A Comparison of 'The Skeleton Key’ and ‘Dungeons and Dragons’
‘The Skeleton Key’: Horror
‘Dungeons and Dragons’: Fantasy-Adventure-Action
In ‘The Skeleton Key’ poster there is only one actress who is standing
and looking into a key hole (facing the camera). She looks scared but
also anxious and worried with tension. She also looks like she
intensely desires to know what’s behind the Key hole.
The woman is wearing dark clothes and jewelry signifying that this
film is a horror. She is also wearing sandals which represent that
it’s a worm time of the year e.g. summer or spring. The setting looks
like a normal house. This must mean that the scary parts of this film
would probably be mostly in that house since the key hole is there
also.
In this poster the whole background is black. There is also a key-hole
shape on the middle with a woman walking towards it. In the house, it
looks like its day time since there’s light coming through the windows
– this is surprising because this specific gesture code is the
opposite of a horror type of film since usually it is typical for the
nights to be the most scariest and fearful time of day for most
people. The woman is holding a torch and a pole which shows that she
is scared of something that might be behind that key hole and that she
is planning to go inside since she looks so curious.
The tagline of this poster is ‘fearing is believing’ – this is a big
giveaway to the genre. It includes the word ‘fear’ which signifies
that there is going to be something dangerous, scary and that causes
distress. It also makes a lot of sense - if you are scared of
something, it means that you bel...
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...o make people want to see the movie straight away
therefore making the movie successful. People can get interested in
the film because the posters have information about the film that may
be attracting such as the cast – some people go too watch a movie
because of all the good actors that it includes, genre – some people
go to watch particular genres, writer or director – some people might
like a specific writer or director. All of these features are
noticeable to the audience in these 2 posters which means that they
would attract the audience who like horrors, the writer or Kate Hudson
should get attracted to ‘The Skeleton Key’ and those people that are
fans of action, fantasy, adventure, or any of the characters that they
can recognize or see in the credit block should be interested in the
‘Dungeons and Dragons’ movie.
Everyday is a challenge and we experience things that we like and we don’t like. There are things we always want to leave behind and move forward; however, we cannot. As humans if we are told not to do something, we want to try it anyway to see the outcome. In the same manner, if we are told about a movie being scary we go out of our comfort zone to experience it and then later be frightened. Stephen T.Asma mentions,“Monsters can stand as symbols of human vulnerability and crisis, and as such they play imaginative foils for thinking about our own responses to mence” (62). When we watch horror movies, we force ourselves to imagine the wrong and undesirable. These thoughts in our head cause us to believe that our own obstacles are likely to cause a threat or danger to ourselves. In the same manner, horror movies can be represented as obstacles in our life that we don’t want to go through and we do it anyway to feel good about our own situations that they are not as bad as others. Stephen King also depicts, “We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary.”(King 16). Horror movies may put us in a mindset where we feel safe and more comfortable with our own situations but explore our options in worse situations. It gives us an example of what people did in their fright time and how we should confront each and every
The article Why We Crave Horror Movies by Stephen King distinguishes why we truly do crave horror movies. Stephen King goes into depth on the many reasons on why we, as humans, find horror movies intriguing and how we all have some sort of insanity within us. He does this by using different rhetorical techniques and appealing to the audience through ways such as experience, emotion and logic. Apart from that he also relates a numerous amount of aspects on why we crave horror movies to our lives. Throughout this essay I will be evaluating the authors arguments and points on why society finds horror movies so desirable and captivating.
fear, this fear persuades the reader of this idea by making the reader experiencing the horror of
Just as a mirror reflects one’s face, the horror genre is a physical representation of how fear is portrayed to discuss the social anxieties of one’s time period. Representations of fear have continued to vary in accordance to reflect a particular time period’s social anxieties. Robin Wood, in the essay American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film, articulates how the ‘true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilisation represses or oppresses.’ He contended that the way in which any given horror narrative determines this conflict, uncovers its ideological orientation, and further, that most of these compositions will be conservative; stifling desires inside of the self and disavowing it by projecting
...er apparently created successful persuasive appeals for the crowd to be attracted and enjoy a movie that will be funny, colorful, and full of adventures that eventually will teach a life experience to the public.
