Cutthroat Competition in New Slasher Films
Aug. 20 -- Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Hollywood is preparing to give new meaning to cutthroat competition at the box office, and bloodthirsty audiences are cheering on the endless parade of murder.
The epic showdown between horror fans' favorite villains in New Line Cinema's Freddy vs. Jason was the No. 1 film at the box office last weekend. And it's just the beginning of a new wave in slasher films that will add new digital gore to B-movie legends.
In October, we'll see a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The sun will rise again on Dawn of the Dead in 2004.
Original horror films are also in style, with the release of Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, the vampire-kung fu thriller Vampire Hunters, and the zombie gore fest 28 Days Later.
But before you whet your morbid appetite, these are not your parents' low-budget B-movies, oozing with gobs of ketchup-like prop blood, made by kid filmmakers who cast their neighbors in supporting roles.
The $25 million budget for Freddy vs. Jason is probably larger than what was spent on several of the shoestring-budget first installments of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.
Still, Freddy vs. Jason was a long time in the making, as Robert Englund, who plays the plays the razor-fisted monster in a fedora, told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
"This is actually a fan-generated project," Englund said. "I can remember back, I guess, in 1984-1985, guys coming up to me in the street, saying 'Mr. Englund, sir, excuse me, dude, what would happen if you ran into Jason in an alley? Could you kick his butt?'
"It's is like, you know, male adolescents have too much time on their hands. What would happen if Freddy mud-wrestled with Chucky?" — the evil doll from the Child's Play horror series.
Kevin Bacon Was Dead Meat From the Very Start
The budgets may be larger, but the gratuitous gore formula hasn't changed. Monsters like Freddy Krueger have a special hunger for teenagers, especially promiscuous ones who make out in the woods. They also don't like annoying jokesters who scoff at supernatural terror.
