The “Slasher Film” has always been an iconic sub-genre of horror in American pop culture. Initially slasher films don’t seem to break the barriers of American Cinema; they still explore interesting aspects of the human psyche. Often we are thrown into the mind of our psychotic murderer, and then forced to live out his ritualistic killings. John Carpenter’s Halloween is a perfect example of a cliché slasher film. This film features some of the most common conventions of the horror genre. It thrusts us into the life of Michael Myers, an emotional stunted child who was raised in an insane asylum. It phallisizes the large knife that Myers wields during his rampage against young adults in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. …show more content…
The story takes place in a small town in Illinois. We open with a flashback of Myers’ early childhood. He is being babysat by his older sister, who happens to have a boyfriend over to fool around with. After the boyfriend leaves, young Myers, with the knife he grabs from the kitchen, proceeds to brutally murder his sister. This whole scene is done in one shot through the point of view of Michael. We, as the audience, are being told the story through Michael’s eyes. We feel the frustration he feels when he is denied the spectatorship of his sister fooling around. We feel the abandonment he feels when the boyfriend leaves so soon after this sexual encounter. We feel the neglect he feels when his sister doesn’t even notice he is nowhere to be found. We leave this flashback with a painting-esque image of young Myers holding a bloody knife as his late arriving parents stare at him motionless neglecting the fact that their daughter is This story continues with Dr. Loomis, the psychologist examining Myers. He advises the court to put him in a high security prison instead of a low security mental hospital. They …show more content…
As she sees nobody or nothing is there, she screams with fear. Halloween is a film that continues to follow the typical horror genre conventions. Thomas Schatz in his article Film Genre and the Genre Film puts the formula for a genre quite simply: “A genre film, like virtually any story, can be examined in terms of its fundamental narrative components: plot, setting, and character. These components have a privileged status for the popular audience, due to their existence within a familiar formula that addresses and reaffirms the audience’s values and attitudes” (695). With this, we can start to dissect the components of Halloween to identify it as a slasher film. First off we need to define the slasher genre. Here we can use the help of Carol Clover with her essay Her Body, Himself where she briefly defines the slasher: “At the bottom of the horror heap lies the slasher film: the immensely generative story of a psychokiller who slashes to death a string of mostly female victims, one by one, until he is subdued or killed…” (21). Here we already have some of the elements of Halloween such as: the psychokiller, a string of female murders (until we explore the
Throughout Clover’s novel she never mentioned “A Nightmare on Elm Street” even though it is part of the same franchise as “Halloween”. However, I say the film followed Clover’s exact model. A link can be made from the film to Clover’s theory from a couple of standpoints. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” had a very Halloween like feel to it. Freddy Krueger acted as the male tormentor as he harmed Tina Gray and Nancy Thompson. The line here is that the base for the film “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is the same base that was used in “Halloween” as well as the base theory Carol Clover provides in her novel. In “A Nightmare on Elm Street” Tina and Nancy have a goal of becoming the “final girl(s)” because they have the same common goal of surviving Freddy Krueger’s attacks. Tina and Nancy’s stories sound exactly like Laurie’s in Halloween. The base is the same in that a male continued to attack female characters until the female(s) overcame the challenge to become the “final girl.” I really feel that most “slasher” films follow this
Barry, , Keith, and Grant, ed. Film Genre Reader III. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,
Analysis of the Opening Sequences of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Wes Craven’s Scream (1996)
sample, but it also appeals to population and emotion. To further explain why we crave
Near the end, when he walks into his room he falls to his hands and knees and looks
Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., & Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Like the Saw franchise, though, Sinister 2 features an array of unique murder sequences – varying from electrocution and Alligator (or Crocodiles) decapitations to lighting victims ablaze on a cross and forcing vermin to munch on people’s insides. Jigsaw would surely be proud, but keep in mind children are behind these deadly deeds – and such nonsensical occurrences typically forces this film to be more laughable than frightening.
Lorie Myers begins the film Halloween as a normal, happy teenager and everything in life is fine. Michael is the brother of Lorie and he is locked up in an insane asylum for murdering his older sister Edith. He eventually escapes and decides he wants to murder his sister Lorie. Lorie is unaware that she has an older brother because she is adopted by another family when she was an infant. On Halloween night, Lorie is babysitting and her friends are being murdered. Lorie losses everything and she had done nothing wrong. Michael blames Lorie for the situation because of her relationship to him. Lorie is traumatized from Michael terrorizing her, but she makes it out alive. As the Halloween series progressed, Lorie becomes successful, but the fear
Film scholars around the world agree that all genres of film are part of the “genre cycle”. This cycle contains four different stages that a specific genre goes through. These stages are: primitive, classic, revisionist, and parody. Each stage that the genre goes through brings something different to that genre’s meaning and what the audience expects. I believe that looking at the horror genre will be the most beneficial since it has clearly gone through each stage.
him to go to his house as "some nigger'd reaped his girl". Later on in
the garage. Sam loves to drink blood. "Go out and kills" commands father Sam. Behind
A Nightmare on Elm Street and all of the following six sequels fall into its own sub-genre of the teen slasher/stalker sub-genre as well, know as the Nightmare on Elm Street Series. This series of films adds a new dimension to the typical teen slasher/stalker film, depth of character and story.
Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.
Since the release of George Melies’s The Haunted Castle in 1896, over 90,000 horror films have been made. However, none have been more frightening and influential than that of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Each a product of horror’s 1970’s and 80’s golden era, the films have a reputation of engulfing viewers in fear, without the use of masked killers, vampires, or other clichés. Instead, Kubrick and Spielberg take a different approach and scare audiences on a psychological level. The Shining and Jaws evoke fear through the use of three different film aspects: the use of a “danger” color, daunting soundtracks, and suspenseful cinematography.