1. A recap- the emotional power of horror
• Why do you watch horror movies?
• E.g. For a “masochistic” pleasure…Any other reasons?
• A sense of escape/fantasy.
• Because they are often simple in narrative and characterisation.
Because they are often formulaic and we as audiences don’t always
want to be challenged - predictable pleasures.
• Because they remind us of our childhood in a psychoanalytical way!
• What fears did we say horror movies play on?
• Fear of the dark, the extraordinary, of strange sounds,
• Of God, of other man and the mind (the power of suggestion)!
• Consider Freud, Clover and Wood theories of repression and
childhood.
2. • What micro aspects do filmmakers use to create this
sense of fear?
• The technical aspects- cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound and editing.
• Horror directors will manipulate audience emotions with the micro aspects-
the power of suggestion….
• How are the macro aspects repeated?
• Again audience genre and narrative expectations- predictable pleasures.
• Stock characters- the blond victim, the demon or psychotic murderer.
• Recurring ideas and themes- the extraordinary invading the ordinary.
3. The demonic/supernatural horror
• Task: read the plot summary of ‘Drag me to Hell’. What
aspects of the horror genre are obvious from that plot?
• What is demonic/supernatural horror? How can it be
defined?
• Films that feature possession and/or the presence of evil spirits.
• Name some examples?
• ‘The Exorcist’- demonic possession
• ‘The Omen’- demonic possession
• ‘The Ring’- evil spirits
• ‘Poltergeist’- haunted house
• ‘The Haunting’ – haunted house
• ‘Paranormal Activity’- haunted house
4. Demonic/supernatural- the conventions
• What are some of the conventions of the genre?
• Witchcraft and ‘the occult’.
• Ghosts and evil spirits.
• Religious paraphernalia- such as a crucifix, holy water, Hindu gods etc.
• A curse or possession.
• The devil/demons.
• A witch or holy man.
• Paranoia and fear.
• A hapless and confused hero/heroine.
• Set in ‘normal’ small towns- ‘the extraordinary invading the ordinary’.
• The demonic/supernatural film is not to be confused with the zombie
film or the vampire film which although have similar traits are not
about demonic possession or the supernatural.
5. Demonic/supernatural- the conventions
• Narrative:
• The exposition is an equilibrium
• A narrative enigma- murderer/demon appears.
• The enigma will set of a chain of events.
• The resolution/denouement- final girl/saved from demon.
• Binary opposites within the narrative- good v evil.
• Narrative time frame- supernatural films flashback to give you more context.
• Themes:
• Religion v science
• Loss of innocence/purity
• Divine retribution
• Invasion of the extraordinary/foreign
• Renouncing the devil
• Demonic possession
• The occult/paganism and withcraft
• Iconography:
• A possessed object and other religious iconography
• Suburban small town America.
• Affluent middle class setting
6. Spectatorship and Physiological
reactions.
• How do filmmakers illicit ‘powerful
sensory and emotional responses’ in the
spectator?
• Task: Non-participant observation.
• Record a spectator’s reactions to a film
sequence.
• Watch their reactions and make notes.
7. LO: to micro analyse how
emotion is manipulated
through the
demonic/supernatural
film.
8. Issues of Spectatorship
• “What inspires the cinematic spectator is that
very loss of control….and subversion of self-
identity”.
• Make notes: How can this quote about spectatorship be
applied to Drag Me to Hell? What micro aspects does
Raimi use to take away that sense of control?
• “The Freudian reference, which assumes inside us a
constant, ever-present yearning for the fantastic, for
the darkly mysterious, for the choked terror of the
dark”
• Make notes: How can you apply Freud’s psychoanalytical theories to
the film?
• Does the film identify with Clover or Wood’s theories of repression and
subconscious fears and desires.
• Are these childhood fears or adult fears? Fear of what?
9. How does the film use
the micro aspects?
• Key scene 1: ‘The curse of Mrs Ganush’.
• Watch and discuss your notes on these
technical areas.
• Use of sound:
• How is the music used?
• What about sound effects?
• Use of dialogue/voice.
• Mise-en-scene:
• Costume, hair and make up.
• Setting and props.
• Lighting.
10. Key scene 1- use of sound
• Key scene 1: ‘The curse of Mrs Ganush’.
• Sound: Music, dialogue and sound fx.
• Eerie non-melodic synthesiser sounds. Off key picking of violin strings. The
repetitive strings with a low tone.
• Metallic industrial sounds, scraping and grinding.
• Amplified sounds of nails on desk.
• The vulgarity of Mrs Ganush- false teeth, hankie.
• The wind/handkerchief.
• The periods of silence?
