The Role of the Prodution Company

Recce Report

Location 1: Oriel Avenue Oriel Avenue I think Oriel Avenue would be a good place to shoot Gilbert being picked up by Tyler and his gang. Oriel Avenue just has this old-school feel to it. It has the well known Oriel High School down the road which has gained a reputation for drugs and bullying which local members of the audience will connect with immediately when the shot is taken. Furthermore the school it’s self is bordered by rather menacing chain metal-fences which can be included in the shot without actually including the image of the school. The road it’s self is a shabby sub-urban like area (mostly council-owned) which helps maintain the uneasy atmosphere when Gilbert is picked up. Location 2: The Back Alleys of Baliol Road Baliol as many locals will tell you is one of the roughest streets in Gorleston and Great Yarmouth. It has a system of back-alleys which set the perfect atmosphere for one of Ryan’s killings. It would be shot during the night as the scene requires the victim Jacob to be stalked through the alley at night before the brutal fight taking place in which he is slaughtered by Ryan. Location 3: The Allotments behind the Recreation Ground The allotments behind the Recreation Ground are the perfect place to strike an ambush on the unsuspecting Gilbert. Also the rough rural surroundings make it unclear exactly where it is being filmed, leaving it up to the audience’s imaginations where he is being murdered. The general layout of the atmosphere in which he is being murdered would suggest it is not somewhere people come often, so it would probably be somewhere the gang could leave his body without anybody finding it.

Costumes/ Prop List

Amanda Brunette Costume Amanda wears attire that reflects upon her slutty personality. She wears mini-skirts and tracksuit bottoms. She wears lots of ‘bling’ and fairly heavy makeup. She wears hoops through her ears. She dresses in a way which is revealing in a sexual way but rather than exposing her as a complete tart she is still seen as beautiful. As well as being seen in this ‘tarty’ way she is also seen in an attractive way-the eye candy for the male audience. Props She may have a handbag to signify her need to act feminine around boys. Tyler McCarthy Costume Tyler is rough but vein and so wears vein clothes. Everything he has is designer or costumed like his rucksack for example. He has his hair all gelled to give it a messy look, this helps reflect on his messed-up and ragged personality. Props He has a base ball bat to beat Gilbert up with, and which is also the ultimate tool for Gilbert’s death. He only has it In Gilbert’s death scene. Jacob Smith Costume Jacob tries to dress like his ‘best mate’ Tyler, so ends up wearing the same sort of designer clothes. He doesn’t have the same sort of vanity though, so does not have his own custom made effects such as Tyler’s rucksack. He has his hair glued up like sonic the hedgehog and Props He owns very good quality headphones and a rather ‘camp’ (or what the audience would perceive to be camp) rucksack. Jessica Adams Costume Jessica wears non revealing clothes because she doesn’t want to give away too much of her body. Unlike Amanda, Jessica is reserved, and is also a virgin. She is well-brought up from a middle class family and is well-educated, and this is to be reflected in her clothing. She dresses smart but casual, rather than Amanda who tries her best to wear next to nothing to provoke male attention, Jessica does almost the opposite. Props: She has no significant props on her in the trailer Gilbert Cartman Costume Gilbert wears plain clothes. Despite being the character of sympathy in the film, he is rather geeky. He wears plain jeans and granddad jumpers. Props: As for Props, Gilbert doesn’t really have any specifically in the trailer because most of his parts in the trailer involve him being beaten up or bullied on the spot without any effects; however in the film he would have a laptop, man bag and books. Tyler Cartman Costume Tyler dresses ‘bad-ass’ because he is insane and vey aggressive and dangerous. Again, his characteristics must be reflected in his clothing. He wears what is known as ‘Granddad tops’ and plain shirts, and vest tops. He wears blue jeans and brown suede boots. H e has a creepy black leather jacket and a cropped haircut. All of these give him an aggressive, hard and creepy image. Props: In some of the killing scenes he has a knife, in which he uses to slit one of the other student’s throats.

