The Idea of Apocalypse in Horror Films, Particularly Slashers Films

Morginal

Posted: 2024 Updated: 2025-1-24

Once, after finishing a round in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I decided to rewatch the original 1974 film and then started reading critics’ opinions on it. I found a review by critic Christopher Sharrett, whom I’ll quote verbatim:

Critic Christopher Sharrett argues that since the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963), American horror film has been defined by questions it poses “regarding the fundamental validity of the civilizing process in America”, with concerns deepening in the 1970s due to “the delegitimation of authority amidst the Vietnam War and Watergate”.

Slasher vs. Post-Apocalypse

Sometimes art reflects the mood within a certain region of the planet; sometimes it cannot reflect this due to strict censorship within a country. However, horror—and especially the slasher genre—is, in my view, not a genre meant to analyze society or resolve the issues that it exaggerates. The slasher focuses on problematic issues, often reducing them merely to the goal of survival, with circumstances summarized by the phrase “Wrong Turn”. Looking at the world through the slasher genre, or even more so attempting to justify a nation’s actions through it, is a rather pessimistic idea doomed to something unpleasant.

I felt inspired to take a little journey through time, and I gladly invite you along. So, all aboard our time machine!

We’re going back in time to the year 1830.

The History of the Chainsaw’s Creation

In 1830, a German dentist and prosthetics specialist named Bernard Heine developed a tool for cutting bone, and we—people of the future—know this as the world’s first osteotome. Linked segments with angled teeth formed a chain that was moved by a star-shaped handle, which rotated the chain along a guide bar.

This story would continue 100 years later, in the 20th century, when the first chainsaw mills appeared, which, like Heine’s osteotome, were manually operated. These mills were quite bulky, and operating such a tool required at least two people.

In 1926, Andreas Stihl, a mechanical engineer and again a German, designed and patented the world’s first chainsaw with an electric motor. Interestingly, many people I know assumed the first saw had to be gas-powered, but that wasn’t the case.

The following year, Emil Lerp—the third German in this story—unveiled his creation to the world: the Dolmar A, which became the first chainsaw with a gasoline engine.

Two Germans now started competing, and Stihl developed his own gas-powered saw. This tool, equipped with a fuel tank, became more mobile and autonomous but remained heavy, weighing 50 kg.

In 1935, Dolmar reclaimed the lead by presenting the world’s first chainsaw that could be operated by one person, powered by an electric motor. A gasoline-powered equivalent from Dolmar, called the Dolmar CP, would appear 17 years later.

In 1957, Dolmar chainsaws were equipped with a carburetor, allowing the saw to be used in both horizontal and vertical positions. And in 1959, Stihl once again made headlines by introducing the first gearless gasoline chainsaw.

In 1962, the first ultra-light chainsaw was created: the Husqvarna 70, which weighed just 5.5 kg. This saw wasn’t developed by Stihl or Dolmar but by the Swedish company Husqvarna. In 1969, Husqvarna introduced the Husqvarna 180, designed with a two-mass principle and equipped with a vibration-damping system.

Chainsaws Bite into the Slasher Genre

In 1969, Husqvarna chainsaws had already quickly spread across the world, and only five years later, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit the big screen.

But let’s go back a bit, to the year 1945. It’s July 16 now.

The Creation and Testing of the Atomic Bomb

In 1945, the United States successfully tested the world’s first atomic bomb, and by August, they concluded that it was necessary to drop two other notable bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Literally, they had names. On August 6, “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, and on August 9, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki.

Someday, I’ll publish my collection of famous weapons, which I’ll call Fat Gustav.

World War II was coming to an end, but the final shot at the Axis powers spurred on the nuclear arms race. In 1946, the Cold War began, lasting until 1990, with the nuclear race stretching one year longer.

Later, the world would learn of the E-1 and E-1A projects, when in the USSR, Yakov Zel’dovich planned to send a Soviet atomic bomb to the moon so all earthlings could witness a “big boom”. However, he abandoned the idea himself due to the flight’s unjustified risks. Don’t rush to be surprised: American scientists were working on their own similar project, A119, but likewise backed away from this risky endeavor. As it turned out, the years of the Cold War and nuclear arms race also coincided with the Space Race, which lasted from 1957 to 1988.

The scale of these duels between brilliant minds is astounding, yet the lives of ordinary people go on…

Atomic Weapons Stir Monsters

1. In 1953, seven years after the atomic bomb was dropped, the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was released—an adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s story “The Fog Horn”. This became the first film about monsters awakened by nuclear weapons testing.
2. In 1954, in Japan, a country that had recently experienced weapons of mass destruction, Godzilla was born, inspired by the 1953 film.
3. Some time would pass before the Fallout game series, known for its cynical dark humor, introduced a portable launcher firing nuclear warheads called the “Fat Man”.

Let’s get in the time machine and speed away from the nuclear arms race to… where? Back home, to 2024? No way. I said far away!

We’re traveling to the Romantic Era, to 1818.

Galvanization on a Rainy Day in Geneva

Once, my wife shared with me a fascinating paper on forelimb transplantation. Not surprisingly, simply “cutting and stitching” doesn’t quite work, particularly because of the ongoing struggle with the negative effects of antibiotics on patients’ kidneys.

In the context of Geneva and hand transplants, Mary Shelley and the monster that appeared to her in a dream come to mind. Here’s how Shelley described her dream:

The influence of Frankenstein is hard to overestimate, as just over 104 years later, in a parody of Mary’s novel, H.P. Lovecraft wrote Herbert West–Reanimator, which became a template for the first zombies.