• The slowed down sounds during the fight in the car.
• Eastern European accent of Mrs Ganush – ‘the other/extraordinary’ compared
to the all American tones of Christine.
• Write: How effective is the use of sound in this scene in
involving the audience.
11. The use of mise-en -scene
• Mise-en-scene- sets, lighting, costume, props, hair and make-up.
• The American small town.The local branch of a bank- symbol of capitalism and
greed.
• The white wooden picket fenced house in the suburbs.
• The contrast between bright daylight sunshine and the grey/green darkness of the car
park.
• Use of shadows/silhouettes in the car park.
• The handkerchief!
• The button as the cursed object- huge narrative significance
• Mrs Ganush’s- glass eye, false teeth, long grey hair, pallid wrinkled skin, dangling
gold earrings, head scarf.
• The Eastern European gypsy stereotype. Incongruous with her surroundings, ‘the
other’.
• Christine Brown- the ‘WASP’ from farming family.
• Dresses formally for work, wants to succeed and prove her worth – the pursuit of the
American dream. Isn’t taken seriously by her male colleagues.
• The all American blonde in a horror movie- always punished!
• Write: How effective is the use of technical aspects in a key scene
from ‘Drag Me To Hell’.
12. ‘Drag Me To Hell’ (2009)
• Directed by Sam Raimi
• ‘Christine Brown has a good job, a great
boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three
days, she's going to hell’.
• What can you say about the film’s tagline?
13. Starter:Horror and sound
• Sound is one of the most significant technical
aspects in the horror movie.
• Without sound most films lose a lot of their meaning.
Good use of sound can manipulate the audience
meaning.
• Task: listen to this horror music.
• Make notes on what might be happening visually to accompany
this music.
• How does the music make you feel? Describe?
• What instruments are being used?
• What about the pattern/rhythm of the music?
• http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Halloween-Scream-Themes-Horror-Movie-Mus
14. • Key scene 2 : ‘The Lamia visits’
• Watch and make notes on:
• Cinematography:
• Track fwd to close up on her face, accompanied by slow monotone
electronic sound- builds suspense/foreboding.
• Dutch tilt implies something bad is going to happen- disorientation.
• Sound:
• Discordant sounds to emphaise emotions of Chrsitine- uncomfortable.
• Beast sound fx- Lamia, not human, malevolent/evil
• High pitch dissonance (two notes clash) uncomfortable to ears- disorients
audience.
• Moment of silence followed by the amplified mechanical screech of the gate.
• Undertone of a bass hum.
• MES:
• Location- house on her own- suburban middle class home
• The phone prop that loses battery- alone in her struggle/can’t escape the
devil-omnipotent
• Christine’s bedroom- innocent and childlike décor-loss of innocence-
extraordinary invading the ordinary
• The cat poster, cat is falling, in danger and so is she.
• The book of sacrifice- iconography of the supernatural genre
15. Key scene 3- ‘returning the curse’
• Watch and make notes on:
• The narrative denouement. (ending)
• The main themes/messages of the film as a whole.
• How does the film end?
• A false happy ending?
• Do we as an audience expect the hero/heroine to die or be punished at the end?
• The notion of ‘predicatble pleasures’.
• Who are our sympathies with at the end?
• What is the message of the film?
• The Overt message - Don’t mess with the occult?
• The Covert subtexts:
• That western capitalist greed should be punished – anti corporate America?
• Immigrant groups are continual threat to the American way of life- pro corporate
America?
16. What the WJEC board says
• Topic D - Spectatorship: Popular Film and
Emotional Response
• This study is concerned with the ways in which popular film (whether
deriving from Hollywood or elsewhere) produces powerful
sensory and emotional responses in the spectator. It
is possible to focus on a particular genre – such as horror and
consider shock effects – or the melodrama as 'weepie'.
• Alternatively, the focus may be on spectacle, whether relating to the
body of the star or to the staging/choreography of action. This topic
is not concerned specifically with either issues of
representation or value judgements but rather with developing
understanding about how films create the emotional responses
they do. It is expected that a minimum of two feature-length
filmswill be studied for this topic.
17. Micro techniques
* The emotional intention of horror films is simple, to scare!
• How do they do it? What technical aspects do they use?
• Mise-en-scene
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Sound
• Lots of the fear and anxieties audiences feel is done non-
verbally through the technical aspects.
18. The macro aspects
• What are the macro aspects?
• Narrative
• Genre conventions
• Ideological themes
• Characterisation and representation
19. With reference to a key scene in Sam Raimi’s
‘Drag Me To Hell’. How effective are the micro
and macro aspects in eliciting an emotional
response.
