Film Analysis - 'Shrooms'

‘Shrooms’ – Film Analysis

‘Shrooms’ (2007), written by Pearse Elliott, directed by Paddy Breathnach and produced by Paddy McDonald and Robert Walpole, is an Irish and Danish co-production that was shot over a period of seven weeks – largely in Rossmore Park in Monaghan, Ireland. In this film we follow an American student Tara and her group of friends as they visit Ireland to meet with local resident and friend, Jake.  We follow them as they go to Ireland woods to collect magic mushrooms and trip out. On their way they meet some strange inhabitants of the woods and it doesn't take long until a creepy story is being told at the campfire which might be more than just a story. From this point onwards things start to spiral out of control as people start to disappear, mysterious figures are seen lingering in the woods and the creepy story begins to melt into reality. The horror kicks in along with the effect of the mushrooms.

Loaded – “It’s one hell of a trip”

Zoo – “Blair Witch on acid”
 

          In terms of following the narrative structure, I would say that Tzvetan Todorov’s theory goes well with this film. He suggests that all stories start with a status quo in which everything is normal and some event or enigma disrupts the normality, setting in chain a series of events. While the characters are out picking magic mushrooms, we follow the local Irish resident Jake as he informs some of the other characters of a certain kind of mushroom that can be identified with a black spot on the top which are not to be eaten as they can cause death or near death experiences. Shortly after this we follow Tara, the film’s protagonist, as she finds one of these mushrooms with a black spot and as she was not there when Jake informed the others, she goes ahead and eats it. This is the moment in the film that kicks it all off and could be seen as the enigma that disrupts the normality and leads to further strange events.
 

          In a lot of horror movies, especially in movies like ‘Shrooms’, the audience expects either a killer or a monster or some sort of supernatural ghost to be let loose against a group of stupid, immoral teenagers who are very familiar with sex on the exception of one virginal, slightly masculine female character who survives to be the ‘final girl’.  This expectation is filled throughout the whole film. The fact that the group of teenagers are going to the woods to do magic mushrooms in the first place, automatically shows the audience that the group of teenagers are stupid and immoral. They prove to be very familiar with sex with phrases such as, ‘Hey, us girls need to get laid too’. This is on the exception of Tara, the films protagonist. When references to sex are brought up she describes it to be ‘vile’ and rolls her eyes. When the film starts turning into a horror, Tara is the character that leads the others and starts to show her more masculine and monstrous side as she becomes more determined to survive from the monster. As, one by one, the other immoral teenagers die; Tara does in fact become the final girl although there is a twist to this narrative structure at the end as the audience finds out that Tara is the one who has been killing the others while tripping on mushrooms.

          Throughout this film, there are plenty of the common conventions of horror. Horror movies often chose the setting of an isolated place as this offers more opportunities for a sense of isolation or for a whole community to harbour a secret. ‘The woods’ are a very good setting for this, like they use this setting in ‘Shrooms’ as it offers less help for the victims and denies the characters any safety or relief from other people that they could turn to like they would if they were in a busy place such as the inner city. The character Jake even states ‘We’ll have the whole place to ourselves’ which already beings the feeling of isolation to the film. POV shots are used a lot throughout the film putting the audience in the eyes of the monster and then towards the end into the eyes of Tara, the victim which as Carol Clover would argue raises issues about audience identification. This is also very common in horror movies as it confuses the audiences as they are not sure if they want the victim to get away while seeing their POV or if they want the monster to catch the victim while seeing their POV. 

          A lot of the camerawork is expressive rather than naturalistic especially when the monster is about to appear. Also, the character Tara has a lot of visions and these are very expressive. Weird high and low angles are used which are very common in horror as it gives the film a very disorienting feeling which makes it all the more scary for the audience. For example, there is one scene where Tara is hiding from the monster behind a tree when she hears something coming from on top of her and the camera is pointed upwards as we see the monster climbing down, head first towards the camera. Personally, I found this effect to be very scary.

