It seems apparent to me how Ciro Guerra’s latest film, ‘El Abrazo de la Serpiente’ (‘Embrace of the Serpent’) (2015), not only ended up in the mix for a variety of prizes at the numerous film festivals (including a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars) but also actually won several others more.

Among last year’s triumph of ‘Crimson Peak’ and the catastrophic screen adaptation of ‘Victor Frankenstein,’ Hollywood seems to have acquired a thirst for kitschy, punctual gothic melodrama.

One of the most traditional tropes of the slasher film is the origin story. This is thematically important because of what it reveals us about both the world of the characters within the film, and also the world we live in outside of the film. Edmund Burke was famous for saying, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” That idea is a popular theme in slasher movies: That evil and injustice, when allowed to go on unopposed, will breed more evil and injustice. This could almost be called the “Slasher Equation.”