Friday the 13th Film Analysis

Friday the 13th starts on a Friday the 13th in 1958 at camp Crystal lake. A group of Counsellor’s are singing around a camp fire, two of them sneak off to have sex and are murdered by an unseen killer. The film then cuts to 1980 Friday the 13th and the camp is being reopened by Steve Christy. One of the teen counsellors, Annie who is going to be the cook is on her way to the camp, passing through a village where she receives a lift half way to the camp by a friendly truck driver. The village-crazy warns them that the camp has a death curse before she gets in Enos’s truck. When Enos drops her off she unwittingly hitchhikes and ends up in the antagonist’s car, who slits her throat with a hunting knife. The rest of the teenagers are in camp when the town crazy comes and tells them they are all doomed. Ignored, he bikes away and the killer comes and kills all the teenagers apart from the one final girl who survives by killing the killer who turns out to be the Mother of a boy who drowned under the care of past counsellors. Just as she thinks she’s safe after beheading the killer and is now in the middle of the lake on a boat the drowned boy ‘Jason’ jumps out of the water and drags here down. She wakes up and is told she was found in the boat unconscious and no-one else had seen Jason. We are left knowing that he is still out there. The film follows a typical narrative of a slasher horror movie. The movie starts off with an equilibrium (Sort of there’s already been a murder and the camp is already said to be cursed, but all of the protagonists are still alive). But then one of the girls are murdered, which puts an enigma into the story. The rest of the teenagers are systematically murdered, until one (The final girl) kills the murderer, effectively ending the enigma and restoring equilibrium within the film, however at the end the killer’s supposedly dead son jumps out of the water and drags the final girl down. The girl wakes up alive in hospital but the fact that Jason is alive re-instates the enigma and leaves the film open for a sequel. The film uses the classical representation of women throughout the story. Girls who have sex and smoke weed die in the film and there is one final girl who is the heroin of the film who defeats the evil. At the very beginning of the film a teenage girl and boy go off to have sex. They are both murdered. Then the girl named April gets into a car after hitch hiking it down. From the point of her entering the car we see her from the driver’s (the killer’s) point of view (male gaze theory), even when the killer chases April into the woods and slits her throat we see everything in the killer’s eyes putting us in the killer’s shoes. Marcie has sex in the film, and after her boyfriend is killed she is stalked through the bathroom in her underwear by the killer before being killed with a hatchet. Brenda Who has the idea of smoking grass while playing strip monopoly is again murdered in her underwear, away from the camp after being stalked through the archery target practice area. There is then the final girl called Alice who despite temptation undergoes no sexual activity. She is also the heroine, killing the murderer by beheading her with her own knife. Alice has masculine qualities about her which are seen when she undergoes manual tasks like nailing roof felt. However there are also some unconventional representations of women in horror films such as the killer or antagonist being female rather than male. Also she is a mother doing this for the revenge of her now dead son. Other than that the film follows some of the same basic character structures as Prop’s theory. The Villain is Mrs Voorhees, the Avenging Mother of Jason (who is the killer throughout the rest of the Franchise), a child who drowned due to the carelessness of the camp councillors previous to the film. The Hero/final girl is Alice, who stops and kills Mrs Voorhees by beheading her. Furthermore there is a group of troublesome teenagers who have loose morals who die.

