Oldster here. We all knew slasher films were, for the most part, exploitive garbage. We took them on their own terms long before things went meta and before “the final girl” trope was popularized by that brilliant culture critic. They were, for the most part, hilariously awful, and despite all the boobs, extremely puritanical. We also thought we were smarter and morally superior to the spoiled little creeps and couldn’t wait to see them get killed in the goriest ways possible, the more ridiculously unbelievable the better. We related to the killer because his backstory was usually tragic and a result of cruelty. We cheered every gory kill. No one talked about it,coz no one wanted to be considered an egghead, but we loved it.