And to think, it all started with an innocent wager proposed by Lord Byron, challenging everyone to write the scariest ghost story… For those who, unlike us, lack a time machine, the 1986 film Gothic offers a chance to indulge in nostalgia for that era.

Today, Shelley’s work seems a mockery of modern humanity. We still can’t assemble Frankenstein, and even hand transplants remain a struggle. Perhaps a less central question here: what was it exactly that left such an imprint on Mary’s memory, sparking that dream and inspiring her to begin Frankenstein?

Erasmus Darwin’s Experiments Inspired Mary Shelley to Write Frankenstein

Among the many topics discussed within the circle that included Shelley, the conversation turned to the experiments of the philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin. Darwin practiced galvanization. I should clarify that at the time, “galvanization” didn’t refer to creating metallic coatings through electro-galvanic methods, but rather the application of electric currents to a dead organism, as described by Luigi Galvani. Rumors about these experiments, which stirred imaginations, inspired Mary to write Frankenstein.

Let’s continue our journey and return to “Shelley’s mockery of modern humanity”.

It’s time for us to head back to the future—what lies ahead?

Some Horror Films Based on Real Events

Now I want to mention works that weren’t inspired by humanity’s inventions for chopping wood or destroying one another, but were instead dedicated to social issues.

The Last Man

From 1818 to 1826. The Last Man is an apocalyptic science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which received the worst reviews of all her novels. Critics mocked the very idea of a “last man on earth” and judged the author’s sanity as “sick”.

Mary Shelley herself claimed that in 1818 (the year Frankenstein was published), she discovered prophetic writings in a cave near Naples, which she edited and presented to the world as the story of a man living at the end of the 21st century. Specifically, the events in the novel begin in 2073 and end in 2100.

It’s remarkable how closely these old challenges for humanity resemble our “young and new” ones.

In the novel:

• Biographic elements;
• The collapse of political and romantic ideals when revolutionary idyll was found insufficient;
• Many central characters are inspired by Shelley’s acquaintances, such as Lord Raymond, who left England to fight for the Greeks and died in Constantinople, based on Lord Byron;
• Issues arising during a pandemic: self-isolation and disillusionment with medicine—a subject Shelley had studied extensively, as seen in her knowledge of the history of smallpox vaccination development and the 19th-century understanding of virus transmission;
• Critique of racism from European countries toward other nations, as, in the face of a pandemic, all people are equal.

In the context of the last two points, I simply cannot help but think of Night of the Living Dead (1968) by George Romero, who aimed to show how personal, national, and gender differences dissolve in the face of an epidemic. Incidentally, this film played a significant role in the fight for African American rights.

German Expressionism

We bid farewell to Mary and head into the future. We pass 1924 and Der Zauberberg. Ahead lies the era of Expressionism, which succeeded Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The disillusionment of the German people with the outcomes of World War I is embodied in Metropolis.

Matka Joanna Od Aniolow

We attended the premiere of Metropolis and then traveled to 1961, when the Polish film Matka Joanna Od Aniolow was released, depicting events known as the “Loudun Possessions”. Our tour group didn’t visit this era specifically, as it was too dangerous, but here’s a short pamphlet with various interesting dates as a micro-example of the evolution of human consciousness and the development of humanism:

• 1486 – The official publication of Malleus Maleficarum, a manual for mutilating women to identify witches;
• 1634 – The Loudun Possessions;
• 1961 – The film adaptation that saw the light of day.

Ahead, we return to our starting point and chainsaws. We speed past One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hitchcock’s The Birds, King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, Rosemary’s Baby, Hour of the Wolf, Night of the Living Dead, Night Gallery, Even Dwarfs Started Small, The Exorcist, and finally we’re back in 1974 when The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit the screens.

Incidentally, we just zoomed through the Golden Age of the Slasher (1978–1984), which Carpenter’s Halloween inaugurated.

BZ and Zombie

We make a stop in 1985 when the books Acid Dreams and The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic were published. Acid Dreams detailed experiments conducted on U.S. soldiers involving the drug BZ, while The Serpent and the Rainbow explored the alleged use of toxins in Haitian voodoo rituals. Only three years later, its film adaptation of the same name would be released. Five years after that, in 1990, the film Jacob’s Ladder would be released.

A short leap, and… everyone out! We’re in 2024.

The Idea of Apocalypse in Horror Films, Particularly Slashers Films

Conclusion? There’s no need to force connections. Significant inventions or discoveries lead to books, movies, games, and songs, on average 4–6 years later—and now, when anyone with a smartphone can be a videographer, it happens even faster. Simple and straightforward, without hidden meanings.

Remember how drones first gained popularity? Take, for example, a drone equipped with a chainsaw to knock down icicles:

It didn’t take long for this “toy” to find military applications. Later, I’ll tell you about a few cases where inventions from the military sector were shared with the civilian population.

Could the Oil Crisis Have Influenced the Creation of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

In our journey, we have an example of Expressionism in Germany. It certainly could have! But this isn’t a metaphor; it’s simply a unique case of the Leatherface family’s inability to adapt to the new times. The slasher genre is, after all, built on the shoulders of such monstrous outcasts from society: Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees are also examples of typical American guys—or perhaps just strong boys with fragile psyches?

A slasher lets off steam, but it’s not meant to critique government policies chosen by voters who aren’t an army of Arkham Asylum psychopaths.