Task 1 - Genre Essay
The Horror Genre and Audiences
Horror is something that has been around centuries before film was created. Tales have been written and paintings created depicting violent and horrific scenes for later generations to see and read. Over the centuries it has evolved into works of fiction and then into film, being one of the original genres along with romance, comedy and musical. Horror is a genre that has divided critics and audiences for decades. Regardless of their critical response or domestic and international gross, one thing is for sure- they are just as popular today.
Next to Sci-Fi, the horror genre has the most devout following. This is clearly seen through the number of horror-orientated magazines, film festivals and conventions aimed directly at horror. Fangoria, Scream Fest, Bloody Distgusting.com, Fear.Net and Fright Fest are popular and prime examples of horror inspired and orientated content. Fans gather to watch, read, play, explore, buy and meet everything they can to do with their favorite horror films and franchises. Aside from Comic-Con for Sci-Fi, there is no other genre that has a grand scale like horror.
Audiences have become highly influential over the horror genre. Aside from watching them and making them so popular that more studios made them, audiences have been able to almost control what happens to the future of horror franchises. The more fans watched sequels to landmark horror movies, the more sequels were made, meaning that more merchandise was being made and for studios, it meant more revenue.
Genre changing horror 50's - 80's
One of the great things about horror is that it changes as the landscape does, as culture shifts new avenues are explored. Back in the 50's when science was the new frontier of the world, horror films adapted to the cultural fear of the unknown. Films like Invasion of the Body Snatcher, The Blob and The Thing From Another World took the general idea that something in space could land on earth and kill everyone. Because we didn't know what was out there, it could be anything, which gave sci-fi horror all sorts of areas and ideas to explore.
From the sci-fi crazed 50's came a slightly more violent era of horror films in the 60's. Starting out the decade is one of the most genre defining and cinema classics film Psycho. Despite studios thinking the film as a huge risk, the film turned out to be a monumental success then and is still defined as one of the greatest films of all time. Much like Star Wars tempting the Sci-Fi genre for years to come, Psycho introduced audiences to a much more grounded and believable premise, which inspired horror films in the decades to come. Other classics like Peeping Tom, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Birds and Persona followed throughout the early decade. However it was towards the end of the decade in which horror movies began taking note of the civil rights movement in America. Another landmark horror and independent film, Night of the Living Dead has since been read as a comment on the turbulent civil rights movement that took America by storm towards the end of the 60's. One of the earliest depictions of flesh eating zombies and also to feature a black actor in the leading role, George A. Romero spawned a new sub genre of horror, although not being the first zombie movie, it was certainly the one that had the most cultural impact.
The 70's were the decade in which horror changed forever. The early half of the decade saw several groundbreaking horror films including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Despite being banned and becoming one of the first notorious 'Video Nasties', this film helped make way for a decade worth of horror movies that made horror a talked about genre, for good and bad. Another classic was The Exorcist because it is one of the earliest supernatural horror films that dealt with possession and satanic belief. Even though 1968's Rosemary's Baby came first and was a critical success, it was The Exorcist that truly cemented horror in cinema. Not only was it a notoriously violent and scary film it also became the first horror film to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. For a genre like horror that has so much controversy, an Oscar nod brought the genre to a different audience. Through out the 70’s several other great horror films such as Black Christmas, The Wicker Man, Carrie and The Amityville Horror became hits with audiences. Then in 1978, the slasher sub-genre of horror exploded with Halloween. The film launched the slasher genre into mainstream cinema and began a cinema craze that lasted ever since.
The craze that Halloween started in the late 70's spilled into the early 80's. Many landmark horror films were created in the early 80's such as Friday 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, House on Sorority Row, Suspiria, The Burning, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, April Fool's Day and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Films like these were being made and released monthly and sometimes even sooner through out the years. What began in the 70's and lasted till the early 80's were a collection of films that showed audiences the monsters were humans. That the greatest evil that could happen to another person could be done by another person. Prolific serial killers had been caught at the time, the US was on the brink of another war, Vietnam was over and the collected perception was that the bad guys were other people, which were represented and exploited almost in the slasher genre.
The rest of the decade saw the Regan Era of the American Culture. People were living on credit cards and audiences wanted more. To horror movie producers, this meant continuing their franchises. Halloween, Friday 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Psycho, Hellraiser, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Childs Play and The Amityville Horror all saw multiple sequels ranging from a following 3 to a following 10 sequels. Although original horror movies were still being made, it was the continuation of these popular franchises that made the horror genre popular and mainstream.
Modern Horror 90's - 10's
Despite the success of the horror genre in the 80's, by the end of the decade there were so many sequels that the movies began loosing what made them great in the beginning, which was originality and genuine scares. It wasn't until 1991 when The Silence of the Lambs won 'The Big Five' at the Academy Awards (Best Picture, Screenplay Adaptation, Leading Actor, Leading Actress and Best Director) that horror became popular again. To this day this is the only horror film to win Best Picture and the 3rd to be nominated (Jaws and The Exorcist).
Then in the late 90's, Scream was released. Although this is a comedy/horror combination, it is a definitive horror film because of its self-referential and grounded plot. By referencing the films that came before and pointing out the conventions and clichés but playing up to them at the same time made the film a huge success and is popular among fans because of its originality and smart parody of the genre.
