What Genre is: Genre is an easy way of catorgorising films into certain sections, depending on what conntations/convetions/aspects they have in common.
Advantages and disadvantages: The advanatges of using Genres is that it can offer reassurance in an uncontrollable world, it offers a set of easy conventions much like a language, it can be used as a strategy by producers for audience identification to reduce the risk of a film failing, its not static and is constantly renegotiated between industry and audience, and finally genre can be seen as a way of working through the importance of myths and legends. The disadvantages on the other hand are that a genres features will depend on the audiences own understanding, and that someone people believe we should be understand how a film text functions in relation to genre, rather than being defined by them.
The Genre chosen for our film: For our film we have chosen the Genre horror, and it's conventions are blood or gore, lots of violence, a threatening or mysterious charcter, possibly an abnormal/unhuman creature such as a vampire or werewolf, and fast paced shots bulding up to a cilmax with music used rather than dialogue.
The origin/history of the Genre: The first horror films are thought to have been made rougly between the very late 1800's and the start of the 1900's. One of the most famous early horror films is a movie called, Nosferatu made by F. W. Murnau in 1922. This film when first released wasn't cosidered very contraversiol and was more focused on the unual horror aspect, but after re-watching and analysing the film it shows that the film has a hidden meaning of homosexuality, which back in the era the film was made, it was consisdered unsual and particularly wrong.
Good examples of the Genre and why:
Some good films examples from this genre are Halloween (1978), Scream (1996), The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Friday the 13th (1980) and Silence of the Lambs (1991). I believe that these are good examples of the genre, because these were the first cornerstones that adapted the different styles of horror films, as when these were first released the viewers hadn't seen anything like them, they were very original and incredibly popular. And I believe this is what makes a good horror film, originality, showing the viewer something they've never seen before. Also, all of these films follow/have the codes and conventions of the horror genre, and fit well into expectations.
One in depth discussion of good movie from that genre and why:
The movie I have chosen is the 1996 Scream film directed by Wes Craven. I believe that this is a good movie to represent the horror genre due to many differents reasons. One of them being that the title itself is good for a horror film, as when watching a horror film the expectation is to be scared, and with the use of the word 'scream' it suggests that either chracters in the film will be in danger and scared as they will be screaming, or that possibly the audience will also be screaming due to the horrifiying content of the film. Another point to be made is that the main villain in the film, which until the end is shown to be in full costume, is represented as ruthless, and cold hearted, and relentless in his killing. Also, the fact that the villains identity is fully hidden by the costume, it provides no clues as to who the killer may be, so the victim is clueless. This provides more terror for the victim as they are unaware who is trying to cause them so much harm. This is also a classic convention for the horror genre.
Another point that can be made about the film is the movement of the villain, which unlike traditional villains, isn't planned out and carefully thought about, his movement is very random and jolted about, as if no thought has gone into his actions, and is basically running at the victim with a weapon. This is different and very rarely seen in conventional horror films.
Another point to be made that many of the camera angles and shots of the film are from the villains point of view, mostly when he is chasing/watching victims, before he tries to kill them. This is a good thing to do because using this camera angle at high action points in the film raises the sense of tension and desperation amongst the audience.
Yet another point to be made about the film, is the hidden psychological problems within the storyline, by this I mean how the killer is commercialised by the media in the film, like, masks of the killer are being sold as novelty items, and anyone can obtain them, and the story is put all over the news, this in turn, makes the main character almost lose her mind slightly, as the situation is always playing on her mind, due to how the story has been blow up by the community around her. One last point that can be made about the film, as to why it is a good example, is that it is an almost real situation that anyone can find themselves being in, which can cause distress and horror the audience watching as they can recognise this.
Bibliography:
Filmography:
Scream (1996) Wes Craven
Halloween (1978) John Carpenter
The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Wes Craven
Friday the 13th (1980) Sean S. Cunningham
Silence of the Lambs (1991) Jonathan Demme
Nosferatu (1922) F. W. Murnau
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