APRIL FOOL'S DAY (1986) AS ‘ANTI-SLASHER’
A PROPOSAL FOR ANALYSIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53450/2179-1465.RG.2023v14i2p30-47Keywords:
Cinema, Horror, Slasher FilmAbstract
This paper examines the film April Fool's Day (Fred Walton, US, 1986), which is part of the first cycle of slasher films released mostly in the United States and Canada in the 1980s targeting a young audience. Our analysis will strive to highlight one component that distinguishes April Fool's Day within the cycle, which is its farcical aspect, and thus a self-reflective and critical aspect, predicting slasher satires that would come to the fore from the late 1990s onward. We will address debates on slashers and the framing of this subgenre in the tradition of horror as a spectacle of shock, particularly from the heritage of the Théatre du Grand Guignol.
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