S. T. Karnick, editor of "American Culture", wrote an article for the "National Review" detailing the impact "Friday the 13th" has had on the slasher genre and noting that the reasons critics have deplored the films are the same reasons why the franchise has had such a strong influence. Karnick explained that "Friday the 13th" did not try and recreate the same "clever" film that John Carpenter made in 1978, but instead "the formula" of "Halloween", and "[boiled it down to its essentials" so that it could be copied by other filmmakers. In his assessment, "Friday the 13th" changed the horror genre by purposefully not providing back‑stories for characters so that when the audience witnessed a character's death, they are "strangely unaffected". Instead, "Friday the 13th" focuses on the history and motivations of the killer, who would exact revenge not on the people directly responsible, but on innocent people—a formula Karnick notes was replicated in "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Child's Play", "Scream", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Saw", the Hannibal Lecter films, and the "Halloween" sequels. As Karnick sees it, "these films spoke directly to fears of increasing crime and social dislocation provided audiences with ways to detach from these worries and conquer their fears of violence by laughing at it."