Before the end of our AS year in Media studies we were all assigned a task to research a horror genre and be prepared to present it back to the class . We have all uploaded our summer research on the particular horror genre that we, as a individual, focused on. We then presented them back to the members of our team so that the whole group understood each other's sub-genre That way it would help us when deciding what sub genre we would prefer our movie to be..
Miriam Bello
Miriam Bello
Jessica's Summer Research ...
For Jessica's summer work, she made a presentation of the history of horror at different stages in time.
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Firstly I did a booklet for my summer research. It was almost like one of the children's touch booklets. For example 1930's - 1940's which was the era for werewolfs had fur which you could touch. Unfortunalty it was destoryed so i turned it into a powerpoint.
I researched horror over a history of time. In my reasearch i have learnt, that just like fashion horror didn't happen just at once, it happened over time. The trends differed and new trends came in style. If I was to re-do this work, I would add more writing and re-done my work as a booklet as it would be more effective and creative. |
Janoi's Summer Research ...
For Janoi's summer work, he made a presentation about the history of different genres in horror. Below are the images of his work.
Over the summer holiday period i completed a slideshow explaining the change in horror and the different sub genres that make up the overall horror genre. In my slideshow i look at some of the first movies that used
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Miriram's Summer Research
I decided to make my summer result on genre more creative than other members in my group did. I decided to make a collage/spider diagram on the sub-genre i looked at. In the spider diagram I talk about the history and the different trends of horror movies and what famous movies were the revolution for horror movies. But the sub-genre i concentrated on in my summer research was psychological horror. I chose to focus on this sub-genre because it's the sub genre that I prefer when watch a horror movie, therefore, I could then add past experiences into my work. I have spoken about the origin of psychological horror movies, what the stereotyped characters are usually like, what their costume are and the effect of thee things to the audience.
Tito's Summer Research ...
For Tito's summer work, he wrote an essay about the history of horror and the history of slasher. Below is his essay
A History of Horror Movies
Horror is an ancient art form, for a long time we try to terrorise each other out of pleasure, by telling sadistic stories in which it triggers the less logical parts of our imaginations, giving us that basic thrill and rush of adrenaline in which fear brings, horror stories also sometimes serve as a wider moral purpose, reinforcing the rules and taboos of our society and showing the ghastly fate of those who transgress it, horror films have long served both purposes.
Fear is one of the most fascinating and powerful emotions of the human body. There is something thrilling about the sudden shock and prolonged anxiety experienced when one is afraid. For centuries, writers have played on this human emotion as a form of entertainment. From reading ghost stories, to telling scary tales around the campfire, there seems to be some bizarre forbidden pleasure derived from fear. The horror genre may be so appealing because it is therapeutic. Horror provides an outlet for all the emotion bottled up inside from everyday life. Watching horror films enables us to acknowledge our fears, share them with others in the audience, and rid the terror by facing it. Edgar Allen Poe, a horror writer from the mid 1800's, is still acknowledged as being responsible for the birth of modern day horror fiction. Till today his tales continue to inspire horror directors all over the world, demonstrating that although societies and social attitudes may evolve, people's fears are perpetual. The earliest horror films originated from early folklore, such as vampires, werewolves, and monsters. These images pervaded the horror genre until the 1970's, when the more notorious gory slasher films surfaced. The horror genre is almost as old as cinema itself. Georges Melies directed the first horror film or vampire flick, Le Manoir du Diable, in 1896, which ran for two-minutes, realizing that audiences crave terror. In the early 1900s, German filmmakers satisfied this curious hunger for fright, when director Paul Wegener made a triumphant success with his version of the old Jewish folk tale Der Golem in 1913. This story about a huge figure made from clay, who is given life by an antiquarian and then revolts against its enslavement, was an evident precursor of the many monster movies that flourished in Hollywood during the Thirties. However, Robert Wiene's masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, paved the way for serious horror films and art cinema in general and is still considered an example of the powerful creativity of cinema even to this day. Hollywood succeeded in coming out with highly polished productions, which usually placed a few shocking action moments as part of the huge appeal. These horror films were fairly cheap to produce, needed few sets, had unknown actors, and always had the possibility of sequels. The genre of horror is an extremely imprecise category because there are too many sub-genres/hybrids, which make 'horror' difficult to define. Psychological horror films are a sub-genre, which rely on character fears, guilt, beliefs and emotional instability to build tension. They also rely on messing with your mind rather than using gore and violence. 