Alien Vs Predator 2 (AVP2) Film Analysis

AVP2 starts off where the original Alien Vs Predator leaves off, with the dead predator aboard the spaceship and an alien bursting out of it’s stomach. The alien grows into an alien/predator hybrid and then kills some of the other predators and escapes to earth. A father takes his boy hunting in woods in America and discovers the crashed ship. The alien creatures infect them both and soon a pandemic starts in the town next door. The aliens go around town killing and infecting humans and a predator comes to Earth to eradicate them in order to save the human race. The predator causes a lot of damage and kills many humans in order to accomplish this. Soon the aliens are widespread but are rapidly being killed by the predator. The original alien hybrid goes into the town’s hospital and infects the pregnant women, causing them to reject their unborn babies and give birth to many aliens instead. A group of people survive and try to escape. The military are called in but are all slaughtered by the aliens. The group splits in two-one trusting the colonel and waiting for a military helicopter to pick them up from the middle of town, and the other not trusting the colonel, drives to the hospital to steal the emergency helicopter and ride out to safety. Meanwhile Predator having killed the other aliens catches the original hybrid and they battle to the death. The team escape in a helicopter and immediately after the colonel nukes the town to kill the aliens. All of the team survive, but the town is dead and the film ends with one of Predator’s key weapons being found by the government and it is stated that man is not ready for that technology yet. The credits role on. The narrative of the film is typical of the Toderov film narrative theory. It starts off with equilibrium until an enigma is thrown in (alien) a quest is undergone and the equilibrium is resolved. However in this film the quest is split in two. The humans are trying to escape and survive and the predator is trying to eradicate all traces of the alien. These separate quests take us on two separate paths throughout the film. The antagonist in the film is Alien, so although Predator kills and skins humans for sport, we know that Predator is trying to kill Alien so we as the audience side not only with the humans but Predator too. Although Predator has no value for human life and kills us like animals, he is initially ready to sacrifice himself for the survival of the human race. So in a way Predator is both the Antagonist and the ‘good guy’. We reach a new equilibrium in the film when Predator, the original Alien and the rest of the Aliens are killed and the final group of humans survive. The audience with this film were fairly sure of what was going to happen as this is a sequel to Alien Vs Predator, which in its self was carried on from the original Alien Franchise which included a round total of four films, and the two predator films. In the first film the audience saw the humans being dragged into the battle between alien and predator, and like with the sequel, we sympathised with the predator for killing the aliens. However in the first film the Predators deliberately draw the humans in as bate intending for their deaths so that they can hunt the aliens as sport, in this film the single Predator comes purely to destroy the alien before it becomes an epidemic and wipes out the human race-and we as the humans are accidently caught up in the battle. The film has many features in it that make it a horror. To start there is lots of gore and graphical violence. This happens both between the Predator and the Alien and from them towards the humans. The graphic violence towards the humans is really what makes it a horror though because we instinctively put ourselves in the human’s positions. There are also several ‘shock moments’ which makes the audience jump. An example of this is when the Alien burst through the window and attacked.An example of this is when the hobo looks into the water and a face hugger leaps out of the water and hugs onto his face. The tension then builds as the other unsuspecting hobo is attacked by one of these creatures-but manages to fight it off until we see the Alien Hybrid, and his strength fails him. There is a pause and then the female hobo enters and sees first the face huggers and then the alien. We know her fate and it is simply a tense waiting game before she gets eaten alive. Both Alien’s and Predator’s faces are ugly and horrific to look at however, the audience who watched this were made up mostly of people who had already seen the Alien and Predator films before and so would not have been initially shocked like the audiences of the first films. The image here, despite being horrific would probably be looked upon as ‘cool’ rather than scary. The characters in this film are quite unique because the two main characters, obviously aren’t human or even from this planet, in fact, they don’t even say a word throughout the whole film. Also although we tend to side with Predator they are both antagonists. Alien tends to be the villain in this movie, despite Predator also being an antagonist. Alien is not as much a character as a wild creature, however still acts as the main antagonistic body within the film. Predator in a weird way is the hero because it’s job is ultimately to vanquish the Alien before it becomes an epidemic thus saving the human race. However, despite this act, it could be argued that it is only doing this in revenge for it’s fallen comrades, or it is simply trying to contain the evidence of the aliens, in a sense covering up it’s own loose ends. It also shows no regard for human life, killing any humans which get in it’s path. There are also several hero-personas within the groups of humans. Mainly are male but there is also a final girl in the film however, unlike most horror films the plot does not revolve around her or any one of the protagonists. In this film we see them all act as a team to try and escape and destroy what they can of the invading creatures. At the end of the film the colonel issues the command to nuke the town. This both kills the aliens and Predator but also the thousands of innocent human beings. It could be argued that he is the hero by Prop’s definition, however because he technically slaughters also the town full of people it could also be argued that he is the villain or antagonist. All in all the characters in this film do not represent the characters of Prop’s theory. All in all Alien Vs Predator 2 is a classic representation of a gory, exciting and action-packed horror movie. It has eye-candy for the male members of the audience and is packed full of the same ideas and character types which made the previous franchise as successful as they were. This sequel both continues with the traditional themes of a conventional horror film as well as questioning the theoretical ideology of the characters of the horror genre.

