- Sunday “Bad” Movies is on Instagram. Check it out.
- It’s time to look forward to next week. It should be a fun one. I don’t have too much to say about it yet, so I’m just going to say what it is. I’ll be watching Zombie Strippers! for the next post. Come on back in a week and see what I have to say about it. See you then.
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