Cynthia Freeland is a seminal film critic and philosopher within the context of modernity whose main work concentrates on feminism as it pertains to the horror film genre. She has authored several books and articles that critique the ways in which the female character becomes portrayed in the horror movies. Some of her most famous works include “Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films,” “Philosophy and Film,” and a landmark work entitled “The Naked and The Undead.” Freeland, a cognitivist film theorist, seeks to discursively frame the horror genre of film in a way that audiences take seriously for its form and content. Her unconventional approach to a horror film is vividly outlined and discerned in “The Naked and the
The film plays on every instinctive fear: darkness, claustrophobia, deformity, drowning and quite literally being killed. This is a dark, intense up close and personal horror affair.
Instructor’s comment: This student’s essay performs the admirable trick of being both intensely personal and intelligently literary. While using children’s literature to reflect on what she lost in growing up, she shows in the grace of her language that she has gained something as well: an intelligent understanding of what in childhood is worth reclaiming. We all should make the effort to find our inner child
The Rebirth of a Game Basketball in my home state goes way back, straight to the beginning. The University of Kansas (KU) hired James Naismith, the inventor of the game, as its first basketball coach in 1898. The fledgling sport has caught on, and has gained force ever since. KU was also the scene of the emergence of Wilt Chamberlain, who dominated the game like none other. At the same time that “Wilt the Stilt” was breaking out, Kansas State University (KSU) had a basketball coach by the name of Tex Winter.
Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned. (Horror Films)
Cultures all around the world, some of which never connect with each other, have traditional stories, myths, and legends to explain the nature and way of the world. Theses myths have similar structure to one another including character archetypes, patterns of plot, and universal symbols. The novel Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe and the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon directed by Ang Lee are two modern representations of myth based in two very different cultures.
Most dystopian young-adult fiction that has been published within the past few years follows a similar formula. Divergent and The Hunger Games in particular are two book series that have striking similarities in the way the authors have set them up. They both take place in a future version of the United States run by a corrupt government, but they contain differences in the exact location and who runs the government. On the outside, the main characters appear very similar, even though there are some apparent differences after the reader gets to know both. In both of the series, the characters are split up into important groups that will determine how they live most of their lives, though they enter the groups in different ways. Divergent and The Hunger Games both have unique qualities, but the general outline of the two series is similar enough to attract the attention of readers who have already read and enjoyed one of them.
Each one not only relates to an important aspect of life in the novel, but our society as well if we really think hard enough about it. My first poster, “War is Peace” represents the first mantra of Ingsoc and displays its nonsensicality through an image of peace simultaneously interlaced with an image of war. The next mantra of the party is “Freedom is Slavery” which depicts the hands of an enslaved person releasing a thrush. This songbird was chosen as it relates to the proletariat, or lower class, of the society of 1984 in the way that they are viewed as resilient figures. The last mantra which is “Ignorance is Strength” is representative of individuals bound together by their lack of knowledge, forming a very strong chain. The next poster which is entitled “Believe” highlights the presence of the word “lie” in “believe”. The symbol of crossed fingers underneath the phrase can be interpreted as someone either wishing for luck (believing) or lying, if these fingers were to be found behind your back. Finally, my last work, which is “Untitled” is symbolic of the oppressive nature of the society in which some of us are currently living in. This poster suggests that we are prisoners of our own culture. To conclude, I believe that all of these images relay an important message of power and control and the methods employed to maintain
Condren’s article, “Two Witty Glosses” discusses how the “The Friar’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale” both use language to create ironic foreshadowing of each tale’s events. Condren also expounds upon how each tale is structurally similar. Both tales follow a straightforward formula to present both tales’ engagements with social discourse and the importance of intent. Condren’s structuralist approach to the three tales in Fragment III (“The Friar’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale in particular) illustrates how language itself operates within tales that rely heavily on the specifics of
In Stephen King’s paper Why We Crave Horror Movies, he describes three reasons why people adore horror films. He first explains that some want to prove one is not afraid; that he/she can conquer any fear. Secondly, Stephen