Outpost Film Analysis

Outpost is a film about immortal Nazis who’s only purpose is to brutally murder those who disturb their rest. In a present day town ravaged by war, a group of Mercenaries led by the x-marine D.C. is hired by a scientist known as Hunt, to take him into a German Bunker in no-man’s land. On entering the outpost they discover a room full of naked corpses they believe to be victems of ethnic cleansing. However they later find out that they are all victems of sick Nazi experiments. They find one alive, clothe him and take turns guarding him. The team are then ambushed by a mysterious army. They are picked off one by one and gruesomely murdered. The team then discover a reel of film deep in the Nazi chambers which reveal that the survivor is an old Nazi general from World War II. It later becomes apparent that the army is a group of Nazi super-humans. They try to stop them but die in the process. The film ends with a second combat team discovering the corpses and the whole process repeating again. The narrative of the film is an unusual one, not following Todorov’s narrative structure. Instead of starting off at equilibrium it starts off with a dilemma or enigma, and almost immediately we see the team of mercenaries setting out on a quest. There is a struggle and after which all the ‘heroes’ die. The film then goes full circle and ends where the film began, initially ending with an enigma. The characters however are more typical of a horror movie. The mercenaries (despite being mercenaries) act as the heroes of the film and the Nazis obviously are the bad guys. However, the mercenaries are a team and there is not really a ‘final hero’. There is also no damsel in distress. In fact there are no official female characters in the film at all, unless you count the refugees and the pole dancer all of whom we only see for a few seconds at the beginning of the film. All of the victims are at the same level, either trying to save each other or save themselves. The audience probably expect what’s coming to them. What we initially see on the front cover is a group of scary-looking un-dead Nazis and what the film is about is a bunch of Un-dead Nazis. The main idea is also given away by the trailer, however we as the audience are still shocked over certain parts of the movie, such as the Nazi Bell, apparitions and possibly some of the torture scenes. Other than possibly the narrative the film displays all of the features of a true horror movie. It contains to start with lots of violence. The ‘bad guys’ are all super natural un-dead Nazis which is always pretty scary. It has lots of gore and the violence is very graphical. It contains lots of close-ups, especially when the goriest violence is happening. For example when the Nazi’s capture their first victim we see a close-up of them sticking empty bullet shells in his eyes. All in all the film features realistic violence jumpy moments, spooky scenes and graphic gory scenes which make the film a horror. In conclusion Outpost quite clearly follows the styles and conventions of the horror genre, whilst successfully following the genres of sci-fi and action. It is also successful in challenging the concepts of the theories of horror films such as narrative structure and some of the character structure.