Throughout the 2000's and into the 2010's the most popular horror films became the torture porn and supernatural sub genres. Beginning with Saw in the early 00's audiences were given excessive and brutal bloody violence. Followed successfully by Hostel and Wolf Creek, the torture porn sub-genre became immensely popular with audiences, making Saw the most successful horror franchise in history.
The supernatural genre began taking off with the 1999 Blair Witch Project but it wasn't until 2009 when the independent film Paranormal Activity was released and became a smash hit with audiences, that the sub genre was the new slasher. What followed was a set of sequels and many other series that took the P.O.V format and are being made by any studio that could do it. These particular horror movies play on the fact that all consumers can be creators. Anyone with a phone and laptop can shoot a short horror flick cheaply, edit it and then upload it to YouTube. Recent films like Insidious, The Conjuring and Oculus continue to show that the supernatural sub genre might be the most popular in horror films today. The modern use of digital distribution, social networking and the Internet, horror films can become fully immersive with audiences in a way like never before.
Foreign Horror
Foreign horror cinema has been impactful ever since the horror genre began. The early days of horror were found in German movies such as Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Both of these films were huge inspirations for Universal Pictures in the 20’s when they began making horror movies. UK gothic horror fiction such as Frankenstein and Dracula became such big hits for universal pictures, more literature was adapted for the big screen.
During the 70’s and 80’s era of horror, many films took inspiration from Italian cinema, especially Dario Argento. Italian horror is known for gracious nudity and excessive blood, both of which found it’s way into American slasher films
However the most successful of the foreign horror genre by far is the Japanese/Asian supernatural. Becoming more popular within the last 20 years or so, Japanese ghost films became hugely popular in the early 2000's particularly since the release of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when western audiences were shown how truly great foreign cinema could be. Films like The Grudge, The Ring and The Eye all showed western audiences the capabilities of the foreign horror genre and were so successful that they all spawned sequels and remakes.
France and Spain can be seen having a large impact on horror over the past decade. French films like Switchblade Romance, Martyrs and Frontiers are critically acclaimed horror movies that despite being explicitly gory and violent were well received by western audiences. Spain follows with The Orphanage, The Devils Backbone and REC all of which are both critical successes and fan favorites of the Spanish horror genre.
What foreign cinema did for the genre was show the world that the slasher and gore filled exploitation flicks weren't all that horror had to offer. Not all horror movies are full of gore however, in the 70's and 80's bloody violence caused a lot of controversy at the time; evident by the video nastiest. But foreign cinema, although sometimes strongly bloody, played on superstitious culture of their respective countries. Many films to come from Japan and Spain are supernatural tales, which reflects the culture around them, much like the brutal slasher genre reflected the American culture at the time.
Codes and Conventions
All films have certain aspects, qualities and elements that separate them from other genres. For example romantic comedies would feature an upbeat pop sounding musical score, whereas a psychological thriller would have a dark orchestral. The conventions of the horror genre have noticeably become clichés over the decades; what was once something new and frightening is now overused and expected. For example, jump scares. Some horror films take a subtle approach to scares but others decide to make the audience jump with a loud noise or sudden appearance of a non-threating character. These scares usually are preceded by noticeable build up music and then a sudden clash as the scare happens. 1922's Cat People is regarded as featuring the first jump scare; when a bus suddenly breaks and the doors swing open in front of a character who believes she is being stalked.
Other codes and conventions could be:
Masked Killers - Halloween, Friday 13th and Scream
Rundown, neglected and eerie houses/mansion - Return to House on Haunted Hill , The Woman in Black and The Haunting
No phone signal - Hatchet, Eden Lake and Black Xmas (2006)
Road/camping/getaway trips and weekends - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Perfect Getaway and Children of the Corn
The '5' character types – The Virgin, The Promiscuous, The Athlete, The Stoner and The Academic: Cabin in the Woods, Sorority Row, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).
The mirror shot (in which a character is in front of a mirror, then looks away to find someone standing behind them when they look back) - Halloween 2 and Friday 13th Pt.6
A number of modern films have noted these conventions and clichés and comment on them within their films universe. Films like Scream and The Cabin in the Woods are notable for this and have become successful for doing so, becoming a post-modern type of horror film.
Casting
Another convention of horror is something that has become born from the genre itself. Instead of blood, jump scares and masked killers being a staple of horror, the casting has become a new convention. Many early horror movies feature a notable star, Janet Leigh, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn and Tippi Hedren. This worked well with audiences because they could relate to the famous star but also shook them up because someone like Janet Leigh had never been killed on screen and especially half way through the film.
However in the 80's slasher horror movies gave many, now famous, a first film or experience in a film. Actors like Kevin Bacon, Holly Hunter, Naomi Watts, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Patricia Arquette, Vanna White and Johnny Depp all stared in horror movies in their early career. Most actors and actresses realized that horror had a huge audience and during this period there was a very high chance that if a horror film were going to be released then it would be a financial success, meaning that they had a chance to be seen in a commercially successful movie.
The 90's and 00's saw a different kind of casting in the genre. Scream is notable for containing a huge cast of famous stars. Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox were incredibly famous at the time with Friends and Party of Five so for them to come off the most popular television shows at the time to make a slasher horror movie spoke to other actors and actresses who then realises they could branch out into a different audience and increase their stardom. There are notable TV actresses appearing in horror films throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s. Beginning in the 80’s a couple of TV stars were noticed as main characters in horror movies, mostly to break against stereotype
Vera Farmigra, Patrick Wilson, Jaime Lee Curtis, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Lange, Jodie Foster, Robert DeNiro, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zalwegeer, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel and Kelly Rowland are just some of the famous celebrities who have stared in recent horror movies that, although not all were critical hits, most have been, did attract a huge audience to them purely because they were in it. The horror genre owes a lot to such stars being in them because they not only helped make the film financially successful but also showed the genre to a new type of audience.
