It started, god help me, with Cocaine Bear.
Who knew what to expect? If I had been bored at home, with too much of the internet unscrolled — a too-stocked Steam library, a too-ready river of streaming services — this mid-budget meme movie could have come and gone without ever crossing my desk. A guy came to the theater in a big rubber bear costume, spiritual precursor to DJ Jazzy Jeff, and like… Look, we’re all just here to have a good time. But after watching enough haha fun facts get vaccuumed into uber-clickable headlines and regurgitated as Oscars sight gags, you get a good sense of which dead horses arrive pre-beaten.
But in those halcyon pre-Kimmel days, Cocaine Bear made for a great excuse to go out to dinner with some friends. We dragged our barbecue-laden bodies through concessions, passed the time in a packed theater, and sat around till the small hours talking about slashers.
I mean, is Cocaine Bear a slasher? I liked Fear Street a whole lot, caught pieces of Scream at a Halloween party before seeing last year’s reboot in theaters. Otherwise I was clueless. I lacked context for the art form as a whole. Outside of some core set, how far could you twist a genre label until it snapped?
That question chased me through the dark forests and narrow hallways of half a dozen slasher flicks, and a whole dismembered heap of journal articles, book chapters, think pieces on one of the least charmed categories of cinema.
I wanted to prove something about the way we judge movies, and what we lose when we’re set on respectability. Check your locks, cover your mirrors, and don’t sneak off.