'Slasher' films are too a sub-genre of horror, which typically involve a psychopathic killer who stalks and graphically murders a series of adolescent victims in a random and unprovoked fashion. The only certainty IS that horror films aim to frighten their audience whether it's using gore or playing tricks on your mind. Slasher Horror
Throughout the course of the past century, audiences have flocked in masses to the theatre to watch whichever ‘monster’movie or horror attraction that was being shown in the cinema. For the most part, the audience of these films enjoy being frightened – otherwise, I am sure they wouldn’t be there. Although they are often fan favourites, horror movies have often come under scrutiny as being regarded as the lowest form of cinema and are often dismissed of any merit. Particularly, the horror film has produced a more controversial progeny in the Slasher Film. The slasher films are looked down upon in the land of cinema largely because of their often masochistic portrayal of women. Slasher films present a constant struggle between males and females, which is not necessarily a strictly physical struggle – but rather, a twisting of ideologies of masculinity and femininity as states of mind rather than of the physical body.
Are the Slasher films, then, simply just flights of fantastic fancy or are they a cinematic depiction of society’s views of sexuality and gender roles? horror films (predominantly the slasher Film) adopt a masochistic (often extremely violent) and misogynistic (often entirely sexist) outlook towards women. But the true VIOLATION is how these films naturally transfer this view to the largely male audience watching. In essence, the genre feeds the maleperceptions of pleasure and exemplifies female perceptions of terror. Although Slasher films do indeed assume those perceptions, they are also clever illustrators of the changing roles of females perceived in cinema. The Slasher film is a by-product of the social movements that arose out of the 1960′s and early 1970′s. Much of the structure of the Slasher film developed as a direct result of the sexual revolution and women’s movements of the 1960′s. Prior to this era, horror films mainly focused on a female victim (damsel in distress) being rescued by the charming male hero. Women were often victimized because of their perceived weakness and frailty and had an inability to fight off her attacker(s) because she lacked the strength, fortitude, and wherewithal that a man had. Essentially, watch any classic Universal horror movie and you can see the formula in action: a) A frightening beast descends upon a town b) Beautiful woman gets captured by this scary monster (Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, King Kong…etc.) c) Dashing young man faces mortal peril and rescues captured female (usually his love) and vanquishes the beast. This “helpless female” attitude would change drastically in the decades following. In 1960, this formula changed dramatically with the release of two films. The first film was Peeping Tom, which told the story of an awkward loner Mark Lewis, who works as a focus puller in a British film studio. On his off hours, he supplies a local porno shop with risqué photos and also dabbles in filmmaking. A weird and sexually repressed fellow, Mark is obsessed with the effects of fear and how they are registered on the face and behaviour of the frightened. This obsession dates from the time when, as a child, he served as the subject of some cold-blooded experiments in the psychology of terror conducted by his own scientist father. As a grown man, Mark becomes a compulsive murderer who kills women and records their contorted features and dying gasps on film. His on-going project is a documentary on fear. With 16mm camera in hand, he accompanies a prostitute to her room and stabs her with a blade concealed in his tripod, all the while photographing her contorted face in the throes of terror and death. Alone in his room he would re-watch his footage and, I guess he got off on it. The significance of this film is twofold. First it pre-dates the second far more famous movie on this list, Psycho, by a few months. Second, it introduced a new type of predator – a UNHEALTHY and sadistic Everyman. Want to see what this movie is all about? In Alfred Hitchcock’s immortal film, Psycho, a new breed of monster was unleashed and a different kind of victim introduced. Where roles were once clearly established within the horror genre, they were now permanently altered and in disarray. Where Peeping Tom revealed a killer who gets his rocks off by watching the final moments of his victims, Psycho introduced the psychosexual or transgendered killer as depicted in the character of Norman Bates – the proprietor of the isolated Bates’ Motel. Eventually, Norman is revealed to be a disturbed individual who has developed a split personality. Aside from his own personae, Norman has created a version of his abusive mother – long since dead and mummified by the start of the movie –that reveals itself whenever Norman is sexually aroused. When confused thief, Marion Crane, arrives to rent a motel room – Norman’s attraction to her is clear and he immediately welcomes her in. |