Sub-Genres and Comparison
The most diverse and versatile genre of all, horror has the most sub-genres of any other. While there is no definitive film that is just a ‘horror film’, each film released falls into a different sub-genre. The most common sub-genres are Slasher and Supernatural. However in recent years a number of films have began diverging into other genres such as Romance (Warm Bodies), Erotic (The Strange Colour of Your Bodies Tears), Comedy (Scream), Parody (Scary Movie) and even musical (Sweeny Todd). That’s what makes horror a diverse genre because it can be combined with all genres to make a new sub genre. Science-Fiction horror is often classed as a sub genre, however it is in fact a genre hybrid because it uses the basic conventions of both genres to make a hybrid of them both. For example, space and aliens are associated with science fiction and feelings of claustrophobia and menace, with horror. Films like Alien and The Thing combine the basic principle of a horror film but replace the human killer with an extraterrestrial being, thus creating a genre hybrid.
A modern sub-genre that has been born out of its sheer volume and popularity is the found footage genre. Found footage has become increasingly popular with aspiring filmmakers and horror movies because of its cheap production and fright factor.
The Blair Witch Project is widely recognized as the first successful found footage horror film and it was such a success because in 1999 when it was released, audiences believed they were watching actual footage that was shot by three students that went missing. It was revealed obviously that it was fake but because it was found footage, it made it seem more real.
Another popular found footage horror film is [REC], a 2007 Spanish film that combines 2 sub genres, found footage and zombie movie. This movie found success because it was one of the first found footage zombie movies, to be adopted by George A. Romero in Diary of the Dead and the short segment in V/H/S 2.
What both of these film share is a common praise that they are both genuinely scary because of the use of found footage. Another feature that they share is the lack of musical score. A musical score in horror films is common and important for the jump scares because it lets the audience know that something scary is about to happen. Both of the films however lack this element, which has been noted by fans and praised because then the scares are unsuspected and genuine.
However, what they differ in is equally important. The Blair Witch Project is a supernatural horror whereas [REC] is a zombie horror movie. Both these subgenres feature very different conventions from one and other. The Blair Witch Project takes a subtle and more psychological approach to scaring its audience, which is easier to do because of the form it is being filmed in (found footage). Whereas [REC] took a more obvious approach to scaring it's audience but still in a way that took advantage of the hand-held camera. What the hand held camera allows the films to do is give the audience as much or as little information as needed about what is happening. Because there is no cutting between cameras A and B -showing what the audience is about to be scared by - the single camera makes audiences imaginations fill in invisible details; What made that noise? Did that object move? Was that a shadow?
Adaptations, Reboots and Remakes
Jaws, Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby and Silence of the Lambs all have one thing in common, besides being considered the most terrifying of the horror genre. They are all adaptations of novels. Some of horror’s best pieces are adaptations going far back to the 1920’s when the horror genre began making it’s way to the mainstream audience. Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are examples of Gothic horror fiction that was adapted in the early years, not just of horror but also of cinema itself. Adaptations work well because they already have an established audience with readers and also because there is no need to generate an original concept, the characters, story and some dialogue are already there for studios to adapt. Some of the greatest and most popular movies have come from literature and will continue to be adapted because of their success in the past.
Beginning in the late 90's and surging in the 2000's and 2010's, classic horror films began being remade for modern audiences. The benefits of remaking a horror film are much like adapting a successful novel; it already has an established audience. Past films that had moderate to high success when they were first released are the ones that usually are targeted for remaking or successful foreign films. Another difference between the original and remakes is the ratings. Slasher films and other horror films were either unrated or R rated upon initial release and many remakes now a days are rated PG-13.
The PG-13 rating allows the film to be shown to a wider audience meaning a higher chance of a financial success. However many horror film fans criticize this rating decision because it means that the remakes water-down and soften the often brutal, bloody and sexual content of its original. Prom Night, The Fog, The Ring, Wicker Man and The Grudge are notable examples of remakes that targeted a younger audience with a PG-13 rating instead of the original R rating they had received. However, not all remakes are PG-13 aimed and some do in fact keep the R rating like the original; Halloween, Evil Dead, Friday 13th, Black Christmas, Nightmare on Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all retained their R ratings upon their remake release. Halloween is also notable for actually increasing the violence, blood and sexual content over its predecessor. It is notable that PG-13 horror films are not bad or unsuccessful but are generally disliked by hardcore horror fans because of their watered down approach to horror and gore. Insidious, The Others and The Woman in Black are all PG-13 horror films that found success among all audience age groups.
Reboots became more common in the early 2010's. The difference between reboots and remakes is that a remake tends to take the overall story and concept of the original and set it in a modern day. Whereas a reboot ignores previous continuity in order to create a fresh take on the old concept, changing characters, backstory and timeline continuity. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was rebooted in TCM: The Beginning, Psycho with Bates Motel and Halloween in Halloween. Reboots tend to revamp and change the history of the already established continuity allowing more sequels to be made that can follow whichever route the filmmakers decide to take. Like remakes however, reviews can be polarize from successful to universally panned. Bates Motel is an example of a highly successful reboot of the classic film Psycho, earning an Emmy Nomination and numerous accolades; whereas A Nightmare on Elm Streets reboot was a critical failure, despite being the 8th highest grossing slasher film of all time and the second highest grossing of the franchise next to Freddy Vs. Jason, meaning that it is financially the most successful of the entire stand alone franchise without the crossover with Friday 13th.
