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 duel 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 due 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 teleporation does not work on the main character though as her purity
cancels it out.
Now one of the best thing about slasher films is the time a writer saves on dialog 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.