Now read each others h/w essays on ‘Drag Me
To Hell’ and use the mark scheme to give it a
level.
20. Possible essay title…..
• How do filmmakers illicit ‘powerful
sensory and emotional responses’ in
the spectator (across the two key
scenes)?
• Task: Make notes to answer this question.
You will present your analysis to the class.
• You will be given one of the micro aspects
and a clip from ‘Drag Me To Hell’ to focus on.
21. • What do you need to consider when
making your notes?
• How the micro links to the macro.
• How both can be supported by theory (use
your theory recap sheet)
• LO: to apply understanding of exam board
requirements to our close textual study,
linking micro to macro.
• LLO: 1-3,7,10,13,22,25
22. Narrative
• How does the film start? The plot exposition.
• An introduction to the ‘Lamia’ and its evil power? An introduction to
Christine and her lovely, normal aspirational American dream life.
• How is the narrative structured? Linear/non-linear,
chronology.
• Flashback to begin. Why? How would you describe the structure of
the narrative after the flashback?
• At what point does the narrative/atmosphere
change? (Todorov’s theory).
• When Mrs Ganush curses Christine; is that when the plot of the film
starts, the narrative enigma as Todorov would call it?
24. What kind of scares?
• This crosses over into the idea of Freudian
Psychoanalysis and why we are scared when we watch
horror movies.
• What types of fear to horror movies convey?
• Fear of the dark
• Fear of the extraordinary
• Fear of strange sounds
• Fear of God
• Fear of man
• Fear of the mind!
25. Ideology
• Freud and Psychoanalysis – Is this where it all starts!?
– Study of the mind’s subconscious desires…
– Started with Freud (e.g. Oedipal masochistic impulse:
boy’s desire to kill father and sexually possess mother)
• Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious
mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for
creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for
treating psychopathology.
• Question: What are the main female protagonists fears in
the two films? Is it just the Lamia or the masked killer?
26. Early ideology – Spectator in masculine
position
• Repression theory - Robin Wood (late 1970’s)
– “The true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for
recognition of all that our civilization represses or
oppresses“
– He argued that the manner in which any given horror
narrative resolves this conflict reveals its ideological
orientation, and further, that most movies will be
conservative, repressing desire within the self and
disavowing it by projecting it outward as a monstrous
Other
– Monster as return of repressed –
applies especially to horror films
and features premise of “beast
within” like Wolfman (1941 and
2010)
27. Later ideology – Spectator in feminine
position
• Carol Clover: “Men, Women, and Chainsaw” (1992)
– Takes the classic Laura Mulvey male-centered identification process of
sadistic-voyeur
– And flips it around to a masochistic-voyeur (by having the identification
process shift to the usually female victim/”Final Girl”) – horror as
empowering for women
– The viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences
a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.
– The final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, avoiding the vices
of the victims (sex, narcotic usage, etc.). She sometimes has a unisex
name (e.g., Teddy, Billie, Georgie, Sidney).
– Occasionally the Final Girl will have a shared history with the killer. The
final girl is the "investigating consciousness" of the film, moving the
narrative forward and as such, she exhibits intelligence, curiosity, and
vigilance.
– However, it has been argued that Clover's image of supposedly
progressive final girls are never entirely victorious at the end of a film nor
do they manage to eschew the male order of things as Clover argues (e.g.
if final girl rescued by a male – such as Dr Loomis in Halloween)
28. The horror movie fanbase
• http://www.horror-movies.ca/
• Horror is a genre that is much loved by some people. Like sci-fi and
fantasy it has devotees (people who dress up like horror characters
and go to conventions etc. There are also lots of dedicated
magazines, film channels on TV and websites for fans.
• Why do horror movie devotees continue to fall for the filmmaking
tricks of horror directors?
• Horror films are formulaic so why do so many people watch them?
Why are sequels made for them?
29. Todorov
• Bulgarian – publishing influential work on
narrative since the 1960’s
Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - Other events -
New equilibrium
• Concentration on how this is set up
30. Make comparative links between films
• Case study films:
• ‘Scream’ (Wes Craven)
• ‘Drag Me to Hell’ ( Sam Raimi)
• Use the sheet provided and make notes of
comparison between the two films and
how they use issues of spectatorship
together with the micro aspects to gain an
emotional response.
31. Essay plan.
• How far is the emotional response to
mainstream films triggered by specific
techniques used by the filmmakers?
32. Performance
• Characterisation.
• Mise-en-scene of the character.
• Character arc
• Archetype and stock types
• Performance style- naturalistic, non-
naturalistic.
• Body language and no-verbal
communication.
• The look of the actors.