Horror is something that has been around centuries before film was created. Tales have been written and paintings created depicting violent and horrific scenes for later generations to see and read. Over the centuries it has evolved into works of fiction and then into film, being one of the original genres along with romance, comedy and musical. Horror is a genre that has divided critics and audiences for decades. Regardless of their critical response or domestic and international gross, one thing is for sure- they are just as popular today.
Next to Sci-Fi, the horror genre has the most devout following. This is clearly seen through the number of horror-orientated magazines, film festivals and conventions aimed directly at horror. Fangoria, Scream Fest, Bloody Distgusting.com, Fear.Net and Fright Fest are popular and prime examples of horror inspired and orientated content. Fans gather to watch, read, play, explore, buy and meet everything they can to do with their favorite horror films and franchises. Aside from Comic-Con for Sci-Fi, there is no other genre that has a grand scale like horror.
Audiences have become highly influential over the horror genre. Aside from watching them and making them so popular that more studios made them, audiences have been able to almost control what happens to the future of horror franchises. The more fans watched sequels to landmark horror movies, the more sequels were made, meaning that more merchandise was being made and for studios, it meant more revenue.
Genre changing horror 50's - 80's
One of the great things about horror is that it changes as the landscape does, as culture shifts new avenues are explored. Back in the 50's when science was the new frontier of the world, horror films adapted to the cultural fear of the unknown. Films like Invasion of the Body Snatcher, The Blob and The Thing From Another World took the general idea that something in space could land on earth and kill everyone. Because we didn't know what was out there, it could be anything, which gave sci-fi horror all sorts of areas and ideas to explore.
From the sci-fi crazed 50's came a slightly more violent era of horror films in the 60's. Starting out the decade is one of the most genre defining and cinema classics film Psycho. Despite studios thinking the film as a huge risk, the film turned out to be a monumental success then and is still defined as one of the greatest films of all time. Much like Star Wars tempting the Sci-Fi genre for years to come, Psycho introduced audiences to a much more grounded and believable premise, which inspired horror films in the decades to come. Other classics like Peeping Tom, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Birds and Persona followed throughout the early decade. However it was towards the end of the decade in which horror movies began taking note of the civil rights movement in America. Another landmark horror and independent film, Night of the Living Dead has since been read as a comment on the turbulent civil rights movement that took America by storm towards the end of the 60's. One of the earliest depictions of flesh eating zombies and also to feature a black actor in the leading role, George A. Romero spawned a new sub genre of horror, although not being the first zombie movie, it was certainly the one that had the most cultural impact.
The 70's were the decade in which horror changed forever. The early half of the decade saw several groundbreaking horror films including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Despite being banned and becoming one of the first notorious 'Video Nasties', this film helped make way for a decade worth of horror movies that made horror a talked about genre, for good and bad. Another classic was The Exorcist because it is one of the earliest supernatural horror films that dealt with possession and satanic belief. Even though 1968's Rosemary's Baby came first and was a critical success, it was The Exorcist that truly cemented horror in cinema. Not only was it a notoriously violent and scary film it also became the first horror film to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. For a genre like horror that has so much controversy, an Oscar nod brought the genre to a different audience. Through out the 70’s several other great horror films such as Black Christmas, The Wicker Man, Carrie and The Amityville Horror became hits with audiences. Then in 1978, the slasher sub-genre of horror exploded with Halloween. The film launched the slasher genre into mainstream cinema and began a cinema craze that lasted ever since.
The craze that Halloween started in the late 70's spilled into the early 80's. Many landmark horror films were created in the early 80's such as Friday 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, House on Sorority Row, Suspiria, The Burning, My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, April Fool's Day and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Films like these were being made and released monthly and sometimes even sooner through out the years. What began in the 70's and lasted till the early 80's were a collection of films that showed audiences the monsters were humans. That the greatest evil that could happen to another person could be done by another person. Prolific serial killers had been caught at the time, the US was on the brink of another war, Vietnam was over and the collected perception was that the bad guys were other people, which were represented and exploited almost in the slasher genre.
The rest of the decade saw the Regan Era of the American Culture. People were living on credit cards and audiences wanted more. To horror movie producers, this meant continuing their franchises. Halloween, Friday 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Psycho, Hellraiser, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Childs Play and The Amityville Horror all saw multiple sequels ranging from a following 3 to a following 10 sequels. Although original horror movies were still being made, it was the continuation of these popular franchises that made the horror genre popular and mainstream.
Modern Horror 90's - 10's
Despite the success of the horror genre in the 80's, by the end of the decade there were so many sequels that the movies began loosing what made them great in the beginning, which was originality and genuine scares. It wasn't until 1991 when The Silence of the Lambs won 'The Big Five' at the Academy Awards (Best Picture, Screenplay Adaptation, Leading Actor, Leading Actress and Best Director) that horror became popular again. To this day this is the only horror film to win Best Picture and the 3rd to be nominated (Jaws and The Exorcist).
