Dying Breed and When a Stranger Calls

In the film industry, genre can be referred to the various types of techniques and particular themes that are used in the way the story of a film is constructed. Genre is a useful method to analyse film as it depicts what theme a particular film is about and enables the viewer to understand the film in a clear and concise way. The main focus throughout this research essay will focus on how genre is a useful method to analyse films. This will be displayed through two main aspects of which are; target audience and how genre creates the narrative flow of the film. Two significant films that display their own style of genre that will be made reference to are Jody Dwyer’s film ‘Dying Breed’ and Fred Walton’s ‘When a stranger calls’.

Genre is a useful method to analyse films as it establishes what angle the film is taking, the plot of the story and how it makes the audience understand the moral of the film that is being visually shown. Significantly, in ‘Dying Breed’ the type of genre that this film is categorised in is horror. Horror is a significant genre in which it presents films in a fearful and gruesome manner. The main overview of ‘Dying Breed’ is a group of hikers that are in search of a Tasmanian tiger. Whilst searching for a Tasmanian tiger, the group of hikers come across a family of cannibals who are on a task to find fresh breeding stock to eat. Throughout the film, we experience a constant motion of unexpectedness and detailed imagery. Lowry, in his article states that a “spectators relation to a horror film is often quite active – screaming, covering the eyes and laughing either nervously or derisively” (1984, p.15). ‘Dying Breed’ evidently displays this exact description to the audience in the sequence of events crea...

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...e narrative understandable for the audience. All in all, a film can not have a narrative to construct without a particular type of genre. Any film needs a genre to distinguish the narrative.

Overall, as displayed throughout this discussion on ‘Dying Breed’ and ‘When a stranger calls’, genre is a significant method in the way a film is analysed. The target audience and narrative flow discussed in regards to both the films, displays a thorough understanding towards the viewer in relation to the structural analysis of the film. In having a genre within a film, it assists the categorization of the film and in the cinema industry; it helps the audience in their viewing choice of which film to see. It is important to understand that within the film industry, if a film has no genre; a target audience and narrative would not be as significant to analyse.