Outpost Film Analysis

Outpost is a film about immortal Nazis who’s only purpose is to brutally murder those who disturb their rest. In a present day town ravaged by war, a group of Mercenaries led by the x-marine D.C. is hired by a scientist known as Hunt, to take him into a German Bunker in no-man’s land. On entering the outpost they discover a room full of naked corpses they believe to be victems of ethnic cleansing. However they later find out that they are all victems of sick Nazi experiments. They find one alive, clothe him and take turns guarding him. The team are then ambushed by a mysterious army. They are picked off one by one and gruesomely murdered. The team then discover a reel of film deep in the Nazi chambers which reveal that the survivor is an old Nazi general from World War II. It later becomes apparent that the army is a group of Nazi super-humans. They try to stop them but die in the process. The film ends with a second combat team discovering the corpses and the whole process repeating again. The narrative of the film is an unusual one, not following Todorov’s narrative structure. Instead of starting off at equilibrium it starts off with a dilemma or enigma, and almost immediately we see the team of mercenaries setting out on a quest. There is a struggle and after which all the ‘heroes’ die. The film then goes full circle and ends where the film began, initially ending with an enigma. The characters however are more typical of a horror movie. The mercenaries (despite being mercenaries) act as the heroes of the film and the Nazis obviously are the bad guys. However, the mercenaries are a team and there is not really a ‘final hero’. There is also no damsel in distress. In fact there are no official female characters in the film at all, unless you count the refugees and the pole dancer all of whom we only see for a few seconds at the beginning of the film. All of the victims are at the same level, either trying to save each other or save themselves. The audience probably expect what’s coming to them. What we initially see on the front cover is a group of scary-looking un-dead Nazis and what the film is about is a bunch of Un-dead Nazis. The main idea is also given away by the trailer, however we as the audience are still shocked over certain parts of the movie, such as the Nazi Bell, apparitions and possibly some of the torture scenes. Other than possibly the narrative the film displays all of the features of a true horror movie. It contains to start with lots of violence. The ‘bad guys’ are all super natural un-dead Nazis which is always pretty scary. It has lots of gore and the violence is very graphical. It contains lots of close-ups, especially when the goriest violence is happening. For example when the Nazi’s capture their first victim we see a close-up of them sticking empty bullet shells in his eyes. All in all the film features realistic violence jumpy moments, spooky scenes and graphic gory scenes which make the film a horror. In conclusion Outpost quite clearly follows the styles and conventions of the horror genre, whilst successfully following the genres of sci-fi and action. It is also successful in challenging the concepts of the theories of horror films such as narrative structure and some of the character structure.