Then in the late 90's, Scream was released. Although this is a comedy/horror combination, it is a definitive horror film because of its self-referential and grounded plot. By referencing the films that came before and pointing out the conventions and clichés but playing up to them at the same time made the film a huge success and is popular among fans because of its originality and smart parody of the genre.
Throughout the 2000's and into the 2010's the most popular horror films became the torture porn and supernatural sub genres. Beginning with Saw in the early 00's audiences were given excessive and brutal bloody violence. Followed successfully by Hostel and Wolf Creek, the torture porn sub-genre became immensely popular with audiences, making Saw the most successful horror franchise in history.
The supernatural genre began taking off with the 1999 Blair Witch Project but it wasn't until 2009 when the independent film Paranormal Activity was released and became a smash hit with audiences, that the sub genre was the new slasher. What followed was a set of sequels and many other series that took the P.O.V format and are being made by any studio that could do it. These particular horror movies play on the fact that all consumers can be creators. Anyone with a phone and laptop can shoot a short horror flick cheaply, edit it and then upload it to YouTube. Recent films like Insidious, The Conjuring and Oculus continue to show that the supernatural sub genre might be the most popular in horror films today. The modern use of digital distribution, social networking and the Internet, horror films can become fully immersive with audiences in a way like never before.
Foreign Horror
Foreign horror cinema has been impactful ever since the horror genre began. The early days of horror were found in German movies such as Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Both of these films were huge inspirations for Universal Pictures in the 20’s when they began making horror movies. UK gothic horror fiction such as Frankenstein and Dracula became such big hits for universal pictures, more literature was adapted for the big screen.
During the 70’s and 80’s era of horror, many films took inspiration from Italian cinema, especially Dario Argento. Italian horror is known for gracious nudity and excessive blood, both of which found it’s way into American slasher films
However the most successful of the foreign horror genre by far is the Japanese/Asian supernatural. Becoming more popular within the last 20 years or so, Japanese ghost films became hugely popular in the early 2000's particularly since the release of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon when western audiences were shown how truly great foreign cinema could be. Films like The Grudge, The Ring and The Eye all showed western audiences the capabilities of the foreign horror genre and were so successful that they all spawned sequels and remakes.
France and Spain can be seen having a large impact on horror over the past decade. French films like Switchblade Romance, Martyrs and Frontiers are critically acclaimed horror movies that despite being explicitly gory and violent were well received by western audiences. Spain follows with The Orphanage, The Devils Backbone and REC all of which are both critical successes and fan favorites of the Spanish horror genre.
What foreign cinema did for the genre was show the world that the slasher and gore filled exploitation flicks weren't all that horror had to offer. Not all horror movies are full of gore however, in the 70's and 80's bloody violence caused a lot of controversy at the time; evident by the video nastiest. But foreign cinema, although sometimes strongly bloody, played on superstitious culture of their respective countries. Many films to come from Japan and Spain are supernatural tales, which reflects the culture around them, much like the brutal slasher genre reflected the American culture at the time.
Codes and Conventions
All films have certain aspects, qualities and elements that separate them from other genres. For example romantic comedies would feature an upbeat pop sounding musical score, whereas a psychological thriller would have a dark orchestral. The conventions of the horror genre have noticeably become clichés over the decades; what was once something new and frightening is now overused and expected. For example, jump scares. Some horror films take a subtle approach to scares but others decide to make the audience jump with a loud noise or sudden appearance of a non-threating character. These scares usually are preceded by noticeable build up music and then a sudden clash as the scare happens. 1922's Cat People is regarded as featuring the first jump scare; when a bus suddenly breaks and the doors swing open in front of a character who believes she is being stalked.
Other codes and conventions could be:
Masked Killers - Halloween, Friday 13th and Scream
Rundown, neglected and eerie houses/mansion - Return to House on Haunted Hill , The Woman in Black and The Haunting
No phone signal - Hatchet, Eden Lake and Black Xmas (2006)
Road/camping/getaway trips and weekends - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Perfect Getaway and Children of the Corn
The '5' character types – The Virgin, The Promiscuous, The Athlete, The Stoner and The Academic: Cabin in the Woods, Sorority Row, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).
The mirror shot (in which a character is in front of a mirror, then looks away to find someone standing behind them when they look back) - Halloween 2 and Friday 13th Pt.6
A number of modern films have noted these conventions and clichés and comment on them within their films universe. Films like Scream and The Cabin in the Woods are notable for this and have become successful for doing so, becoming a post-modern type of horror film.
Casting
Another convention of horror is something that has become born from the genre itself. Instead of blood, jump scares and masked killers being a staple of horror, the casting has become a new convention. Many early horror movies feature a notable star, Janet Leigh, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn and Tippi Hedren. This worked well with audiences because they could relate to the famous star but also shook them up because someone like Janet Leigh had never been killed on screen and especially half way through the film.
However in the 80's slasher horror movies gave many, now famous, a first film or experience in a film. Actors like Kevin Bacon, Holly Hunter, Naomi Watts, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Patricia Arquette, Vanna White and Johnny Depp all stared in horror movies in their early career. Most actors and actresses realized that horror had a huge audience and during this period there was a very high chance that if a horror film were going to be released then it would be a financial success, meaning that they had a chance to be seen in a commercially successful movie.