           Overall, I think that ‘Shrooms’ is a good representation of a horror film and shows a good variety of the common conventions for the horror genre. For me at least and I presume a lot of others, it has the ability to scare the audience which is the main expression horror movies try to get from the audience. It has a good storyline which represents one of the common narrative structures of horror although this film challenges the expected ending of ‘the final girl facing the monster’ which she does, only to find that her herself is really the monster. I think this was a good twist to the film and gives an unexpected ending to the audience. There are a lot of conventions in this film that I would like to use in my own horror trailer. I think having the setting in the woods is a good idea even though it isn’t very original but I am still undecided on where to shoot my horror trailer. I will definitely include some expressive camerawork in my trailer as I believe this makes the movie more ‘spooky’ and helps show that the movie is part of the horror genre. Canted, high and low angles also help to do this. To conclude, I think that this film is a very good horror movie although the storyline and characters are very predictable and common and I would like to make my horror movie trailer more original and different to what the audience usually expects.

 

 

Trailer Analysis - 'Mirrors'

‘Mirrors’ – Trailer Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O92QxxgeCO8

Again, like with the trailer of ‘The Uninvited’ this trailer starts with a positive and happy feeling at the beginning, although this does not last as long as it does in ‘The Uninvited’. It shows a man with his family, hugging his children. We then get an establishing shot of a run-down building that’s looks dark and gloomy on both the inside and the outside. Run-down buildings or abandoned houses are often used for setting in horror movies as they suggest they have a “past” which will return.  We are then shown a few clips of the man being shown around the building as the audience finds out that he is going to be the new security guard for the run-down building and we also find out that the security guard before him was obsessed with the mirrors in the building. This information immediately pulls the audience in as they will want to know why the previous security guard was obsessed with the mirrors.

          From this point the audience knows that the new security guard is the films protagonist and the fact that he is a security guard tells the audience that he is more than likely able to handle himself. In most horror films, they use a female protagonist who is seen as weak and fragile so that the audience feels more scared for the protagonist and therefore more scared themselves.

          From this point we see a few clips of the security guard in the building and this part of the trailer is very dark and spooky. Ambient sounds in the background of people we cannot see groaning and screaming are used to add to the spooky atmosphere. These sorts of ambient sounds and things such as heartbeats and footsteps are common conventions in horror as they can develop suspense for the audience or increase the scare factor of the moment when the monster reveals itself. The colour black is the most commonly used colour in this part of the trailer which is very popular in horror as the colour black is usually a visual signifier that connotes darkness and evil. Also, the fact that these clips are very dark makes it harder for the audience to see and by doing this ‘keeps the monster in the dark’ allowing the audience to imagine their own personal frightening monster.

          We are then shown clips of the protagonist trying to find information on the situation showing that he now fully believes that something out of the ordinary is going on and following this we are shown clips of the previous security guards death. In these clips everything is very dark and hardly any colour is shown until the security guard cuts his own throat and a burst of bright red blood is shown which stands out in comparison to the darkness to the audience. This brings the theme of gore into the trailer which is very popular in the more recent horror movies. We then see a clip of the protagonist saying to his ex-girlfriend that he’s seeing things and following this are some more very dark and quick clips of distorted things for example a young girl in dirty clothes who’s head moves from side to side much more quickly than natural and we also see an over the shoulder shot of the protagonist looking in the mirror to find one side of his face is surprisingly demented.  Each of these clips are very quick as to only give the audience a quick glimpse of the unnatural and supernatural .  

          We then see clips of this ‘monster’ in the mirrors effecting the protagonists family members which gives the theme of ‘the monster in your own home’ which takes away the safety element of a certain place that is usually used in horror movies to make the audience feel calm for a short while.  Towards the end, the pace speeds up and like the other two trailers, shorter and faster action clips are used involving quick glimpses of the monster and CU’s of the victims face to show their horror. In my horror movie trailer I would like my ending to be jam-packed with short action clips as this is the part that shows the audience the most of what sort of things they can expect to see in the film and gets the audience more excited to see the film.

In total, around 98 shots.

Trailer Analysis - 'The Uninvited'

‘The Uninvited’ – Trailer Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0eeAQGGwCU

In this trailer it is very clear from the beginning who the protagonist is, a young girl between the ages 16-20 who has a very sweet and innocent look about her. There are a few clips at the beginning to show the past of this girl, ‘You lost your mother in the fire, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to forget, go home, you’ll figure it out’. The young girl returns home and there is a very positive and cheery feeling to this part of the trailer as she is reunited with her family. Clips of her and her sister are shown having fun and being happy to be together until her sister states, ‘I assume you saw dads new girlfriend’  after which, a clip of their dads new girlfriend is shown as a very ghostly sound effect is played. This insinuates to the audience that there is a dark secret about this woman, instantly pulling the audience in. This brings the theme of ‘the hidden evil inside’ to the trailer which is a very popular theme in horror. Keeping the evil secret hidden usually increases the scare factor with horrors as the audience doesn’t know what the characters are really up against.