Representation of Women in horror Films

Representation of Women in Horror Films Throughout modern history women have been represented as vulnerable objects of desire. Before film was invented, women were always viewed upon as the weaker sex. They were often seen in fairy tales as damsels in distress that had to be saved by hero. The general gender roles throughout history were men were active and looking and women were passive and looked at. Throughout the early films in the twenties and thirties, women were looked upon on still just the same stereotypical way. This is seen in films such as Dracula where the woman Mina is the damsel in distress and it takes a group of men, the heroes have to rescue her from the villain, Dracula. The theme of monsters and demons drew audiences in, each with the same ‘damsel in distress theme’. Boles stated in 2009 that ‘Women are always seen as needy, needing someone, usually a male to save them from the killer and if a male character does not intervene, then the female characters will be killed’. In early days women were always being the ones being chased by the monsters/ masked killers and were sometimes the eye-candy for the male members of the audience. If a male character did not intervene they would surely die. In short they were seen as glamorous objects that were sometimes provocative. In their traditional roles women were individually looked at or ‘displayed’ in ways that made them have strong visual impact on men. Initially they were sexually objectified. However there were also female villains sometimes in the original Friday the 13th the killer was Jason’s Mum as seen above. But it goes back further, even as far as the 1930s with films such as Bride of Frankenstein and Island of Lost souls. Cat people made in the 1940s however was one of the first films with a certain notion for feminism, which betrayed women as being the threats towards men. The cat is symbolic of women’s wild untamed sexual aura which is unconstrained by male dominance. Here the protagonist Irena is a threat to the gender normalities which were dominated by the males. She had to change or be killed. So she died. The regulations surrounding the film industry were extremely strict. The Hays code was started in 1930 by the government which set the boundaries which made a film suitable for public viewing: 1. No film should lower a person’s moral standards and make them sympathise with the antagonist. 2. The ‘correct’ standards of life had to be presented. 3. The law must not in any way be criticized or made fun of and no sympathy was to be shown in a case of a law being broken During World War II few films were made, as the directors were all busy making propaganda and spirit boosting films. However after the war ended, film makers started focusing on futuristic sub-genre of horror. Society was now terrified of the threat of nuclear war and communism. Film makers were exercising this fear, making horror films which often featured invasions from external threats, which represented the invasion of communism (this was mainly later on nearer the fifties), and the end of the world, which represented nuclear war. Women were still looked upon as the inferior gender who had to be protected by a male character. These women often died as a result of not being as strong as their hero. This is seen in invasion of the Body Snatchers where the heroine is taken by the aliens because she cannot stay awake, but her hero can and so doesn’t get taken. The fifties saw the rise of teenage audiences. ‘Horror Teenpics’ began to develop and the rules of the Hays codes were beginning to become more like guide-lines than actual rules, allowing for women to be looked upon more and more explicitly. They were seen more as a sex object than someone who had to be protected, often wearing revealing clothes. A prime example of the representation of women in that era is the film ‘Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman’. The poster says enough about the film and the era itself. The woman in it is scantily dressed making her provocative to the male eyes, in particular, the teenage audience. This is also was influenced by the rising of the Women’s Sexual Revolution which played a huge part in changing the status quo changing the attitudes towards women. During the sixties the sexual revolution was in the midst and women, although in many films were still repressed, were being exposed more and more in a more sexual way. ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock was one of the great controversial turning points in the history of the horror genre. To start was the opening scene, which was one of the first scenes to show an unmarried man and woman in bed, and especially the woman in a bra. It also showed the highly controversial shower scene in which the naked woman is viciously stabbed to death. However that scene in its self witnessed the butcher of a sexually liberated woman by a man with a knife which could be said to be his ‘phallic’ weapon. It could be argued that this scene reinforces the traditional; women are the weaker gender, ideology. However women were seen in different way in the sixties as well. They were often the object of ‘male gaze’, stereotypically being pretty, young and white which were considered to be beautiful and sexually attractive in the sixties. Alfred Hitchcock took it a step further and only used blonde actresses. In time it came that the younger audience required that grotesque imagery were used and the sexual interest in the films increase. This came at a perfect time as at around the same time the Hay’s Code was becoming over-run and technological advances in the film making industry were increasing making it easier for film makers to quench the audience’s thirst. The seventies saw that the Hay’s Code had finally been over- turned leaving a wide gap for film makers to extend their talent to new lengths that the western world had never seen before in film. The seventies also saw the birth of the Slasher Genre which was defined as ‘graphic violence and sexual titillation to attract audiences.’ Critics were arguing that young girls in this film were being killed, but also how they were often over-sexualised and scantily dressed. Often these murder scenes were shot as close-up shots shot in the point of view of the killer which put the audience in the killer’s shoes. The killer was almost always male putting the shot in a male gaze point. This in itself was criticised heavily by horror film critics. However around 1974 things changed. It became customary for one woman to survive in the films. This woman was known as the ‘Final Girl’, which became a key component in slasher films particularly in the 70’s and 80’s. This final girl was often ‘well behaved’, not getting drunk, having sex or taking drugs. She is often a career woman, putting her career, education and her friends and family before anything else. They are generally masculine and do not partake in any supposedly immoral activities. Carol Clover described the term in her book ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film’: “She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise and scream again. She is abject terror personified... She alone looks death in the face, but she alone also finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued... or to kill him herself... But, in either case, from 1974 on, the survivor figure has been female.” The role of the Final Girl was often a more maternal role, which is shown in the film Halloween with the final girl babysitting a local boy. The role is completely different to that of a male, which is often more dominant. There are also a lot more female characters than there are males in the horror genre. These characters are often exposed in a way which makes them appealing to the male teenager audience. This is seen majorly in the film Alien in the character of Lt. Ellen Ripley. She is seen in the film in a feminine light as a maternal figure and object of male gaze, and in a masculine light, where she is almost portrayed as the female equivalent of Rambo: Even though there are often ore males killed in horror films they get little screen-time. However when females get killed in horror films it’s often slow and dragged out. The female is often chased, perused and tormented, often trying to escape, the antagonist, whilst dressed provocatively and when they are finally killed it is often in a cruel sadistic way. Their pain is exploited for the pleasure of young male audiences. A good example of this is the death of Paris Hilton’s character and her boyfriend’s death. Her boyfriend’s death happens mainly off screen but the girlfriend’s character is chassed through the town in her underwear, before having her heal sliced with a knife and a sharp length of pole rammed through her head like a spear. It could be argued that for the final girl to survive in horror films she must ‘become masculine’. This way both male and female members of the audience connect with her. What the final girl must do to survive a lot of the time is become masculinised over the period of peril. The reason shown for the final girls being masculine could suggest she only survives because she is masculine and thinks masculine. This interprets women as being inferior to men, which in itself is sexist. The second negative about the final girl having to be masculine is that it betrays negative views on women who are sexually active. In horror films women who have sex are killed, which betrays sexual activity in women as immoral. John Carpenter director of Halloween and others like him argue that although statistics show that there is a correlation between sex and death, this doesn’t prove that having sex means they will definitely die. It just means that them who have sex are too pre-occupied to defend themselves. Slasher films in general are restrictive towards women in general which suggests they do not have a problem with the individual women but their sexuality and their freedom in general. This supported the theory that males became exited by seeing women in extreme peril. The nineties saw a very bad era for horror films, with many bad remakes and sequels. The extreme brutality of women had been replaced for quick almost meaningless deaths. For example in ‘I Know What You Did Last Sumer’ where Rose McGowan is killed because she cannot fit her thighs through the cat flat to escape. Everything became cliché and it got to the point where none of them were taken seriously. The parodies which started to come out soon after were barely funnier than the originals themselves. Towards the end of the nineties horror film makers began to get rid of the whole gender roles theme completely and replace it with ghosts, apocalypses or possessed children. Towards recent times as well as parodies comical but serious films use the idea of the female body being dangerous to generate fear in a completely different way. Taking irrational fears of the female body and putting it in a movie. For example the film Teeth is a film about a female who defends herself from sexual attacks with shark-like teeth in her vagina. The idea of a demonic female isn’t always as extreme. For example films like ‘Hard Candy’ have also contributed to the theme of a woman scorned acting out physical revenge on men. For example in ‘Hard Candy’ the teenage girl draws in a paedophile to his death. Although Women are often looked upon for their position in power in these films they are still looked upon more for their looks. These women have to look sexy in order to capture the male gaze. An example of this is the film ‘Jennifer’s Body’ where the lead woman is played by Megan Fox who is well renowned for her beauty and sexiness. However with films like ‘Teeth’ there is soft-porn. This as well as recent horror films has put women back in the male gaze, which re-opened the gate for violence against women. In the end, audiences will always want more violent and so film makers will have t up the violent content, more and more in order to scare the audiences.