The 90's and 00's saw a different kind of casting in the genre. Scream is notable for containing a huge cast of famous stars. Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox were incredibly famous at the time with Friends and Party of Five so for them to come off the most popular television shows at the time to make a slasher horror movie spoke to other actors and actresses who then realises they could branch out into a different audience and increase their stardom. There are notable TV actresses appearing in horror films throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s. Beginning in the 80’s a couple of TV stars were noticed as main characters in horror movies, mostly to break against stereotype
Vera Farmigra, Patrick Wilson, Jaime Lee Curtis, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Lange, Jodie Foster, Robert DeNiro, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zalwegeer, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel and Kelly Rowland are just some of the famous celebrities who have stared in recent horror movies that, although not all were critical hits, most have been, did attract a huge audience to them purely because they were in it. The horror genre owes a lot to such stars being in them because they not only helped make the film financially successful but also showed the genre to a new type of audience.
Sub-Genres and Comparison
The most diverse and versatile genre of all, horror has the most sub-genres of any other. While there is no definitive film that is just a ‘horror film’, each film released falls into a different sub-genre. The most common sub-genres are Slasher and Supernatural. However in recent years a number of films have began diverging into other genres such as Romance (Warm Bodies), Erotic (The Strange Colour of Your Bodies Tears), Comedy (Scream), Parody (Scary Movie) and even musical (Sweeny Todd). That’s what makes horror a diverse genre because it can be combined with all genres to make a new sub genre. Science-Fiction horror is often classed as a sub genre, however it is in fact a genre hybrid because it uses the basic conventions of both genres to make a hybrid of them both. For example, space and aliens are associated with science fiction and feelings of claustrophobia and menace, with horror. Films like Alien and The Thing combine the basic principle of a horror film but replace the human killer with an extraterrestrial being, thus creating a genre hybrid.
A modern sub-genre that has been born out of its sheer volume and popularity is the found footage genre. Found footage has become increasingly popular with aspiring filmmakers and horror movies because of its cheap production and fright factor.
The Blair Witch Project is widely recognized as the first successful found footage horror film and it was such a success because in 1999 when it was released, audiences believed they were watching actual footage that was shot by three students that went missing. It was revealed obviously that it was fake but because it was found footage, it made it seem more real.
Another popular found footage horror film is [REC], a 2007 Spanish film that combines 2 sub genres, found footage and zombie movie. This movie found success because it was one of the first found footage zombie movies, to be adopted by George A. Romero in Diary of the Dead and the short segment in V/H/S 2.
What both of these film share is a common praise that they are both genuinely scary because of the use of found footage. Another feature that they share is the lack of musical score. A musical score in horror films is common and important for the jump scares because it lets the audience know that something scary is about to happen. Both of the films however lack this element, which has been noted by fans and praised because then the scares are unsuspected and genuine.
However, what they differ in is equally important. The Blair Witch Project is a supernatural horror whereas [REC] is a zombie horror movie. Both these subgenres feature very different conventions from one and other. The Blair Witch Project takes a subtle and more psychological approach to scaring its audience, which is easier to do because of the form it is being filmed in (found footage). Whereas [REC] took a more obvious approach to scaring it's audience but still in a way that took advantage of the hand-held camera. What the hand held camera allows the films to do is give the audience as much or as little information as needed about what is happening. Because there is no cutting between cameras A and B -showing what the audience is about to be scared by - the single camera makes audiences imaginations fill in invisible details; What made that noise? Did that object move? Was that a shadow?
Adaptations, Reboots and Remakes
Jaws, Psycho, The Exorcist, The Shining, Rosemary's Baby and Silence of the Lambs all have one thing in common, besides being considered the most terrifying of the horror genre. They are all adaptations of novels. Some of horror’s best pieces are adaptations going far back to the 1920’s when the horror genre began making it’s way to the mainstream audience. Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are examples of Gothic horror fiction that was adapted in the early years, not just of horror but also of cinema itself. Adaptations work well because they already have an established audience with readers and also because there is no need to generate an original concept, the characters, story and some dialogue are already there for studios to adapt. Some of the greatest and most popular movies have come from literature and will continue to be adapted because of their success in the past.
Beginning in the late 90's and surging in the 2000's and 2010's, classic horror films began being remade for modern audiences. The benefits of remaking a horror film are much like adapting a successful novel; it already has an established audience. Past films that had moderate to high success when they were first released are the ones that usually are targeted for remaking or successful foreign films. Another difference between the original and remakes is the ratings. Slasher films and other horror films were either unrated or R rated upon initial release and many remakes now a days are rated PG-13.
The PG-13 rating allows the film to be shown to a wider audience meaning a higher chance of a financial success. However many horror film fans criticize this rating decision because it means that the remakes water-down and soften the often brutal, bloody and sexual content of its original. Prom Night, The Fog, The Ring, Wicker Man and The Grudge are notable examples of remakes that targeted a younger audience with a PG-13 rating instead of the original R rating they had received. However, not all remakes are PG-13 aimed and some do in fact keep the R rating like the original; Halloween, Evil Dead, Friday 13th, Black Christmas, Nightmare on Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all retained their R ratings upon their remake release. Halloween is also notable for actually increasing the violence, blood and sexual content over its predecessor. It is notable that PG-13 horror films are not bad or unsuccessful but are generally disliked by hardcore horror fans because of their watered down approach to horror and gore. Insidious, The Others and The Woman in Black are all PG-13 horror films that found success among all audience age groups.