          Slow and serious music is played in the background as further clips are shown of the family getting along with the protagonist’s recent arrival. Clips of the protagonist talking with each character (her dad, her sister and dad’s new girlfriend) are shown to give the audience an idea of the family relationships. After these, a POV shot from the protagonist is shown looking through the keyhole of her dad’s bedroom to vaguely show the new girlfriend doing something with her dad. Using the keyhole makes it harder for the audience to see so it is unclear of what the new girlfriend is doing as to keep this character’s secret hidden and therefore keeping the audience interested.

           Soon after this, there are a few clips on the funeral of the protagonist’s mother and one clip is another POV shot from the protagonist who is standing opposite her dad’s new girlfriend. As she bends down to put a flower on the coffin the clip turns to black and white and a little girl in old fashioned clothes is standing behind her staring right at the protagonist. The old fashioned clothes are a very important detail to the mise-en-sene. POV shots are often used in horrors to put the audience in the eyes of either the protagonist or the monster which raises issues about the audience’s identification. Also, the fact that the clip turns to black and white at the sight of the ghost gives a very spooky feeling to the trailer. We then hear the ghosts voice in the background, ‘You’re too late’ and again, because the audience has no idea what she is too late for they continue to be lured in and want to know more, therefore selling the movie.

           From this point, a certain piano piece of background music is played as we watch clips as the protagonist explains her visions and ‘weird happenings’ to her sister. The piano music gives a very serious feeling to this point of the trailer. Any clips of the ghost children (there are more shown now) continue to be in black and white. The black and white effect and the old fashioned clothes show the audience that these ghost are from the ‘olden days’ which gives the theme of ‘the past coming back to terrorize’ which is yet another common convention of horror. The music becomes more up-beat as the protagonist comes closer and closer to revealing the secrets, although not giving anything away as to keep the audience interested.

          Towards the end of the trailer, shorter and faster action clips are shown, only showing glimpses of the monster for example, a gruesome looking hand coming out from under the bed or an over the shoulder shot of the monster so the audience vaguely sees the monsters demented body. Only showing part of the monster or quick, vague glimpses of the monster allows the audience to use their own imagination to think of their own personal frightening monster. ‘Keeping the monster in the dark’ is a very common convention of horror as putting a clear view on the monster for a certain amount of time can decrease its scare factor and loses its mysterious and secretive factor.

In total, roughly 106 shots.

Trailer Analysis - 'One Missed Call'

‘One Missed Call’ -Trailer Analysis

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1F7hJNsi5M

I have never seen this film before, but the trailer includes a variety of the common conventions of horror. The film consists of the characters receiving strange phone calls with a ringtone that is not theirs and when they listen to the message that is left, they hear their own voices and soon realise that they are listening to their own death. A few days after they hear the message they do in fact die as they heard on the message and then someone else is called off of that persons contact list and the film continues this way.

          The ringtone itself is very scary. It’s a very simple tune, the sort of music that you would expect a child to listen to, or the music that comes from a musical box. I think because the tune is very innocent and ‘gay’ it makes it all the more scary. Horror movies often use something innocent and childlike to represent something very dark and evil as it sets the audience on edge. For example, a child’s play park at night time is seen as very spooky or a child’s teddy being placed in the scene of terror. It gives the audience a feeling that something is wrong. The trailer starts off with the ringtone being played and a CU of the phone with two girls in the background. One of the girl’s then states, ‘That’s not my ringtone’. Straight away the audience is pulled in just by this very simple tune that they now know represents something evil and very unknown to the characters and the audience. When I make my own horror movie trailer I would like to include a tune like this.

