In anticipation of the release of the remake of Friday the 13th, which hits the theatres tomorrow (on Friday the 13th — imagine that!), the Boston Globe ran a prominent feature story this past Sunday on slasher flicks, “The Genre That Wouldn’t Die”. In this piece the Globe’s film critic, Ty Burr, pulls no punches in expressing his antipathy for slasher films: “I hate the nasty little things,” he writes.

Hates slasher films? That got my hackles up immediately. I’m a big fan of the horror genre, both on the printed page and in cinema. While I prefer the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Stephen King to the films of Wes Craven, John Carpenter, and Sean S. Cunningham (the latter directed the original Friday the 13th), I still enjoy a good horror flick. Even the badly-made ones have some merit as harmless fun.

As I read Burr’s piece I mentally began preparing my counter-argument, mulling over which implement to take up in defense of the slasher genre (Machete? Fire ax? Chainsaw, perhaps)? But I soon discovered that Burr’s article wasn’t such easy prey. Instead of taking shots at the artlessness and bad taste of the slasher film genre — old, tired saws that many critics choose to employ — Burr asks some penetrating questions: Why do we like these films? What makes people want to watch explicit violence? Writes Burr:

I personally know more than a few gorehounds; they love movies and can be perfectly articulate about why, but when I press them on how watching a character being put through physical agony can be categorized as entertainment, their arguments invariably boil down to “I like it.” In response, my argument boils down to “I don’t.” I don’t find it enjoyable on any level to see a human being, even a fictional stupid one, writhe solely for my viewing pleasure.

Suddenly my counterattack was blunted and I found myself on the defensive. What do I like about horror films? Am I a shallow traffic accident rubber-necker, someone who, had I lived 1,600 years ago, would have been gleefully sitting arena-side at gladiatorial events? Burr’s piece forced me perform some introspection. It reminded me that I too have my own definition of acceptability when it comes to film violence.

Granted, my line in the sand is a long ways off from Burr’s, but personally, I have no desire to ever step over it again.

Several years back, I made a deliberate effort to explore the darkest recesses of horror films. My former neighborhood had an old video store that had a huge horror collection on VHS, which allowed me to finally rent the films that I’d missed while growing up on Creature Double Feature and Monstervision. I watched the classics (Horror of Dracula, The Haunting), the cult hits (Lair of the White Worm, Evil Dead 2), and some of the slasher films I’d missed (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Friday the 13th Part 5, etc.).

Some were good, many were awful, but for the most part they were, and remain, harmless fun. I should have stopped there, but curiosity got the better of me and I continued my exploration into the subterranean levels of pure grue, renting films like From Beyond and The Gates of Hell. Plumbing the depths further, I checked out Cannibal Holocaust and later, based on its reputation, Faces of Death. And I didn’t like what I found.

In his noted review of the field, Danse Macabre (1978), Stephen King separates the horror genre into three levels, “each one a little less fine than the one before it:” Terror being the highest level to which artists in the genre aspire, followed by horror, and finally, revulsion. Writes King: “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.”

In my opinion Faces of Death, the worst Italian cannibal films, and their ilk — a handful of the current “torture porn” films toe this line — rate a level below revolting. They inhabit a terrible basement for which King needs to craft a new tagline, and are simply depressing, senseless expressions of death and suffering. Occasional gross-out scenes can wake you up, heighten your senses and leave you on edge, but entire films dedicated to grue simply deaden the spirit.

Getting back to the Globe piece, Burr’s most cogent argument is that horror films should contain something of value, a sensibility that elevates above them bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed. Visitors here at The Cimmerian are all fans of Robert E. Howard, presumably, whose Conan tales are among the most blood-soaked you’ll find in fantasy. But they’re not just death-spectacles: They’re about much more, including the struggle to survive in a violent world. Writes Burr:

And maybe I’m being a hypocrite here, since there are some pretty disgusting movies I find worthwhile, even entertaining. The difference, I suppose, is that there has to be an idea or a sensibility somewhere in there for me to make the leap. “Re-Animator,” Stuart Gordon’s 1985 grand guignol gorefest, pushes the envelope of the genre with astounding high spirits and subversive kink; Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead II” (1987) fuses zombie mayhem with unexpected slapstick; both are the work of smart, witty moviemakers. “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” (1990), for all its grisly violence, works because its observant coldness is the opposite of exploitation.

I do differ from Burr in that my exploitation threshold is much higher than his. For example, I find that most slasher films offer at least a bare semblance of story, some suspense, familiar and comfortable archetypes to slip into (isolated campgrounds, teens in trouble, disbelieving authorities, etc.), and even a recurring character (who may be mute and wearing a hockey mask, but nevertheless, a character). Despite their violence, it’s hard for me to think of Nightmare on Elm Street or the Halloween films as anything beyond mindless fun. These films simply offer another form of escape, albeit a shallow one.

Nevertheless, at some hard-to-define point, horror films can cease to become about anything except suffering and shocking depictions of gore. And we should expect more, even from mindless entertainment.

Steve Tompkins Adds: Over at the PopMatters site, U. of Colorado at Boulder prof Stephen Graham Jones offers his “State of the Slasher Address 2,” a –lighthearted? heartfelt? excardiated? — prognosis for the subgenre in the aftermath of My Bloody Valentine 3D.