The History Of Slasher
The start of the decade saw Hammer films releasing yet more entries to their Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy series of movies, which later proved to be their undoing as their popularity finally gave way to the more ground-breaking new styles of horror films, that where to emerge later on in the decade. This era was also made notable for the introduction of a new style of horror film, the "Slasher"
1970 saw Hammer releasing "Countess Dracula", based on the true story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory "I, Monster", starring Cushing and Lee again and "The Vampire Lovers" and "Lust for a Vampire", which where two romantic vampire flicks. However, their popularity began to Wayne with the release of "The Scars of Dracula" and "The Horror of Frankenstein", which were considered to be the worst films that Hammer ever made. Hammer went onto release another Mummy film in 1971, with "Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb", along with the black comedy "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde" and the Jack the Ripper inspired picture entitled "Hands of the Ripper". These where followed the next year by the appalling "DRACULA: AD 1972", which was their attempt to update the story to present day 1972. Most notably in this year, Director Wes Craven teamed up with producer Sean Cunningham for the low-budget exploitation pic "Last House on the Left", which was made notable only by the fact that it was the picture that introduced the catchphrase "just keep telling yourself, it's only a movie." However, 1973 saw the release of the most notorious horror picture of all time, namely "The Exorcist" by director William Freidkin, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty. The controversy it created amongst the religious community ensured its success at the box office, with it becoming the most successful commercial horror movie of all time. In 1974, another ground-breaking horror film was released to much controversy, this being "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" by director Tobe Hooper. Regarded as being quite shocking for its day and even being banned from general release in the UK up till 1999, the film became the prototype for the many slasher films that were to soon follow. This resulted in its main character, Leather face, becoming a modern day classic horror character. Meanwhile, Mel Brooks released his light-hearted horror spoof in this year entitled "The Young Frankenstein" starring Gene Wilder. This being a lampoon of the Universal horror films of the 1930's and40's. 1975 and mainstream director Steven Spielberg ventured into the horror world, with the film "Jaws" about a giant shark terrorising a coastal town. The following year in 1976 saw the first adaptation of a Steven King novel. This being "Carrie", starring Sissy Spaceck. The following year in 1978 saw the release of "Jaws 2", with another giant shark menacing a coastal town, and a cheap and cheerful Jaws rip-off by Joe Dante also appeared this year entitled "Piranha", as genetically mutated killer fish go on the rampage at a mountain riverside tourist resort. In 1979, zombie director George Romero released "Dawn of the Dead", a sort-of sequel to his earlier "Night of the Living Dead". The film was even more graphically excessive and violent than the first and proved to be hugely successful. Most importantly, this is the year that John Carpenter released the film "Halloween", one of the first slasher pics to emerge following "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". It went on to become the most successful independent horror movie of all time, making Jamie Lee Curtis a star and the films killer, Michael Myers, another modern day horror character. It is also the film that Donald Pleasance provided us with his most memorable performance as the enigmatic Dr Loomis. Vampires returned to the big screen this year in "Salem's Lot", which was another Steven King novel adaptation and Sci-Fi/Horror made a big comeback with the hugely successful "Alien" which was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Sigourney Weaver, becoming an instant classic amongst both Sci-Fi and Horror film fans alike. We were also introduced to a character called the "Tall Man" in this year in the low-budget “Phantasm", which proved to be a huge cult hit in the USA. Slasher Horror Continue ...
