10 Worst Motives In Slasher Horror Movies
When the killer's motive is hilariously phoned-in.
Slasher movies are generally about two things - the kills and the motive. If you can serve up a few gnarly kills and interesting or basically creative motive, then you're golden.
But with decades of horror producing literally thousands of slasher flicks, it's safe to say that coming up with a killer motive that feels fresh and hasn't been done 100 times before is incredibly difficult.
All the same, a generic, familiar motive is absolutely preferable to those terrible ones which consequently make the whole movie go totally off the rails.
And so, inspired by this recent Reddit thread on the very subject, we come to the 10 of the worst motives in the history of the slasher genre.
From insane silliness in otherwise serious-minded offerings to dreadfully dumb revenge ploys, and convoluted mustache-twirling schemes that just make no damn sense, these murderous motives all left audiences scratching their heads.
One gets the sense that the screenwriters in each case struggled to come up with a compelling killer motive - and, in their defense, it's tough these days.
However, these lame-brained motives ensured that each of these films, no matter their neat kills beforehand, ended on something of a damp squib...
10. Magic Black Goo Made Them Do It - Black Christmas (2019)
There's no getting around it - 2019's Black Christmas remake is just godawful.
While ditching the series' original killer Billy was by no means a fatal flaw, and the film's focus on frat culture misogyny absolutely had potential, it ultimately got way too silly for its own good.
It's eventually revealed that the series of killings happening on campus have been caused by the bust of the university's founder, Calvin Hawthorne, which leaks a magic black goo that allows Hawthorne's spirit to possess anyone who touches it. Right.
In turn, Hawthorne commands the frat boys who come in contact with the goo to kill any female students who get "out of line."
This was just a goofy, lunk-headed way to amp up the original 1974 film's existing feminist themes, and left many rolling their eyes at how on-the-nose and ridiculous it was.
Women fending off a misogynist frat cult that wants to subjugate them? Cool, but bringing in the black goo from Prometheus totally out of nowhere? Nah.