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Once again, a film by Wes Craven made a huge impact on the slasher world, gave it new life, and sent it spinning in a slightly different direction. Its popularity was even greater than that of “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and it came from the same director. In 1996, the slasher genre had its greatest resurgence ever, reaching all-time heights of revenue and popularity with the birth of the “ Scream” franchise. Some twenty five years after the inception of the genre, and slashers are meaner and most barbaric than ever before. The “Saw” franchise, as well as the brutal “Hostel” were hugely successful, and prove that suffering and blood by the bucket can and will put asses in seats. These films, however, were not box office hits. And Coffin Baby, the vile slasher of Tobe Hooper’s return to greatness, “ The Toolbox Murders” seems to take great, almost childlike delight in inflicting pain to the dying. The Captain was all about the delicious pain. Initially, his only murder comes from a torturee with a weak heart. Evil Captain Howdy lures in teenagers via the internet, then captures them to perform horrible “body modifications” to them. Dee Snider wrote, directed, and starred in “ Strangeland,” (1998) a slasher movie with a twist. There is precedent for the sadistic torture-killer, of course. The gore was even heavier, and the body count higher, in “ Saw 2,” showing that the original film was just the impetus – the really sick stuff was yet to come. “Saw” proved that a low budget, high intensity, and lots of violence could be an economic windfall.

But the huge financial success of the film opened doors for this new breed of torturous slasher film, and allowed certain films to be made that might not have ever seen the light of day otherwise. That isn’t to say that films like “ Hostel” and “ Wolf Creek” imitate “Saw” in any creative way.

The movie proved to be another benchmark film for the genre like “ Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” this was the type of film that inspired a new wave of films to follow – dark, nasty films that focused on torture and suffering, instead of just murder. Creators LeighWhannell and James Wan found a way to take the pathology of the new-school cinematic serial, and combine it with the vicious gore and carnage of classic slasher films with the low budget sensation “Saw.”