Think about it over the history of the slasher genre from 1960's Psycho to my film last year Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis there is romance in all of them (TCM, Halloween, Friday The 13th, ANOES, Scream) and not only is it a driving force in the story in one way or another and it's a powerful tool to have in any movie because it makes the audience feel something other then terror, fear etc. for the characters .
Even the gorier films like 1974's Texas Chainsaw Massacre have a romantic relationship in them because it's important to make your audience feel for the characters as well as take an interest in them for the duration of the film or the amount of the film they are alive anyway, right ?
So you might wonder what makes a good romance in a slasher movie and I might be WAY off on this one but I look at writing romance into my slasher scripts as a simple exercise of writing a chick flick and adding a killer, brutal murders and gore to it .. A Chick Slasher is what I call it . ( jokingly )
Guys will email me and ask me "Why did you play so heavily on the emotions of JJ and Jayson, it's a slasher movie not a chick flick" . Ladies email me and say "The movie was good, I loved the relationship between JJ and Jayson and they way it changed from one end of the spectrum to the opposite end over the course of the movie"
Here's how I did it and how I justify it with fans of straight up slasher films like TCM, ANOES, Friday The 13th, Halloween, Scream.
I looked at all these films specifically John Carpenter's Halloween (The relationship between Annie and Paul and Linda and Bob) and Scream (Sidney & Billy w/ Randy playing the role of the third wheel and Stu and Tatum) and I thought about how I would want my characters to be and who the characters involved in the love story are, there social standing in the world they live in, who their friends were who was against their relationships and how these issues would be resolved.
While I did take the stereotypical characters of the Wallflower and the Nerd as the main love story in the film I had others involved as well . I gave these characters (wallflower / nerd) a different storyline to work with and over the course of the movie I made it clear the nerds intentions and did something completely different and against all Slasher movie logic in the end that I got an overwhelming amount of positive emails about (mostly from you ladies) .
I love that people contact me and say I "bought your movie and had a viewing party and a bunch of people came over and watched it" I love getting all the amazing emails from people who have enjoyed the movie for whatever reason and believe it or not I also enjoy getting the negative emails as well, you know why ? Because I learn from them I think it's very important to keep learning in any industry but the film industry is one that it truly is a never ending education .
People are wonderfully complicated creatures some love the blood, guts, gore, and brutal violence of the slasher genre while others enjoy the characters and their unique stories while also enjoying the violence on some level . I get alot of emails from fans who thought the movie wasn't violent enough and that there needed to be more blood and I've heard you and will be looking for more ways to make people bleed in Sins of Man II : Vengeance with that said don't worry you romance in slasher fans I got you covered in Vengeance also .
STAY HUMBLE, STAY HUNGRY MY FRIENDS :)