According to Ebert:

Dead Teenager Movie

Generic term for any movie primarily concerned with killing teen-agers, without regard for logic, plot, performance, humor, etc. Often imitated, never worse than in the FRIDAY THE 13TH sequels. Required complete loss of common sense on the part of the characters. Sample dialogue: "All of our friends have been found horribly mutilated. It is midnight and we are miles from help. Hey, let's take off our clothes, walk through the dark woods, and go skinny-dipping!"

You all know what movies these DTMs are. What I'm interested in is the psychological reasons behind their appeal, especially to teenagers -- the subjects of slaughter themselves!

What do you think?

Well, they're pretty bad movies, no doubt. As a matter of fact, they suck.

Teenagers like them because they're titillating.They like to imagine themselves in such a situation as that, except THEY wouldn't be that dumb--that is, pick up a disheveled looking hitchhiker who just happens to be carrying a machete and looks like a Manson Family reject.

I guess it's just people's way to feel superior.


PS I like a good monster movie but even MY standards aren't so low as to watch some of these splatter films. They're not frightening; they are just disgusting.

I like gory movies. Anything where people are getting killed and mutilated. :thumbs:

I like gory movies. Anything where people are getting killed and mutilated. :thumbs:
Yeah okay me too, but I'd like to hear about your theory of why.

I have no idea why. Although it could have to do with several of my sexual fetishes taken to a rather extreme level...

The average teenager feels (s)he will never die. This is reflected in the risk taking so common to teenagers. They drive recklessly, they are into extreme sports, they do silly things like riding on the hoods of cars and generally act as if they cannot die.

Slasher and deat teenager movies play into this teen feeling of omnipotence. Seeing other teenagers being killed only because of their personal stupidity reinforces their feeling that nothing like that could happen to them. Such things happen only to other people, and besides, they are far too smart to get into such situations.

The other thing is that these movies also usually include scantily clad teens in situations filled with sexual as well as emotional tension. There is a certain frisson engendered by seeing buff young people in states of near undress and hyperemotion. Young males and females can see these quasi-sexual movies together without the embarassment of seeing something that is too obviously sexual. It is this covert sexuality that used to make them so popular with drive in movie fans in my day. Rather than a guy taking a girl to a movie with obvious sexual content, a movie the censors wouldn't allow them to see anyway, he took her to a movie that could still titilate them and lead to a bit of heavy petting either during the movie or once it was over.

This is reflected in the risk taking so common to teenagers.

he took her to a movie that could still titilate them and lead to a bit of heavy petting either during the movie or once it was over.

Frogger, you spend way too much time watching the X Games, trying to analyze the logic behind them. DF is a lot closer to hitting the nail right on the head.
Lastly, Drive-in's are now a part of american history. Stop thinking of better times and step into the present. Kids aint getting frisky in a walk in theater while watching a hack-em-up. They're taking notes for their next drive-by.

No way, when I watched scary movies with past girlfriends, especially my last one, it made her friggin giddy. Haha. She's having "Oh my god hold me" moments, you know what I mean? The frisky stuff was sure to follow.

The average teenager feels (s)he will never die. This is reflected in the risk taking so common to teenagers. They drive recklessly, they are into extreme sports, they do silly things like riding on the hoods of cars and generally act as if they cannot die.
I guess I'm not an average teenager then, because I think about dying all the time. In every situation I consider every single way I could possibly die (like choke on my cereal, or trip over something in the street and hit my head on a fire hydrant)... Sometimes I have trouble ignoring these thoughts and everyday situations become terrifying. But generally I can put them to the back of my mind forcefully.

The average teenager feels (s)he will never die. This is reflected in the risk taking so common to teenagers. They drive recklessly, they are into extreme sports, they do silly things like riding on the hoods of cars and generally act as if they cannot die.



I came to the realization that I will die one day a long time ago, in fact I remember the exact moment I had that epiphany, I was 18, lol. I don't think about death per-say much from day to day though, but I have my moments.