Dracula. Frankenstein. Godzilla. These monsters no longer strike fear into the hearts of viewers as they once did. Formerly the villains of the classic "monster movie," these relics, who now represent all that is archaic in horror film history. The monster movie of the past makes way for the thriller or slasher movie of the present, while the monster villain gives its role to the deranged, psychotic serial killer. Friday the 13th series, Nightmare on Elm Street, Copycat and Seven have become the new classics in the genre of the horror film. With films like The People Under the Stairs, Nightmare on Elm Street, and New Nightmare, Wes Craven has proven himself to be a master of the creation of modern horror films.
With recent masterpiece Scream, Craven shows his audience that he is not restricted by the typical conventions of the horror film. In most of these films, the background is set up before the killer does any actual slashing. However in Scream, Drew Barrymore's character is tormented by the killer from the film's very beginning and both she and her boyfriend are dead less than ten minutes after the opening credits. Craven manages to make Scream a film of less "fluff" and more substance than most thrillers. Recurring themes in the film, such as the lack of teens' seriousness, the callous nature of today's younger generation, the crossover and confusion between reality and movies, and the negative representation of television media not only add to the film's entertainment value, but also often portray a fairly accurate picture of twentieth century America.
Despite all the film's blood and gore, Craven creates a comedic tone so successfully that at times the audience wonders whether Scream might be a comedy after all. Even though the safety of their small town has been shattered by a deranged serial killer, the characters do not seem to take the situation very seriously. The main characters are eating lunch at school the day after the first murders and, as might be expected, the killings make up the topic of their conversation. At one point, the character Randy turns to Tatem, and in a convincing imitation of Billy Crystal, he asks her, "Did they really find her liver in the mailbox? Because I heard they found her liver in the mailbox." Tatem and Sidney, the other female present and the movie's main character, cringe at this tasteless remark. Tatem'...
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...ssuring that we remain productive m mbers of society (King 500). So, perhaps if you are in need of this type of therapy, or in search of an offbeat study in American popular culture, all that you need is a good horror film. Rent Scream or go to a movie theater to see the sequel. You will probably be surprised by what you see, and you might even be impressed.
Works Cited
Craven, Wes. Interview. Fresh Air. National Public Radio. KQED, San Francisco. 16 February 1998.
King, Stephen. ãWhy We Crave Horror Movies.? Common Culture.
Petracca, Michael and Madeleine Sorapure, eds. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1995.
Pinedo, Isabel Cristina. Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Works Consulted
Grant, Barry Keith, editor. Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film. London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1984.
Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies. New York: Harmony Books, 1988.
Riptov, S.A. Kidnapped Corpus Whasamat Univ. Press, 1984
Scream. Dir. Wes Craven. With David Arquette, Neve Campbell,
Courteney Cox, Skeet Ulrich, and Drew Barrymore. Dimension Films, 1997.
Stephen King “Why We Crave Horror Movies” this article was published in Playboy Magazine (1981)
...ual narrative makes the legend more appealing and provides a means for experiencing pleasure in film. Still, however bland the oral legend may have become the horror genre owes its popularity to Ed Gein. His legend is the basis for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween, When a Stranger Calls, Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and just about every other psychopathic character ever to have graced the silver screen.
And last but not least is the villain in these movies. Most of the killers in these films are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or has some type of facial or bodily deformation and who have been traumatized at an early age. Even though these characters terrorized and murder people they have taken on the persona of anti-heroes in pop culture. Characters like Halloween’s Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees have become the reason to go see these movies. However, over time,”their familiarity and the audience’s ability to identify and sympathize with them over the protagonist made these villains less threatening (Slasher Film (5))”.
Some would say watching horror movies and being scared out of your wits is a fun way to spend their hard earned money. They go see these movies on average once a week, each time choosing a newer version of a trilogy like “Chucky” or “The evil Dead”. Film making has come a long way over the last few decades, the graphic...
