Why So Many Slasher Movie Franchises Went To Space (& Most Were Bad) – Screen Rant

Several slasher franchises made the poor decision of taking their iconic killers to space. Here's why so many popular slashers stormed the cosmos.

At one point or another, filmmakers took some of the greatestslasher horror moviecharacters in cinema history and took them into outer space - here's why they did, and why most of them were arguably bad as a result. While it seemed like an effective way to incorporate science fiction with horror, these movies tended to flop despite having name recognition and iconic killers. As each of these intergalactic slashers prove, some killers just aren't meant to venture into the cosmos.

When the slasher sub-genre boomed in the 1980s, it was thanks to several iconic filmmakers and the now-iconic characters they created. Some of the most notable contributions were John Carpenter'sHalloween,Wes Craven'sA Nightmare On Elm Street,and Sean S. Cunningham'sFriday The 13th.As they expanded from singular movies into major franchises, they began to decrease in popularity due to their formulaic nature, repetitive plot, and predictable kills. Craven even called out the sub-genre's tropes in his meta-horror movieScream,which released in 1996 and took jabs at the "rules" slasher movies tend to follow. Due to the fact that nearly every one of these franchises have reached double digits, the respective writers and directors had to find a way to go in a new and inventive direction, as they were too profitable and popular to discontinue. Thus, slashers went into space.

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Not every slasher franchise ventured into the vast unknown. The ones that did includeFriday The 13th, Hellraiser,andLeprechaun.John Carpenter was rumored to have pitched a movie about Michael Myers going to space, but it never happened. When slashers went into space, it was often seen as a marker that they'd recognized just how stale and predictable their movies had gotten. None of them performed as well as their other sequels, but are still largely considered a must-watch for fans because - more often than not - they're classified as "so bad, they're good."

Todd Farmer, the writer ofJason X,stated that there was nothing left for Jason Voorhees to do, but go to space. This in itself is a major indicator of just how stale these franchises had grown. There was absolutely nothing left for Jason to do except for go to space in the year 2455 after being cryogenically frozen. Even after he is set free, the same predictable storyline about a killer stalking promiscuous teenagers commences. While it was an attempt at making something new and inventive, critics proclaimed that the franchise was still stuck in the past despite heading to the future. The same mistake was made whenLeprechaunwent into space inLeprechaun 4: In Space.

All these movies did was take their respective killers and place them into a sci-fi setting. The shift didn't impact their killings, it was solely a matter of a change in location; this isn't enough to reinvent or reinvigorate a franchise or sub-genre. Clive Barker'sHellraiseralso wound up in space during the 1990s. This installment is considered mediocre in comparison to the rest of the franchise, which had a lot of strengths when it initially began in 1987. Beyond the formulas growing stale, several other factors contributed to slashers going to space: the new millennium was swiftly approaching, and technology was being utilized in more movies outside of the sci-fi/horror sub-genre.

The most overwhelming excuse for why slashers went into space was the fact that they had little else left to do. They'd already slain their original set of campers or targets, caused enough mayhem to last generations, and even went to big cities like New York (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan). They were mostly bad because they retained the same structure, and only changed location. This somewhat minute change wasn't as inventive as it had been believed to be, despite the numerous successful sci-fi horror movies. Sci-fi horror movies often thought outside the box, integrating the setting and technology as part of the greater plot, rather than just an arbitrary addition. Ultimately, slasher horror movies weren't inherently made for space they were made for summer camps, horrifying Halloween nights, and holiday celebrations gone wrong, especially when they'd already been established as such for so long.

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Marian Phillips works as a Horror Movie Features Writer for Valnet, Inc at ScreenRant.

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Why So Many Slasher Movie Franchises Went To Space (& Most Were Bad) - Screen Rant