Seventeen things we can learn from watching slasher flicks

1.    Teenagers are natural victims. They are on earth to become the prey of murderous psychopaths.

2.    Teenagers never have any physical blemishes. They’re all impeccably athletic, physically attractive and have perfect skin. And, yes, the girls never have periods and the men never grow any beard stubble during the film.

3.    Teenagers are essentially brainless. They can think only of three things: horsing around, drinking, and sex, not necessarily in that order.

4.    Teenagers never, ever, listen to the warnings from the creepy old man at the petrol station or in the juddering old truck to stay away from the ol’ Grantham farmhouse up in the woods.

5.    Not listening to those warnings can be extremely dangerous because it’s more than probable that the creepy old man is a psychopathic killer waiting for victims.

6.    Teenagers find the damndest places to have sex. Even if they have a perfectly good tent, or a room with a functioning bed, they’ll go out in the woods, in the dark, to fuck.

7.    Teenagers are bug-proof. Mosquitoes and gnats never seem to bother them when they strip down in the undergrowth to get down and dirty,only they never get dirty.

8.    There is always enough light to see the swaying bare breasts of the first girl to be bumped off, moments before she is bumped off, even if it’s the dead of night.

9.    If you’re a teenager who wants to survive to the end of the film, your chances of doing so increase steadily if you -
don’t screw
don’t drink
are a nice, simpatico person
are pretty and female.

10.    Teenagers don’t have the common sense to stick together in one room and wait out the night once the murderer gets going. No, they have to split up and offer themselves as potential victims, one by one.

11.    The murderer has nothing better to do than wait around for potential victims to turn up at the ol’ Grantham farmhouse up in the woods. Apparently earning a living and all can wait.

12.    The murderer could easily knock ‘em all off by setting fire to the ol’ Grantham farmhouse or by rigging up a bomb, but he’d rather use a meat hook or a rusty sword on a pole or something similar. The less efficient and gorier, the better.

13.    Once there are three survivors left, if you are the only male or the only female, you can be sure you won’t be the next victim. So you can easily walk off to get help, but for some reason you never do.

14.    Even though the murderer is crafty as hell and can knock off the first six of the eight clueless teenagers, for some reason all his craftiness and resource desert him once there is only the final pair of survivors left.

15.    The murderer never dies, even if he to all appearances dies. Even dead killers mysteriously come back to life as the final credits roll.

16.    The police never ask the final pair of survivors awkward questions about all those corpses lying about in and around the ol’ Grantham farmhouse, especially since there’s no evidence of the perpetrator. No, the Final Pair gets to walk off into the sunrise…

17.    …until the killer returns in the sequel to gut them alive.