Ravenloft is most often associated with gothic horror, as best exemplified by the adventure that started it all, with the evil vampire Strahd and the classically-gothic setting of Barovia. While many other regions of Ravenloft are built on those tropes, there's a lot of potential to explore other horror subgenres.
In American culture, one of the most popular horror subgenres of the last 40 years is the slasher film.
Arguably debuting in 1960 with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the genre really began to take its true form with movies in the 1970s - 1974's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1978's Halloween, and then 1980's Friday the 13th, and 1984's Nightmare on Elm Street.
The formula for a slasher film really became codified in 1980s, and then were deconstructed in the 1990s by one of genre's architects in Wes Craven's Scream - one of the many 1990s deconstructions that sort of has its cake and eats it too.
The slasher film is an enduring formula, but what is that formula, exactly?
First and foremost, while the protagonist is usually one of the potential victims, the true star is of the movie is the murderous villain. In fact, these villains are so iconic that we would later have things like the bizarre Freddy vs Jason crossover.
The iconic nature of these villains is largely accomplished through the design of unique, unusual costumes. Jason Voorhees (who isn't even in the original Friday the 13th until the jump-scare ending) is never seen without his trademark hockey goalie's mask. Michael Myers, of the Halloween series, is always wearing his bizarre bleached-white William Shatner mask. And Freddy Kreuger's face is not hidden, but it's disfigured with terrible burns, and he always wears his trademark striped sweater, his hat, and his bladed gloves.
These movies generally have a cast of archetypes. In fact, another deconstruction, Cabin in the Woods, plays with this notion by having the organization running the story using mind-altering chemicals to transform otherwise nuanced characters into the archetypes (like turning Chris Hemsworth's smart academic who happens to also have an athletic build into a dumb jock). These films generally try to intentionally alienate us from the characters in order to soften the horror of seeing them brutally and gorily slain. The exception tends to be the primary protagonist, even though she (because it's usually a she) also tends to conform to a particular archetype: the "Final Girl."
In a weird way, despite the genre being profoundly transgressive, the final girl archetype is often a weirdly conservative ideal. This (again, usually female) figure is virginal and reserved in temperament.
Also, of note, the victims are usually young - either teenagers or those in their 20s. In part, this is used to justify irrational and reckless behavior that gets them killed, but it also coveys a sense of helplessness - the limitations on youth make them more vulnerable to the killer.
And I think it's this last reason that it's really tough to pull this off as a genre in D&D.
There are basically two ways to make a monster horrifying. One is to make it more powerful, while the other is to disempower the potential victim. D&D, structurally, is all about empowering the players. You survive long enough, and you begin to learn powerful magic or peerless fighting techniques that can lay waste to hordes of demons, or take down nearly god-like powers.
The Slasher genre's monsters are typically less about devastating power, and more about the inability to destroy them. Jason, Michael Myers, and their ilk can be shot, stabbed, exploded, burned, and they somehow always manage to survive and continue their murderous rampage. But in their implacability, they also tend to be slow, and their weapon is typically nothing more than a big knife of some sort - generally, evading them is the best solution in the longterm.
If I were to stat up a classic Slasher monster, its damage output wouldn't be particularly high - after all, it only has to do four points of damage to take out its typical victim - a commoner. But it would have a lot of HP and resistance to most damage, and possibly some sort of regeneration or rejuvenation trait.
When your protagonists (the party) are all from walks of life dedicated to being able to kick monsters' asses, the monster needs to be a little more than just a big dude with a knife, because it's hard to distinguish that from any other D&D monster.
One method I've used to try to recreate this idea is denial of equipment. I ran a one-shot around Halloween last year in which the party (all level 1) woke up packed in crates in the attic of a large house. The party could explore the house, which was filled with creepy things and the remains of previous parties who had been slaughtered by the monster, which allowed them to find some basic equipment (all, notably, less powerful stuff, like maces instead of war hammers, except for a musket with some bullets) but as soon as they reached the front hallway, the monster - a murderous dwarf named Bloody Oleg - entered with a greataxe and began chasing them. They could kill Oleg, but he'd always come back with a little more health, and so they needed to bring him to a ritual room in the basement where he could be permanently killed.
(Yes, the premise was borrowed from one of the Haunts in Betrayal at House on the Hill.)
But I think what made this work was the sense of disempowerment - a slasher is scary only if the potential victim doesn't know how to fight back. And again, that's a tough balance to strike for a game that's all about making the players feel powerful.
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