Psycho early archetype to slasher genre - 40 shots in 50 seconds. Very fast paced editing.
Killing with knife, now chosen weapon in a lot of slasher films.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre moving on a generation. Redifined genre. Much more gore and realistic violence than before, this is also the same in Last House on the Left. Tobe Hooper the director got a lot of students involved in the making.
Black Christmas (1974) By everything taking part in one place it reduces the budget costs greatley by only having one location. Black christmas, TCN and psycho are all low budget and have all been remade more recently. This is the first horror film to star John Saxon. The use of the camera as the killers point of view was first used in Black Christmas, even though Halloween get a lot of credit for doing this even though their inspiration for it was from Black Christmas. The audience in effect become the killer and the fact that th audience come to see violence. This film also uses narrative enigma.
Halloween (1978) relies more on scares than gore. People paid attention to Halloween ven though it didnt't include any big stars. Jamie Lee Curtis stars in Prom Night and Terror Train which are both post halloween films. Her mother Janet Lee was the scream queen in Psycho.
Friday the 13th istant hit. A sequel released the following year and 13 films altogether.
Physiologically effects you (music) which then leads to a pyschological effect.
Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell) Puts the audience into the killers perspective. proto-slasher (prototype).
Not clear who had done the killings as they use narrative enigma to conceal his identity.
New nightmare (postmodern slasher)
scream (post modern)
scarey movie (post modern)
intertextuality and hybrids are features of postmodernism
self referential are another feature.
50s and 60s most horror was gothic or creature features. Combination of universal creature features and Hammer Gothic films. Hammer films were the bigges force in horror films all over the world during the 60s.
The main characters were upper class, mature adults. They often used castles and looked very theatrical. The idea of the scream queens were also used in hammer films, with blonde women being heavily advertised for their films.
70s -The protagonists in last house on the left, TCM and black christmas were middle class or working class people. films with portable shaky camera work and were very realistic in their design. These modern more realistic movies made the hammer films look really silly.
Psycho didn't create a lot of imitators like Halloween did. Peeping tom ruined the career of his director and psycho was also contraversial and thats why studios didn't dare make another similar for at least a decade.
Music - increase fear levels and tension. Commutation test, if you took the music out of the showere scene on psycho then it wouldn't be scarey, or it would be consideratley less. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the first directors to use the auteur theory. A lot of the music in the shower scene was a lot ofviolens holding one note.
In general the audience for a slasher film is probably about 15-24 years old. Especially if you use intertextuality references, it will help justify your age rating with older people as they will be fans of the slasher genre.
Rated by BBFC. Digitisation means that people younger than the age rating are likely to still watch them.
Death of a stranger is a rated 12 slasher movie.
Narrative Structure
Todorov structure: equilibrium, dis-equilibrium and new-equilibrium.
Halloween is an exception of this as the killer disappears at the end leaving the state of dis-equilibrium. Halloween 2 carries on exactly from where the first one left and the second film does end on a new equilibrium.
False Scare - partialy demonstrating hibridity by bringing comedy into the mox slightly. As the audience may laugh in relief. Often used by an animal like a cat scaring the character.
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