Among New American Ghost Cinema, one can witness the re-emergence of an interesting sub-genre: the Found Footage Cinema. We can observe this new fascination in many modern horror films such as 2008’s Cloverfield, 2009's Paranormal Activity, and 2011's Apollo 18. Digging below the surface of a literal reading of some of these movies, one finds a genre that can be far more intelligent than what meets the public eye. For example, within Cloverfield, the screams and images of smoke heaving through the city of Manhattan hint at post-September 11th. To understand the growing popularity of Found Footage Cinema and why we discover these political undertones, this paper will examine The Blair Witch Project (1999, Myrick and Sanchez) in the context of theorists Robin Wood and Jürgen Habermas’ discussion on humankind’s senses of truth and what our society represses or oppresses. Both Habermas’ essay “The Public Sphere” and Wood’s “Introduction to the American Horror Film” touch on the inner workings of the public’s mind. With these essays and an analysis of these films, I will be able to propose theories working towards a mode of critical engagement with the success of The Blair Witch Project. It is then that we will connect it to the wider social and political jungle surrounding America as it stood on the edge of the Twenty First Century.
As writers and producers saw the amazing popularity and success of the movie Scream many other copy cat versions were made. Movies such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend all followed the same teen slasher format. Nothing is being left up to the movie viewer’s imagination anymore. Everything for the past thirty years was spelled out and given to the viewer, leaving the identity of the killer as the only form of mystery. The genre of horror was losing a very important battle. The bone-chilling movies of the past were giving way to the comedic teen movies of the present.
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.
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.
Halloween is a perfect example of a cliché slasher film. This film features some of the most
People enjoy immersing themselves in fictional stories, whether that be through books, plays, or movies. No two movies are exactly the same keeping people watching more and more of them. Even though the movies may be very different, each story in a specific genre includes the same conventions, constituting them as part of that genre. Horror movies are filled with darkness, suspense, and anticipation. These conventions keep the audience on the edge of their seat wondering what is going to happen next.
We all have cravings, be it for snacks or sweets, there is always something we desire. We crave horror in the same way. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he argues that people need to watch horror films in order to release the negative emotions within us. King believes that people feel enjoyment while watching others be terrorized or killed in horror movies. King’s argument has elements that are both agreeable and disagreeable. On one hand he is acceptable when claiming we like the thrill and excitement that comes from watching horror movies; however, his views regarding that the fun comes from seeing others suffer cannot be agreed with because the human condition is not as immoral as he claims it to be.
Too many horror films provide scares and screams throughout their respective cinemas. Not many viewers follow what kind of model the films follow to appease their viewers. However, after reading film theorist Carol Clover’s novel, watching one of the films she associates in the novel “Halloween”, and also watching the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” I say almost every “slasher” or horror film follows a model similar to Clover’s. The model is a female is featured as a primary character and that females tend to always overcome a situation at some point throughout the film.
Horror movies bring out the worst in us and for all the right reasons. King’s big idea suggests that by watching our mad, deranged role models slaughter one another, is actually keep us in line mentally. It allows us to stay sane and untroubled. Watching others do the dirty work gives us a sense of relief. Even though watching horror movies are filled with basic reasons of having fun, there is a deeper, psychological level of human emotions that is essential to our mental
Horror literature has been around since as long as man has been on earth. While usually in the form of ghost stories, many have often told stories orally, or on paper, to play on the horrors and darkest fears that we as humans face. While large populations of people do not like the horror genre, some get a satisfaction or enjoyment at looking at some of their worst fears being played out in front of them via a book or movie. As the stories have advanced through history and been examined and read through many different lenses both by history and literature experts, one aspects remains to be examined, and that is the changing role on of women in the story. While many of the early stories early stories portray them as simple, one-dimensional characters, weak and unable to help themselves, they evolve into more complex and eventually pushing through the damsel in distress mantra into the complex villain or hero.
Horror films got their start in 1896 with the two-minute short, Le manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle), shown on Christmas Eve, in Paris. But it was not until 1906, with the remake of Notre-Dame de Paris, Esmeralda, did the genre spilt into subgenres. Esmeralda refined the ‘freak shows’ that previous horror films had begun to resemble. Films like these paved the way for people like Brian De Palma, Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King, John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, and his composer, John Williams. There are several key pieces of a horror film, including suspense, mystery, and spoilers, and numerous stereotypes and clichés that have latched on to the growing genre.