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I have a question for horror movie fans; specifically for fans of the horror movies that fall into the sub-genre of Slasher flicks'. Are slasher flicks modern day morality tales designed to warn young adults of the dangers of inappropriate behavior.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term Slasher flick' I am using it to refer to films like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween or anything that resembles those films.

In all slasher flicks you start out with a group stereo-typical teenagers and a thin plot. In the group there is almost always one virginal sweet character, one promiscuous character, a jock, a bad boy or girl and a class clown. Sometimes a character that engages in underage drinking or use of illicit substances also appears. They're not there necessarily to add to the story but to fall into their proper places in the story later.

In these movies you have a situation where the teenagers are left without adult supervision supposedly because they are old enough to be responsible for themselves. It doesn't really matter where the teenagers are it could be a campsite, a baby sitting job or a night over at a friends as soon as they are together they come that much closer to death.

Usually there is a killer either on the loose or at least known of in these situations. For example, Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare On Elm Street Series. In the first movie, he is terrorizing the main heroine Nancy and her friends to the point where her best friend Tina does not wish to spend the night alone and asks Nancy, Nancy's jock boyfriend Glen, and Tina's bad boy boyfriend Rod to spend the night with her.

When Tina takes Rod to her room to have sex she ends up being killed while he watches helplessly in the corner. Does this mean Hollywood is telling the audience don't have pre-marital sex or you will die? It sure seems so considering the last surviving teenager falls into the sweet, virginal mold.

In any of the Friday the 13th movies you can always tell who is going to die first because they will be the characters who are drinking and doing drugs on screen. Again is this Hollywood trying to impress upon audiences that if you drink, or do drugs you will be killed?

In Halloween Laurie's friend drops the girl she is supposed to be babysitting off to stay with Laurie while she returns to the child's house to engage in sexual activities with her boyfriend. She meets Michael Myers and subsequently her death a few hours later. What does that tell us? If you shirk your responsibilities you will die?

To me at least it sure seems like Hollywood is trying to shock teenagers into what society considers proper behavior by showing that so called deviant behavior is often punished with fatal consequences. Just a little something to think about the next time you sit down to a Slasher movie.

Learn more about this author, Mickey Fortney.
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