Horror Film Theories

Structuralism Culture is to be understood as a system

of signs (semiology) Art forms are short hands based on our

cultural understandings, e.g. we can say Western films will include cowboys and guns and saloons

Accentuate how films convey meaning through the use of code, e.g. bloody knife suggests someone has been killed

Barthes Enigma Code – element of mystery is

portrayed, to entice the audience and make them want to know more, e.g. not giving clues to how the film ends in a trailer

Pleasure of texts – knowing what will happen before watching it and pleasure comes from watching what we expected happen, however a different pleasure comes from the unexpected, e.g. a film looking like its going to turn out the way we expected, and then something happen to change the course of the film

TodorovTheory of Narrative

Equilibrium – balance and harmony Moment of disequilibrium –

something bad happens Disequilibrium – struggle to deal with

the bad situation New equilibrium – everything is

resolved and the equilibrium returns

The 4 C’s Conflict – hero is challenged by an

outside force Complication – hero’s efforts to get

what they want are thwarted (often 3 times)

Crisis – hero is overwhelmed by difficulties, wants to give up

Climax – after not giving up, hero has one last chance and succeeds

Carol Clover Feminist theory ‘audience are structurally forced to identify with

resourceful surviving female rather than the villain’ Sadism – post-oedipal, attention switching from

mother to father (from submissive baby to self-motivated child)

Masochism – pre-oedipal, mother is powerful so as an audience we take pleasure in identifying with the female

Clover suggests we identify with the masochistic voyeur – victim, rather than the sadistic voyeur - villain

Laura Mulvey Feminist theory Male gaze – female characters were

there to be looked at Classic Hollywood protagonists were

men who the audience were encouraged to identify with

Postmodernism Knowingly doing the unexpected Deliberately play with the genre’s

conventions Different to a parody Rule of combination – when we loose

it we get bricolage (French for jumble), for example Shaun of the Dead