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device in that in reality, the family as idealized by the American dream was becoming less and less common. Divorce was splitting families, and the increase in teenage pregnancy was placing another generation within the family home. Additionally, the whole notion of if you have sex you die!' that was mocked in Wes Craven's Scream (1997), became a predominant element of the genre, and could be linked to the increase in the A.I.D.S virus and the deaths it was causing.

Other features of slasher films resurface constantly like for example the inability of authority figures to offer any kind of help, leaving them either superfluous within the plot or non-existent. Police, teachers, parents can rarely be trusted or relied upon in the slasher movie' (Whitehead, M. 2003, page 12). Lt. Thompson in A Nightmare On Elm Street doesn't believe his own daughter, and the very same thing happens in Halloween with Sheriff Brackett. In Friday The 13th, the campsite coordinator leaves the campsite before any murders start but before he can be of any help, is killed himself. This is an interesting device in that in a slasher movie, unlike a war film or a western, the side of the bad' cannot be easily distinguished, especially by those who are there to protect the public (the police, the army), and it could be argued that this element is there as a representation of the idealism that America so despises but cannot control. For example, the Vietnam war represented America psychically fighting communism, but as an idealism itself, it could not be fought as easily or as obviously, and perhaps slasher films' killers symbolize that untraceable, evil' idealism that can infiltrate its society with silent ease. Certainly the genre's convention of the everyday man becoming a bloodthirsty murderer, would compound this.

Another feature of the slasher movie is that of evil' buildings, or places that hold terrible secrets and bloody histories. This links directly back to Psycho but it has its roots in gothic horror literature from the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H.P Lovecraft, and Stephen King. Michael Myers' house is a prime example, having the bloody history of his sister's murder, yet in the film during present day, it is boarded up, and the kids tell frightening stories about the house and dare not go near it. Many slasher movies climax within the building or place where the wrong' took place Michael Myers is believed to be dead after returning to the Myers house; Nancy battles Freddy in the

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