Transcription
It's almost Halloween, so what better way to celebrate this godless pagan holiday than to write a horror story? But what genre of horror to cover? Why, there is only one type of horror fiction so formulaic that any idiot can write it with nearly zero effort! A slasher film!
Now, one would think that the focus of a slasher film is the slasher himself, but this is completely wrong. The first slasher film in a franchise is always about the collection of easily murdered stock characters and their petty teenaged dramas. This is to save on makeup and special effects, while also serving the dual purpose of wearing the audience’s patience thin so they will not feel guilty about rooting for each teen's gruesome death.
Now, make sure each teen has only one discernible character trait and zero self-preservation instincts. These traits range from promiscuity to drug addiction and are generally hedonistic. The only exception should be our obviously going to survive main heroine, whose wholesome values will render her immune to the slasher's killing spree, unlike the other characters and their amoral pragmatism.
Now that we have our collection of doomed stock characters, we need to pick a setting. Anywhere isolated will do, so long as there is limited cell phone service and all of the motor vehicles have mysterious mechanical failures. Just make sure our victims can't call for help and have those pesky authority figures sort everything out. If our teen victims use any of the hundreds of ways to easily send out a call for help, then our movie will be over faster than you can say SWAT team!
With the hedonistic youths trapped, it's time to start the slaughter. After the first victim is killed, the remaining survivors will find a secure location to fortify until help can arrive and will stay close to one another to take advantage of their numerical superiority. Just kidding. They will split up so the killer can butcher them one or two at a time! Be sure to make their deaths as graphic as possible to sate the blood-thirst of not the slasher, but the audience who is watching this movie to revel in the death of their fellow man.
Now, slashers are all about style. They could use firearms, but that's boringly efficient. Instead, they should use a common tool of some kind that would probably break down if someone tried to use it as a weapon. Some slashers have a supernatural ability to stop their chainsaws from dying. Nor should a slasher suffer the indignity of actually chasing their prey. Slashers do not run, they saunter. Don't worry. Another supernatural slasher ability is to fold space so they can appear when least expected to deal the killing blow. This jump-scare teleportation does not work on the main character, though, as her purity cancels it out.
Now, one of the best things about slasher films is the time a writer saves on dialogue, since the slasher never speaks. If not, then that's okay. Give the slasher all kinds of cheesy one-liners instead. I'm sure those won't get old!
After all of the other characters are dead, the final girl will face off against our slasher and somehow defeat him, despite being physically weaker, shorter, without a long reach, having less endurance, lacking upper body strength, remaining completely unarmed, and without any supernatural powers of her own. The slasher is defeated for good, or at least until the teaser just before the credits roll.
With the first movie out of the way, we can now flesh out our slasher in the sequel films! As a general rule, keep escalating every aspect of the slasher. Each film in the series should see the slasher gain new powers, more victims, and even cheesier one-liners. Don't forget to dilute the very things that made the slasher interesting in the first place and keep lumping on new gimmicks that become increasingly silly as each sequel progresses. By the time the third film rolls around, our slasher should look almost nothing like the original. I'm sure it won't alienate old fans of the franchise. Gradually shift the focus of the movie to the slasher and glamourize him, while completely ignoring the fact that he is a mass murderer.
Now, eventually we will run out of gimmicks. That's okay! Just send our slasher into space! When we can't think of new plots, we can always insert our slashers into new genres! If that fails, then we can always reboot it with somehow worse special effects! With these tips, our slasher franchise can become unkillable, as the slasher himself! Because the only thing that can truly defeat a slasher is poor box office returns.