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Burton's theory
- 1. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots Stock Situations PSYCHO - 1960 Icons Backgrounds and Décor Themes Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother.
- 2. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots THE TEXAS CHAINSAW Stock Situations Icons MASSACRE - 1974 Backgrounds and Décor Themes En route to visit their grandfather's grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch- hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home... where they're plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills...
- 3. Protagonists Stock Characters BLACK CHRISTMAS - Plots Stock Situations 1974 Icons Backgrounds and Décor Themes It's time for Christmas break, and the sorority sisters make plans for the holiday, but the strange anonymous phone calls are beginning to put them on edge. When Clare disappears, they contact the police, who don't express much concern. Meanwhile Jess is planning to get an abortion, but boyfriend Peter is very much against it. The police finally begin to get concerned when a 13-year- old girl is found dead in the park.
- 4. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots Stock Situations HALLOWEEN - 1978 Icons Backgrounds and Décor Themes The year is 1963, the night: Halloween. Police are called to 43 Lampkin Ln. only to discover that 15 year old Judith Myers has been stabbed to death, by her 6 year-old brother, Michael. After being institutionalized for 15 years, Myers breaks out on the night before Halloween. No one knows, nor wants to find out, what will happen on October 31st 1978 besides Myers' psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis. He knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it, it'll be too late for many people.
- 5. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots FRIDAY THE 13TH - Stock Situations Icons 1980 Backgrounds and Décor Themes A group of young adults set up tent near the abandoned summer camp where a series of gruesome murders are said to have taken place back in 1980. The perpetrator was a grieving mother, driven insane by the drowning of her child, Jason, whom she believed was neglected by the camp counselors. As legend has it, the last survivor of the attacks beheaded the woman. But then Jason came back, and now he is a vengeful and inexorable killer, wielding crossbows, swords, axes and other sharp instruments. The legend proves horribly true, as these campers quickly discover. Six months later, the brother of one of those campers distributes posters of his missing sister. The police believe she took off with her boyfriend; but he knows better. The brother crosses paths with an uptight young rich guy who is having his girlfriend and friends over at his parents' cabin. The brother ends up at the cabin himself just before his sister's attacker sets upon them all.
- 6. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots I KNOW WHAT YOU DID Stock Situations Icons LAST SUMMER – 1997 Backgrounds and Décor Themes It's the fourth of July and four friends Julie, Ray, Helen, and Barry are celebrating along with graduation. On their way home they hit a pedestrian walking down a curved corner. They make a pact to keep it a secret in hopes of saving their futures. While dumping the body in a near by sea, the body becomes alive and tries to attack Helen. They throw him in and never return to that site. One year later, Julie returns home from college for summer break. In the mail she receives a letter stating, "I know what you did last summer." Julie freaks out and gathers up her old friends who are now separated, miserable and not speaking. They all decide to find out who saw them that fateful night and in the process of tracking the suspect down, the body count goes up.
- 7. Protagonists Stock Characters Plots Stock Situations PROM NIGHT - 2008 Icons Backgrounds and Décor Themes In Bridgeport, the deranged high school teacher Richard Fenton is obsessed by the teenager student Donna Keppel; she witnesses him murder her family to stay with her, but Richard is arrested and sent to prison for life. Three years later, the traumatized Donna is feeling better but is still under psychological treatment and taking pills. On her prom night, she goes with her boyfriend Bobby and two couples of friends to the Pacific Grad Hotel for the party. But the psychopath Richard has escaped from prison and is lodged in the same floor in the hotel chasing Donna, stabbing her friends and staff of the hotel that cross his path.
- 8. Burton Theory • Burton’s theory works. The evidence for this is seen, not only in one film/genre of horror, but constantly and methodologically over the years of horror, from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, to present day Scream series. • Films of the horror genre, always take quite a simplistic setting, but then twist it. So a town may have been deserted for years, or a remote get-away, or basic journeys that include detours. This excluded journey or area makes it easier to put a ‘killer’ in these environments; they may be the ‘outsiders’ of the community. The use of settings like this, make it easier to understand the protagonist’s vulnerability. • Themes are also consistent in horror films, such as, survival and death, unknown verses known. These are binary oppositions, which Levi Strauss also explores. • Burton’s stock situations are also quite common, despite each film being unique. There are normally a collective at some sort of event, gathering or journey. Something occurs in the group to change the dynamics, this is where the past may reappear. In other situations the group may split up, however these stock situations start the ‘ball rolling’ in terms of death. • Stock characters lend themselves greatly to the genre, and are always seen.