Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle

by Richard Nowell

Scholars have consistently applied psychoanalytic models to representations of gender in early teen slasher films such as Black Christmas (1974), Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) in order to claim that these were formulaic, excessively violent exploitation films, fashioned to satisfy the misogynist fantasies of teenage boys and grind house patrons. However, by examining the commercial logic, strategies and objectives of the American and Canadian independents that produced the films and the companies that distributed them in the US, Blood Money demonstrates that filmmakers and marketers actually went to extraordinary lengths to make early teen slashers attractive to female youth, to minimize displays of violence, gore and suffering and to invite comparisons to a wide range of post-classical Hollywood's biggest hits; including Love Story (1970), The Exorcist (1973), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease and Animal House (both 1978).

Blood Money is a remarkable piece of scholarship that highlights the many forces that helped establish the teen slasher as a key component of the North American film industry's repertoire of youth-market product.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Horror

304 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2010

Reviews

[Alec Cizak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nowell's book opens a new chapter in critical approach to the slasher genre. He obliterates the earlier criticism suggesting the slashers represented some sort of puritanical reactionary entertainment for conservatives. Using FACTS, he demonstrates how producers produced and promoted the early slashers (1974-1981) with a female audience in mind. The book is a bit dry and repetitive, but the argument is so compelling you will have no trouble finishing it.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating analysis of teen slashers that proposes by examining the production, distribution, and marketing of slasher films, one would discover filmmakers and distributors often went to great lengths to attract female audiences with these films.

Nowell proposes that these films took elements from animal comedies and romantic dramas to appeal to the youth demographic, and that the films often featured increasingly heroic, feminine final girls in doing so. His takedowns of interpreting the films as reactionary and Siskel & Ebert's critiques are especially refreshing to read.

This is definitely an academic text, and I wish he had done more to explore how the "victims" in these films are depicted in comparison to the final girl, which could have strengthened his more tangential argument regarding the gender dynamics of these films. Still, it's was an insightful read especially as a fan of slashers.

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too informational in style, and not enough soul. It's an academic approach to a low-brow genre. For die-hard horror fans and graduate film studies.

[Jason Coffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you love teen slasher films of the 70s and 80s? Me, too! Do you want to read an economics textbook about the economic and industrial trends that led to the slasher film boom? Oh. Well, I guess I must have at some level, because I read this book. Nowell makes a thoroughly-researched case for the non-horror market influences that led to the creation of the teen slasher, but it's just not that interesting to read unless you're hardcore into the money side of the movie business.

[Gregory Klages · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is academic film history, a point the author makes clear. They take an institutional/historical materialist type of approach to making sense of the financial underpinnings that drove development of the first teen slasher film cycle. If you are are picking this book up to get an entertaining narrative or background insights into on-set shenanigans, my friends - put the book down.

If you are looking for insights that go beyond the usual psychoanalytic content analysis, that combines insightful data drawn from marketing, ticket sales, investment, and media coverage of the film's development, as well as insights culled from later interviews with the directors, producers, etc., then you will find this book offers real benefits.

Approaching a genre that is often dismissed as unworthy of in-depth critical attention, particularly from institutionalist scholars of film production, this is solid work. It often reads like a doctoral dissertation (please, we don't really need the heavy-handed obvious re-articulation of what each chapter accomplished at the end of each chapter... really), but the scholarship is strong.

[Horror DNA · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his book Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film, author Richard Nowell counters the notion that slasher films exist primarily for teen boys by revealing how studios actually target the female audience rather than the male, thus insuring date-appeal, which would double the numbers of asses in theater seats.

Nowell goes on to examine how independent film companies follow the guidelines of MPAA member studio distribution regulations in order to guarantee a theatrical release. The formula is essentially a “monkey see, monkey do – it worked for them” scenario in which something special is created by one camp and immediately copied by another group before being bled of all color and taste by a pack of opportunistic jackals.

You can read ZigZag's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[Victor Drax · Rating 1 out of 5]

Promete una investigación a lo que es el cine slasher (ese en el que un psicópata acecha y mata adolescentes uno por uno a la Viernes 13) y entrega exactamente eso. Demasiado, diría yo.

Un trabajo de tésis que hace constantes referencias a otros libros, desarrolla teoría cinematográfica a fondo, modelos económicos y, en síntesis, agarra a la mariposa, la pega con alfileres en un anime y la detalla y disecciona hasta que ya no hay magia en el animalito. Podrías suponer que nadie puede hacer al tema del homicidio en masa aburrido, pero aquí lo tienes. Pasas página tras página buscando algún nexo con el tema.

Muy, muy malo. Going to Pieces, de Adam Rockoff, got it way better.