Puzzles, Contraptions and the Highly Elaborate Moment: The Inevitability of Death in the Grand Slasher Narratives of the Final Destination and Saw Series of Films

Abstract

I have argued that the slasher film encapsulates a diversity of texts that need to be differentiated rather than clumped together (see Conrich 2010). The influence of key slasher films such as the Halloween and Friday the 13 ^th series on modern horror cinema is unquestionable, but these movies did not emerge from nowhere, nor did they cease to evolve. Before the slasher film there was the pre-slasher, and after the slasher there was what I have defined as the post-slasher, followed by the neo-slasher, the grand slasher and the slasher revival. The high impact of the grand slasher narrative on commercial cinema began with the Final Destination series of films in 2000, and such productions can be seen to include the Cube (1997–2004), Jeepers Creepers (2001–03) and Saw films (2004–10), The Cabin in the Woods (2012; dir Drew Goddard) and by extension Hostel (2005; dir Eli Roth), Hostel II (2007; dir Eli Roth) and Hostel III (2011; dir Scott Spiegel).