2. 1.
2.
3.
4.
JUMP – Catch the audience unprepared
CURIOSITY KILLS
SCARY MUSIC – e.g. Psycho
SEX = DEATH – e.g. Female characters are
punished more
5. THE MONSTER NEVER DIES
3. • Creatures of the night have been present since the beginning
of time.
• Fears change from generation to generation and so do our
monsters.
• They are almost human but not quite – animal features
• Strange appeal – the monster could be good looking.
4. • 1960’s America a time of civil unrest (Night of the Living Dead)
• If you have a group f people make each one Uniquely
Different.
• *Audience learn as much as the character learns.
• The Video Nasty – The Evil Dead
• VRA(1984) – Video Recordings Act
• More controversy and bad publicity meant the audience
wanted to watch it more.
5. • Universal studios didn't’t have colour and it
was British studios that brought colour to the
market.
(The was good for blood)
• Challenge young British kids/teenagers
- Can You Stand It?
6. • 1967 – Homosexuality legalized
• Shivers – people were disgusted by sexuality and
the association of disease.
• The idea of horror within you – your body turning
against you.
• 1980’s – The understanding of DNA and Cloning
(mad scientist movies became popular again)
• Atomic radiation led to fear of the world being
attacked or gone.
7. • Fear of technology – space race opened up new genre of monsters
• Frankenstein – Blasphemy against Christianity can still get your film
banned (idea of playing god)
• Had to wait for technology to catch up to make the aliens good!
• Alien(1979) – Its disgusting and we don’t like to think about disgusting
things in our mouths.
• The contrast between the sad desperate moment juxtaposed against a
scene of resolution and normality only to shock the audience with a third
scene.
9. • E.g. The Devil, Witches, etc.
• Anything against the ‘norm’ has to be destroyed in case
it turns on you.
• Fear of intelligent women.
WITCHCRAFT:
• The Wicker man – set in present day made it scary
• Religion plays an important role in isolation – Cultural
SATAN:
• The Exorcist – Based on a true story but the child was a
boy and in the film was changed to a little girl.
• Girls = Virginal and innocent – they become sexualized
10. “Unnerving to see something so innocent
change into something so evil” – Linda Blair
• Heart of the fear – if it can happen to a child it
can happen to anyone.
“It’s the purpose of the scary movie to attack
what we fundamentally hold dear” – Simon
Pegg
11. • The Devil has no boundaries.
• For the film to have work it had to shock
people
• The Omen – Damien is evil in himself so the
audience have no sympathy for him – so the
sequels were worse as they lost the story.
12. • Psychological territory
• The Shinning (1980) – Golden rule = isolation
and no sense of salvation
• A child in jeopardy cuts deep
• One person is always possessed - and takes
on animalistic tendencies.
13. • People = The Worst Killers + Scariest!
• They look like us and are just like us – ‘normal’ – this makes it scarier that
we wouldn't’t know who they are.
• Psycho(1960) – The film was about a woman trying to be with her
boyfriend by stealing – lulling the audience into a false state of security.
• Again SEX=DEATH
• Shower = Most vulnerable place
• Music – played a big part in scaring the audience as we never actually see
the knife go in.
• The killer – he was good looking and normal so the audience didn't’t
expect it.
14. •
•
•
•
•
Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Curiosity Kills
The audience creates the HORROR
Killer – not human but almost human – mask
Specific weapon = Chainsaw
The film maker is torturing the audience like the character is
being tortured.
“There’s nothing more scary than what you
make in your head” - Eli
15. • Halloween:
•
•
•
•
Teenagers – they don’t think it could happen to them – Naive
Girls = main characters = Geek
Other characters = Slut- gets killed first for having sex
Michael Myers – slowly stalks but Chainsaw – killing left right and
center
• Constant jumps
• The killer never dies – Halloween
• Nightmare on Elm Street:
•
•
•
•
•
4 high school friends
Child molester
If you die in your dream you die in real life
Killer can do anything he wants
Again the slut = victim
16. Films which had huge impact globally…
• Cannibal holocaust – Documentary style
• People thought it was a snuff film and it was real
lost footage
•
• Blair Witch Project – Documentary style
• Students – get lost in the woods
• High-street video cameras
• Improv – real reactions of the actors
• Genuine fear
• Imaginations have more control
