Little 2025 slasher double feature I did yesterday:
Clown in a Cornfield is a very fun time at the theater. Sleekly shot with some fun twists and turns, it also has a pretty timely messaging and meaning inside it. It never quite reaches the horror comedy upper stratosphere director Eli Craig's best offering does (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) but it's full of heart and passion none the less. Doesn't reinvent the wheel by any means (and the ultimate twist was done in another film to a much better, funnier effect) but it had me dying to read the book series it's based on. Really hoping it does decent enough to get us a sequel since it's a trilogy of books but I could see it being genre fodder quickly.
Hell of a Summer is another horror comedy slasher but with a distinctly different flavor. Writer / Director duo Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard are clearly fans of slasher history, with this film's great use of the summer camp counselor trope. This film is also pretty damn funny at times with its quick succession of nonchalant characters dropping off beat one liners with every hack and slash of the devil masked killer. The score also slaps quite hard and really help give this that 80s summer camp slasher vibe. Again, no reinventing of the wheel here but this is a real blast of a fun time that brings quite an ample amount of bloodshed, with one kill in particular being one of the better slasher kills I've witnessed (it's nothing new per-say but the effects and make up work were just superb!). The cast is tremendous here, with each actor playing a different stereotypical counselor character amplified to a zillion degrees.
While the slasher film has proven time and time again since the very first time it appeared in cinema that it's never really dead, it does feel like we're in a slasher boom. Classic slasher series continue to go strong or get the reboot axe while original properties are popping up left and right, with everything from low budger indie sprees to laid back laugh-slashers to IP exploitation films. The one thing I do wish for is that I do hope we get at least some more serious killer romps. I think it's very easy for slasher films to fall back into horror comedy stylings simple due to their nature as set piece quick escalation/de-escalation films but I do want to see something with legitimate, sharp teeth every now and then from one of my favorite subgenres!