Legends of Tomorrow Takes on Slasher Movies in “Slay Anything”
Check out an exclusive look at Legends of Tomorrow season 5 episode 3, in which the Waverider team gets into an '80s slasher movie vibe.
| | We’ll tell anyone who will listen about how much fun Legends of Tomorrow is. Far more than just a superhero show, and with a tone that is completely unique among its Arrowverse brethren, Legends of Tomorrow uses its time-hopping premise to its advantage, not only leaping into different time periods, but different concepts and tones, too. So when a serial killer escapes from hell and is let loose in 2004, and heads straight for a high school reunion? Well, that sure puts us in the mind of classic slasher movies, doesn’t it?
Which brings us to Legends of Tomorrow season 5 episode 3, appropriately titled “Slay Anything” which will go full on with its slasher movie influences on its sleeve.
“We are genre fanatics, as you’ve probably gathered other five seasons,” executive producer Keto Shimizu says. “We really love to pick a genre for an episode and then really live in it. For this particular episode we did a mash up because we’re in the ’80s. So, we thought, let’s take two of our favorite genres from that time period and put them together.”
Specifically, they were looking for a teen romance meets slasher movie vibe. “John Hughes meets John Carpenter was really our ongoing mantra for this episode,” Shimizu says. “Then you had the fun of a Halloween style killer chasing these kids, mixed with Freddy Krueger, like it’s a mash up of those kinds of horror movies.”
Here’s the official word from the CW about the episode, but that doesn’t really tell us everything…
“When the Legends discover a new Encore, Sara (Caity Lotz), Rory (Dominic Purcell) and Ava (Jes Macallan) end up crashing a high school reunion in an attempt to stop a serial killer from finishing unfinished business. The Legends devise a plan to send Nate (Nick Zano), Ray (Brandon Routh), Nora (Courtney Ford), Behrad (guest star Shayan Sobhian) and their hostage Zari (Tala Ashe), back in time to try and intervene in order to try to save everyone, including them. Meanwhile, Constantine (Matt Ryan) is annoyed that Charlie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) has been squatting in his old home, but it might be the blessing in disguise they were not looking for.”
You know what would tell us a lot more? An exclusive clip from the episode, which we happen to have right here!
There’s a lot to unpack here. Freddie Myers “the prom night slasher” calls to mind several ’80s slasher flick icons, from A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger to Halloween‘s Michael Myers. And let’s not forget the Prom Night series of films, too. More importantly, Ava has a true crime podcast called StabCast. Please…PLEASE let there be an actual episode or two of this, just like John Constantine’s phone number in “Meet the Legends” ended up being a real thing.
Most importantly, though? Sara’s right. The early 2000s were terrifying all on their own, even without a serial killer who had previously been banished to hell coming back to kill once again at a high school reunion.
Legends of Tomorrow “Slay Anything” airs on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 9 pm on the CW.
Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.