Shutter Poster Anlysis

5180937475_318471c35b, a photo by James Bowman-Spink on Flickr.

maniac poster Analysis

maniac_poster, a photo by James Bowman-Spink on Flickr.

Movie Magazine cover analysis

movie mag cover, a photo by James Bowman-Spink on Flickr.

Empire magazine Front Cover Analysis

cate-blanchett-covers-empire-magazine-as-galadriel, a photo by James Bowman-Spink on Flickr.

One Missed Call Poster Analysis

one-missed-call-horror-movie-poster, a photo by James Bowman-Spink on Flickr.

Possession Trailer Anlysis

Inbred Trailer Analysis

Dead Snow Trailer Analysis

History of Horror 1890s-German Expressionism The first expressionisms of the horror genre were invented by the early film genius George Méliès towards the late 1890’s one of the best being ‘Le Manoir du diable’ otherwise known as ‘The Haunted Castle’ 1896. Japan also made two horrors in 1998. In 1910 Edison Studios produced the first full film version of Frankenstein. German Expressionism Is a series of created movements which started in Germany, influenced by the First World War. It started and was mainly confined to Germany because of the isolation the country received during and after World War I. Germany began banning foreign films which lead to the rise of low budget expressionism films being made in the country. These films became popular among the German people and soon become part of the culture. With the demand for the films on the rise, the German film industry was pushed into a production rise from 25 films in 1914 to 130 films 1918. By 1922 these ‘cheap production’ films had become internationally popular, and so by the time the 1916 ban was lifted Germany had become a big part of the international film industry. German Expressionism was influenced heavily influenced by various European cultures. It featured strange angles and cold lighting, sets which seemed surreal. It was an attempt to express how ‘messed up’ society was at the time, how World War two had left countries such as Germany in poverty. The picture to left illustrates this concept perfectly. It is a picture of a man carrying a body over the warped image of a roof top. However soon Hitler came to power. He wanted to make propaganda videos against Jews and others of the same nature. He first came to fritz Lang to fulfil this task. Fritz fled the country. The majority of other rich film makers saw this coming to and all mostly fled to America. Post war horror After the war, the world’s film makers now mostly resided in America so the American film industry flourished. Universal Studios began a successful series of gothic horror. Some of the most universally known is Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) and James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). Soon people started experimenting with Science Fiction making Sci Fi horrors. Such as the invisible man (1933). During the fifties and sixties technology changed and so did the genres of horror. Instead the overall theme of Gothic horror, two sub-genres began to emerge: the horror-of-Armageddon film and the horror-of-the-demonic film. A series of horror films about humanity having to overcome external threats such as alien invasions or mutants. This is seen in the originally Japanese version of Godzilla, a giant lizard that was mutated by nuclear bomb radiation. The whole horror-of-the-Armageddon sub-genre was a response to the people’s fear of communist take-over. The foul beasts and mutants and monsters threatening to take over or destroy the Earth represented the Russian communists and fear of nuclear war. The fear of nuclear war was often directly expressed by films about nuclear disasters and mutants i.e. Godzilla. Towards the end of the fifties Britain started making horror films with Peeping Tom (1960) being one of the first. It was essentially one of the first ‘horror-of-the-demonic’ films, the plot was about a male serial killer/photographer who captured his victims female victims on camera at they’re last moments. The Hammer Company produced this sort of genre for the first time and made a success of it. They started producing films in colour often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. They made The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), both making various sequels. In 1960 the first Slasher movie ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock was produced. The horror genre was changing. There was a shift from the fear of evil beings and external sources to a fear of people in society, the idea that your next door neighbour could be a serial killer. Towards the seventies and eighties the low budget gore films had been well established and following the success of Rosemary’s Baby, occult films became established with films such as ‘The Exorcist’ (1973). The ‘Slasher’ genre was becoming more and more prevalent, films such as ‘Nightmare on Elms Street’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ came about and soon produced sequels. The eighties saw a wave of low budget ‘B Movie’ gore/slasher films, which at first were attacked by critics but later accepted. Many film franchises continued to produce sequels into the nineties. The same themes from the eighties bled though to the nighties, with man of the big eighties films such as ‘Nightmare on Elms Street’ were bringing out sequels in the nineties. There was a mini-wave of self-reflexive horrors, which made connections between characters and real life-horrors with films such as ‘Candyman’ (1992), ‘The Dark Half’ (1993). However during this period the Horror genre suffered a major blow which set it back majorly in the media. It had worn itself out with the over-production of gore/slasher films. The public became tired of them. The teenage audience that once feasted on these films in the eighties had grown up and were now more interested in the sci-fi and fantasy genres of film. In response to this the horror genre started making comical parodies, self-mocking the horror genre, one of the first being ‘Braindead’ (1992). These parodies took advantage of the splatter genre. These were shortly followed by films such as ‘Scream’ (1996) which featured teenagers who were fully aware of the elements of the history of horror. This strange comic but quite serious parody along with others of its kind re-opened the slasher genre.