In post 1978 horror films – thanks in large part to “SCREAMS queen”Jamie Lee Curtis’s premiere performance in that year’s immortal classic Halloween (at right) – the ‘Final Girl’ has become the genre standard. But the pathology of the killer has also gone through some remarkable changes as well. The killer is no longer simply male. In many cases the vicious murderers in these films are female, or in some cases something entirely different altogether. Two Slasher films in particular, Sleep away Camp and Friday the 13th, illustrate each respective films killer as being something other than the traditional male. in the laughably bad-Sleepaway Camp, sexual aggressors at a remote summer camp trouble the lead character Angela. Each of these aggressors is eventually murdered. The film is uncannily similar to Friday the 13th in that they both take place at a summer camp (surprisingly the main location in many Slasher films) and both have shocking finales. In-Sleepaway Camp the viewer is introduced to the film (via a flashback story) in which a little girl’s brother and homosexual father are killed in a boating accident. Much like Norman Bates in Psycho, Angela’s altered gender role is a result of an irregular childhood with a disturbed matriarchal figure and a homosexual father who Angela walked in on while he was in the embrace of another man (as seen in flashbacks). Angela murders the males who sexually advance on her, and the females to whom Angela is attracted to. Angela’s homicidal activity is a resultant effect of her cross-gender and confused sexuality. It can be surmised, then, that Angela is a sexual other. She has both elements of masculinity (which is genetic) and of femininity (which has been instilled upon her). Although Angela exhibits both of these elements, she was not fully either and as a result her sexual rage was unleashed on the clueless victims of the camp. The difference between Norman Bates and Angela, is that Norman represses his mother’s overbearing persona within his mind whereby Angela – although physically a male – has to forego that role in order to adopt the new life ‘she’ is forced to lead as a female. Both Angela and Norman’s transformations are a direct result of childhood mis-treatment by the mother or matriarchal figure. Many critics have questioned the Slasher films’ influence on the predominantly young male audience that goes to the theatre to see these films. The primary concern is that the male audience will side with the killer as he swaths his way through the hapless female victims. The object of controversy is whether members of the viewing audience will emulate the horrific actions that take place within these films. Specifically, that they will become increasingly more desensitized to real-life violence after every viewing. What many of these apprehensive critics fail to take into account, is that the same male audience members who initially cheer on the killer at the beginning of the film, eventually switch their loyalties towards the end of the film and root for the survival of the ‘Final Girl’ and destruction of her maniacal hunter. In Friday the 13th, the audience is given a clear lesson on the portrayal of the ‘Final Girl’. This films’protagonist, Alice, is introduced early on in the film. Although she is clearly in a relationship with camp director Steve, she shows no overt sexual behaviour. She appears to be a little ‘nerdy’ and does not exude a lustful sexual beauty like her fellow female counsellors. In the concluding scenes of the film, Alice discovers all of the corpses of her gruesomely murdered friends and becomes immediately aware of her impending doom. Luckily, she is able to incapacitate her attacker and live on. In many Slasher films, like Friday the 13th, the cinematic camera technique of the I-camera is employed. This technique allows the audience to “see through the killers eyes” (Also known as point of view) as he stalks and murders his prey. This format is later reversed with the ‘Final Girl’, as the audience is now symbiotically attached in her plight for survival. The I-camera technique, then, is largely responsible for the viewing audiences’ changing sympathies. the Slasher film has altered the pathology of the former male hero. The male was once a clever and deductive champion, but post-Slasher has been perceived as a dim-witted and sex driven victim of happenstance. The female, however, has stepped forward from behind the shadow of the 1950′s male protagonist, and has strongly embraced the role of hero. Although the Slasher films objectify women through gratuitous nudity, sex scenes, and horrific death sequences – they also put women on a more even playing field with men. Along with titillating and graphic murder sequences, the Slasher film has played a pivotal role in educating the viewing audience of constantly evolving sexual attitudes. |