“Everyone was laughing”: the classic horror movie that Slash thought was funny
For any filmmaker, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As much as people might like the idea of someone getting incredibly moved by their performance in a film, there’s no telling whether someone will leave the cinema in tears or not get anything out of what you were going for. Although Slash was an avid fan of all things horror as a kid, he admitted that this genre fixture was enough to elicit a few chuckles out of him when he saw it.
Then again, the world of horror looked a lot different when the Guns N’ Roses frontman was first cutting his teeth on the Sunset Strip. As much as some people liked the idea of horror being based on something purely evil, it was anyone’s guess whether someone’s attempt at making a disturbing film would look like something haunting or a cheap way of getting asses in seats.
At the same time, the world of horror also turned a corner in the 1970s. Much like acts like Black Sabbath were tapping into something a little darker on the musical front, directors were interested in seeing what they could get away with onscreen as well, like Richard Donner’s chilling approach to a father dealing with his son being the antichrist in The Omen.
If that movie was considered dark, then no religious person even wanted to come within the sight of a movie like The Exorcist. The tale of a little girl being taken over by a demon would have been bad enough, but the effects were something that no other film had accomplished yet, leading to many people vomiting out of fear from what they were watching.
Despite having to likely get past the smell of vomit and people passing out in the aisles, Slash never really understood why people were that taken aback by something like this, saying, “I’d read so many horrific reviews I was convinced it was going to be terrifying. But it wasn’t at all! Everyone in the cinema was laughing at some of the scary bits! But I suppose it would be a bit terrifying to some people.”
Granted, it has much to do with what most people consider scary. Whereas the breakdown of this family and watching this child talking about a priest’s mother doing nasty acts in Hell might seem genuinely frightening, it all goes back to that old saying that the only line between horror and comedy is the music. If there was a Benny Hill-style backing track behind everything, that kind of line may as well be a piece of crude humour.
The same rule applied to Slash when he started to see his first taste of success. None of the band members were looking to cause some real damage whenever they got onstage, but the reputation they got as the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Band’ made people scared of them before they had even heard what their music was like.
The Exorcist might be enough to elicit a jolt in some movie buffs to this day, but Slash’s indifference probably has more to do with what he was used to seeing. Anyone can try to make a movie that is enough to send chills down people’s spines, but when it comes to what’s scary and what’s not, horror can be about as subjective as comedy.
