Quentin Tarantino names his favourite slasher movie
Few directors have used violence quite as effectively as Quentin Tarantino. Hollywood’s most celebrated auteur, the filmmaker has spent the last 30 years exploring the cathartic power of violence in films like Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Though he’s only made one horror movie – 2007’s Death Proof – he’s always been vocal about his love of the genre. Here, Tarantino discusses his favourite slasher horror movie of all time.
Death Proof tells the story of a murderous stuntman named Mike, who has developed a technique for killing unsuspecting women by taking them for drives in his souped-up car. However, when he meets a group of hardy female friends, one of whom, Zoe Bell, was Uma Thurman’s real-life body double in Kill Bill, he finds himself way over his head.
During a 2006 interview, Tarantino discussed why he’d wanted to make a homage to the slasher genre. “The genre I wanted to tackle was slasher films, because I’m a big fan of late-70s, early-80s slasher films,” he began. “The only thing was, what makes them so good is the genre is so rigid.” He then went on to name some of his all-time favourites: “I love Halloween and all those,” he said. “But as time’s gone on, I think My Bloody Valentine may be my favourite.”
Not to be confused with the Irish shoegaze band of the same name, My Bloody Valentine, released in 1981, built on the success of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street and the already-established Friday the 13th franchise. Like those movies, it cultivated a devoted fanbase for its camp excess and memorable use of gore.
One of a slew of holiday-themed horror films released at the time, My Bloody Valentine follows the horror trope of a wronged victim hungry for revenge. In this case, it’s a miner who was trapped in a mine after two supervisors left their posts to attend the town’s annual Valentine’s Day dance. Forced to commit cannibalism, Harry Warden ends up in an insane asylum only to escape and murder the two supervisors responsible for his ordeal, cutting out their hearts and placing them in candy boxes. After vowing to commit more grisly murders if the annual dance is reinstated, the murders are forgotten, and the dance is resumed. With that, heart-filled boxes begin turning up on townspeople’s doorsteps.
Speaking during an interview with iHorror, director George Mihalka was informed that his film was Tarantino’s favourite slasher effort. Asked whether he had an inkling that the film would end up being so popular, he replied: “None whatsoever. Like I said, we all walked in with that kind of young cocky attitude that we’re going to make The Deer Hunter of horror movies. Literally, we just thought, we’re going to do something that’s going to set it apart from every other horror film. And I guess in that sense we succeeded, because after all these years, it still stands alone in its look and style.”
You can revisit the opening scene from My Bloody Valentine below.
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