Slasher Television?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Horror
josephdonavyn — 9 years ago(October 19, 2016 09:22 AM)
what're you guys opinions on slasher television shows? Scream, Harper's Island, Slasher, scream queens Or any others that you know of? Slashers are my favorite subgenre and I've seen all of the shows previously stated up there but none of them have truly been great as a whole in my eyes.
Scream is a guilty pleasure but bad writing, filler & predictability make it suffer
Harper's island was a fun watch but it didn't really follow the slasher form with a "masked killer stalking people", regardless it was really good but lost all credit for me with the finale and the survivor(s)
Scream queens is dumb fun- it has fun killer attack sequences & makes me chuckle sometimes (best I can say about it)
Slasher may actually be my favorite of the 4, it had good characters, an "okay" final girl and story. Midseason, however, the show stumbled and the finale was a hot mess
Your thoughts ? -
MisterDenton — 9 years ago(October 19, 2016 01:15 PM)
I love slasher films as well, but slasher TVmore miss than hit, if you ask me.
The thing is that with a slasher movie, the plot can be super simple and it can work, because the running time is short. You don't have to go too deep, and you don't have to worry about getting the audience to suspend their disbelief for too long. Also, you don't have to worry about maintaining the intensity for longer than, say, 20-30 minutes during the climax. And that's a maximum.
With slasher TV shows, I find that the formula just doesn't fit because there's too much time to fill. The story can't be too simple or it'll be boring over multiple episodes (I find this with Scream, and is why I haven't even managed to finish the first season, despite multiple attempts). But then, if they try to get around the story problem by making it a little more complex, you can get something like Scream Queens which, though it's going for camp, is a HOT MESS in terms of story and tone. It doesn't even try to make sense, it's just way, way too convoluted. For me, that's a bit of a turn off. I need at least a bit of consistency if I'm going to keep tuning in every week.
Harper's Island probably hits the mark closest for me. Not that it was perfect, but it's formula worked the best - kill one or more characters every single week (which allowed each episode to have some suspense). It also took itself seriously enough to be coherent and consistent, but not so seriously that it sacrificed fun.
Really, I think the series that work the best are the ones that don't try to "pay homage" or "reimagine" the formula or stories from previous slashers - the ones that work the best are the ones that just are straight up slashers.