Research on Genre

Slasher Films Research

Scream and the New Film Cycle: Remakes of classic slasher films such as: Psycho and the continue of the Chucky series. (1996) Up until the 1960 film ‘Psycho’, the majority of horror films were based around monsters e.g. Frankenstein, Dracula, The Blob and Creature From The Black Lagoon. From then on, horror films started to have the films revolving around human characters instead of monsters. Directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Francis Ford Coppolla were the masters of this genre, generating films such as The Shining, The Exorcist, The Omen etc. After ‘Psycho’, films like A Nightmare On Elm Street and Halloween. These films produced notorious anti-heroes and created franchises just for the characters such as Leatherface, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. However, after time there was a slow decline in slasher films and the films that were being produced seemed to be too similar to the classics. This lead to most of the films being made being direct-to-video instead of being released in cinemas. Then Wes Craven came along and created the Scream trilogy. Scream revitalised the slasher horror films. This revelation has lead to the remaking of the classic films such as Psycho, Jason X, I Know What You Did Last Summer etc.

- Early Slasher Film: Halloween 1978

- Golden Age Slasher Films: My Bloody Valentine and Prom Night (1980)

- Decline and Direct-to-Video: Leprechaun Series (1993-2003)

- Scream and the New Film Cycle: Remakes of classic slasher films such as: Psycho and the continue of the Chucky series. (1996)

Since Scream boosted the slasher films back into the lime light, a new set of young filmmakers have taken the slasher genre by storm. The most famous ones are; Eli Roth (Hostel 1+2), Rob Zombie (Halloween 2007) and James Wan (Saw). These directors where a collection of filmmakers dubbed the splat pack. The successful style of Saw and Hostel films would soon become known as torture porn. These films, especially the Saw films have become very popular, especially the villain, Jigsaw. Jigsaw is an anti-hero because although he was killing people in sick ways, he was only killing people who had done bad things. He also gave the people captured a chance to live.

Our film would be produced by Lions Gate Entertainment mainly because they focus on scary films and Eli Roth (who has made several slasher/torture porn films) has made several films with them. Also, Lions Gate helped make a film called ‘Fear of Clowns’ which is good because our film is about clowns too.

The repertoire of elements has significantly changed over the years. It started off with the old hammer films, which were set in dark gothic castles. Also, the earlier films were set in Europe and were based on myths (e.g. Dracula). Then the massive change in the repertoire of elements was the fact that the gothic castles were replaced by houses, first seen in the films like ‘Psycho’. This was done in order to appeal to the Hollywood audiences. The repertoire of elements changed again when the Freddy Krueger films came out. These were set in quiet, suburban areas which made the films seem very realistic and much scarier. Now films are looking towards an urbanised industrial environment, for example films such as SAW and Hostel are set in places that look like warehouses. This is like the industrialisation of horror films as it hasn’t been done before and as it is moving away from the quiet ‘alone in the woods’ type of film and moved to a more urbanised area. When Levi Strauss first talked about binary oppositions he pointed out the facts that the good guys were situated in the safe areas with order and the bad guys were situated in the deep dark woods. However, as the films have progressed over the years, so have the binary oppositions. For example, in Scream, the bad guy is situated in the same place as the good guys who are meant to be safe. This makes the films much scarier as the scary guys don’t have their limitations any more, which means the good guys are no longer safe.