Reboots became more common in the early 2010's. The difference between reboots and remakes is that a remake tends to take the overall story and concept of the original and set it in a modern day. Whereas a reboot ignores previous continuity in order to create a fresh take on the old concept, changing characters, backstory and timeline continuity. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was rebooted in TCM: The Beginning, Psycho with Bates Motel and Halloween in Halloween. Reboots tend to revamp and change the history of the already established continuity allowing more sequels to be made that can follow whichever route the filmmakers decide to take. Like remakes however, reviews can be polarize from successful to universally panned. Bates Motel is an example of a highly successful reboot of the classic film Psycho, earning an Emmy Nomination and numerous accolades; whereas A Nightmare on Elm Streets reboot was a critical failure, despite being the 8th highest grossing slasher film of all time and the second highest grossing of the franchise next to Freddy Vs. Jason, meaning that it is financially the most successful of the entire stand alone franchise without the crossover with Friday 13th.
Task 2 - AutEur essay
Auteur Theory
Auteur – French for author, an auteur film director is someone to exercises complete control over the creative process of their film. Originally theorized in the French magazine ‘Cashiers du Cinéma’ in 1954 by Francois Truffaut but it wasn’t until Andrew Sarris wrote in The Village Voice that the phrase auteur theory was coined and used.
Prolific film directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir were the among the first directors to be classed as true auteurs because each of their films feature a distinctive creative format which is identifiable to each of the director and feature in their future works.
The theory has been criticized however by academics and practitioners who believe that screenwriters are more authorial than directors, arguing that they are the principle authors of the film. However, it can be said that is true for directors who adapt screenplays like Alfred Hitchcock but the argument is mute for directors like David Lynch because he writes the screenplays for the films he makes, adapting previous work occasionally before he became a critical success.
A popular and modern auteur director would be David Lynch. Before the critical success of his film Blue Velvet allowed him to pick any project he wished to make, he had critical success with The Elephant Man and cult status with Eraserhead. It was after the critical and commercial failure of Dune and contractual obligations that lead him to direct his personally written screenplay Blue Velvet.
Once Blue Velvet was a commercial and critical success himself being nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, that Lynch was introduced to mainstream success. This allowed him to pick whichever projects he wished to direct, most of which are his personally written screenplays.
What makes Lynch an auteur is his vision and motifs present in all his films and show Twin Peaks. The most common motif throughout his films is surrealism. Lynch creates vastly nightmarish storylines throughout his work and by juxtaposing idealistic towns and settings with dark themes, violence and eroticism; he creates an uneasy but bold world, which he subjects his audiences too. Blue Velvet, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive are easily the best example of pure surrealism in film.
Another feature of Lynches’ that distinguishes him as an auteur is the linear narrative of which his films play out. Most notably his later films like Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive, they both use dreams and disassociation of reality as ways in which to move the story forward. Like all his films however, they do not make sense and nor are they meant to. Lynch specifically creates films, which make little sense because he believes that humans act in ways sometimes that defy logical explanation. He even refuses to explain the meaning of his movies although he has given a 10-point tip list to understand Mulholland Drive.
Almost all of the female characters in his films have duel/split roles. In Mulholland Drive characters Diane Selwyn plays Betty Elms and Camilla Rhodes plays Rita. In Lost Highway Patricia Arquette plays Alice Wakefield and Renee Madison and in Inland Empire Laura Derns character is an actress who finds her persona merging with that of the character she is playing on a film. By having characters that have split roles it adds to the surreal and dreamlike quality of the overall film. It makes the audience mistrust the narrative flow of the story and question what is real and not which is an overall quality of Lynch’s films.
Most, if not all, of Lynch’s common themes and motifs all link to the overall theme of identity. By stripping the main character of his or her identity and then throwing them into a dangerous situation, it helps create the surreal and dreamlike world in which the film is set.
task 3 Presentation (notes)
Slide 1
Auteur – David Lynch
Won the Palme d’or at the Cannes film festival
Associated with surreal and confusing storylines
Slide 2
What makes him an Auteur is:
His films have an eerie quality. He uses dark lighting to add greater emphasis on objects of colour in his scenes, particularly red.
With the exception of Elephant Man, Dune and The Straight Story, he writes his all his screenplays.
The most common theme throughout his films is Identity. However there are 3 other common themes that stem from identity and/or add to the overall theme.
Slide 3
The first recurring theme is surrealism. By including strange, contrasting and/or vibrant colours during dark and tense scenes, he creates an uneasy viewing throughout the film.
Red-Room – twin peaks
Mud monster – Mulholand Drive – what sort of film would you expect that monster to appear in? Actress with Amnesia
Rabbits – Inland Empire – Again actress with a merging personality
Slide 4
Violent head injuries often result in a change of character or are important to the story. Either characters die through head injuries or the injury sets off the start of the film.
Mulholland Drive’s main character has amnesia after a violent car crash.
Blue Velvet begins with him finding a severed ear setting off the characters bizarre investigation of underground crime in his small town.
Slide 5
Many of his key characters play others.
The actress who played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks was brought back to play her cousin.
The Twin Peaks main character is possessed by a strange demon.
Laura Dern’s Character in Inland Empire is an actress who finds her personality merging with the one of the character she is playing within the film.
Rita in Mulholland Drive has amnesia after a car crash. The rest of the film is about her trying to find out what happened and who she really is.
All 3 of these common themes stem from the overall theme of identity and by stripping characters of their identity or giving them a second one then we, the audience, don’t trust them and it makes watching the film more nerving.
Slide 6
This quote says that he is not longer an auteur because he has lost his narrative coherence. But I disagree because it is the non-coherent style of story telling that is common in all of his films that makes him an auteur.
Auteur – David Lynch
Won the Palme d’or at the Cannes film festival
Associated with surreal and confusing storylines
Slide 2
What makes him an Auteur is:
His films have an eerie quality. He uses dark lighting to add greater emphasis on objects of colour in his scenes, particularly red.
With the exception of Elephant Man, Dune and The Straight Story, he writes his all his screenplays.
The most common theme throughout his films is Identity. However there are 3 other common themes that stem from identity and/or add to the overall theme.
Slide 3
The first recurring theme is surrealism. By including strange, contrasting and/or vibrant colours during dark and tense scenes, he creates an uneasy viewing throughout the film.
Red-Room – twin peaks
Mud monster – Mulholand Drive – what sort of film would you expect that monster to appear in? Actress with Amnesia
Rabbits – Inland Empire – Again actress with a merging personality
Slide 4
Violent head injuries often result in a change of character or are important to the story. Either characters die through head injuries or the injury sets off the start of the film.
Mulholland Drive’s main character has amnesia after a violent car crash.
Blue Velvet begins with him finding a severed ear setting off the characters bizarre investigation of underground crime in his small town.
Slide 5
Many of his key characters play others.
The actress who played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks was brought back to play her cousin.
The Twin Peaks main character is possessed by a strange demon.
Laura Dern’s Character in Inland Empire is an actress who finds her personality merging with the one of the character she is playing within the film.
Rita in Mulholland Drive has amnesia after a car crash. The rest of the film is about her trying to find out what happened and who she really is.
All 3 of these common themes stem from the overall theme of identity and by stripping characters of their identity or giving them a second one then we, the audience, don’t trust them and it makes watching the film more nerving.
Slide 6
This quote says that he is not longer an auteur because he has lost his narrative coherence. But I disagree because it is the non-coherent style of story telling that is common in all of his films that makes him an auteur.
task 4 OLD FILMS FOR NEW
Compare and Contrasting
Remakes and reboots are a modern film medium designed to capitalise on modern technology and new audiences. As technology expands and becomes more advanced, film can also become more technologically competent and visually superior to previous eras of film. One genre that particularly benefits from this advance in technology is the sci-fi genre. All sci-fi films feature some sort of other worldly aspect that require a heavy amount of computer-generated imagery to help create it to the best possible standard. Although miniatures, models and camera tricks can help create these aspects and have with early sci-fi like Star Wars, ET and 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is really CGI and Visual Effects that make modern sci-fi films stand out against the predecessors of its genre. Films like Avatar, Gravity and Avengers Assemble could not have been done without modern technology or at least done, to be met with the critical praise they did upon release.
A remake or reboot of a film can be done in multiple ways. A direct shot for shot remake of the original film like Psycho (1990), a complete redesign of the original film as seen in Robocop (2014) or a reboot, which sets the new film within a new continuity in order to create a new franchise like Star Trek (2009) and Halloween (2007). Many reboots will feature easter eggs and subtle nods to the previous film it is based upon. There are a couple of reasons as to why films are remade and rebooted; either to capitalise on the films previous success, revive the franchise if a string of sequels ended the series or simply to create a version of the film with a different story in order to create a franchise.
One particular remake/reboot in the sci-fi genre that takes advantage of modern technology but also truly reboots the film series is Dredd 3D. Based on the popular comic series Judge Dredd, the first film was released in 1995 with the same name and starred the popular action star Sylvester Stallone. This adaptation of the comic book series flopped financially and was met with negative reviews. Most noted that because the film followed little of the lore and history established in the 2000AD storylines of the comic books and because it was a complete original story that it wasn’t truly a Judge Dredd film.
Since there has been an influx of comic book adaptations, rebooting Judge Dredd was spoken about for yeas before it was officially announced as Dredd 3D. The 2012 reboot of the film however faired better with critics and fans. Although still met with some negative reviews it maintains a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the 18% the original did. Like the title suggests the film was shot for 3D, using a modern and new form of filming that adds new elements to the film. The film centres on a drug, Slo-Mo, which causes the user to experience the world in an over-saturated and slow motion way for a short period of time; this storyline warrants the use of 3D and isn’t a gimmick aimed at producing a higher box-office gross. The 3D in this reboot helps to add a different feel and visual appearance to the slow motion sequences but when the film isn’t in slow motion the post-apocalyptic futuristic dystopia setting of Mega-City One is set apart and distinguished from the sandy and derelict wasteland that surrounds it.
Dredd 3D is a perfect example of how a reboot can benefit a series. The commercial failure of the previous film stopped any chance of a sequel for that series. So when this film was released, the updated visuals, 3D and faithful to the source material helped create a cult following for the film with talks of a sequel, prequel and TV-series based off of this films story/world. However because the film didn’t make back its budget in revenue, the continuation has been delayed for several years.
Dredd is a good example of reboots, as are many sci-fi reboots and adaptations. Because of the decades between the original and reboots of many franchises, there has been a significant jump in technological advances. With modern aspects like 3D and Blu-Ray released films, sci-fi really has a new platform to expand upon and create visually impressive movies that show innovation and creativity. New audiences can enjoy previously successful films with an overhaul and distinctive visual style that utilises modern technology.