          As the trailer continues we follow the girl who received the message and she is shown to be very scared and weak. She is on the phone to the other girl asking for help, who is seen as very confident in what she is doing and is very determined on helping her friend. This gives the audience the idea that she is the films protagonist and will most probably be ‘the final girl’ who will face the monster at the end. While they are on the phone the victim states, ‘Ever since that bizarre phone call, I keep seeing things’ and at this point the audience sees a very quick glimpse of a woman with a very distorted face. Horror movies often only show quick glimpses of the monster or perhaps not at all as to leave the audience to use their own imagination to create an image of the monster which will scare them more. Showing the monster clearly for a long period of time will remove its scare factor and creates less suspense for the audience.

          We then see the girl die in the exact same way in which she heard on the message and the protagonists gets there just in the brink of time to bear witness as she dies. We watch as the protagonist takes this in and realises what she’s up against. Clips of the next girls who get the message are shown as the protagonist explains the situation which gives the audience information of the storyline without giving anything away. When I make my horror movie trailer I don’t want it to just consist of scary clips with scary settings, I want it to show the storyline to give the audience an idea of what it is about without giving anything away.

          We then get shown another character who doesn’t seem to be one of the victims but he is an investigator who will help the protagonist throughout the film. He states that there is a blatant connection between the murders and he then pulls a red piece of candy from one of the corpse’s mouths. Again, like the childish ringtone, I think the candy will set the audience on edge as candy usually belongs to a child and ‘ghost children’ are seen as very spooky. Also, I think the fact that the candy is red is important as the colour red is a visual signifier that usually connotes blood or danger. We then see a quick inverted shot of a ghost little girl in black and white, again, only giving the audience a quick glance at the monster. The black and white inversion gives a very disorienting feel to the trailer and this is a very common convention in horror as it sets the audience on edge. I hope to include a lot of disoriented clips in my horror movie trailer.

          We watch as another character dies in the exact same way he heard on the phone and the protagonist continues to explain what is going on, all the while the scary ringtone is being played in the background. We then follow another girl who has had the call while we watch the protagonist becoming more and more confident, ‘I’ll keep you safe – any dead people call, we’re not home’ she states as she tears the mobile apart and throws it on the bed. To make things more scary the phone still begins to ring even once it has been broken which shows the monster to be unstoppable and very powerful which will pull the audience in even more.

          We then get the theme of ‘the past coming back to terrorize’ as the protagonist talks of tracking down these phone calls and going back to where they all started. We then get an establishing shot of a run-down building in which the protagonist has to go inside and face the monster herself. As she enters the building the spooky ringtone begins to play again, the sound coming from somewhere inside the building as longer shots are used to show her walking around. Then suddenly, with a big bang of music, something pulls her to the ground as she is being dragged somewhere by a monster invisible to the audience while she is screaming her head off. From this point onwards much faster and shorter action shots are shown, the music being played at this point has a very fast beat and during these quick shots we see quick glances of the monster.

          After these quick shots the scary ringtone begins to play again as we see the protagonist and the investigator standing in the run-down building. We are shown a point of view shot with the investigator holding a torch and once he shines it quickly on the monster a loud bang plays as he gets dragged away by an invisible force as the protagonist is left by herself screaming. This is the last clip of the trailer before the movie release dates come up, the scary ringtone being played in the background.

In total, around 114 – 119 shots.

         

History of the Horror Genre

 

 

History of the Horror Genre

·         19^th Century Horror Stories

The Gothic tradition began in the 19th century, in such works as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Enduring icons of horror derived from these stories include Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster, Count Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.  As long as there have been stories, there have been stories about the ‘Other’, the unrealities we might categorise today as speculative fiction. Early creation myths in all cultures are populated by demons and darkness, and early Abrahamic and Egyptian mythology resounds with tales of a world beyond the physical, a realm of the spirits, to be revered and feared. The term 'horror' first comes into play with Horace Walpole's 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto, full of supernatural shocks and mysterious melodrama. Although rather a stilted tale, it started a craze, spawning many imitators in what we today call the gothic mode of writing.

 

·         The Horror of the Silent Era – 1920s

Silent film offered the early pioneers a wonderful medium in which to examine terror. Early horror films are surreal, dark pieces, owing their visual appearance to the expressionist painters and their narrative style to the stories played out by the Grand Guignol Theatre Company. Darkness and shadows, such important features of modern horror, were impossible to show on the film stock available at the time, so the sequences, for example in Nosferatu (1922), where we see a vampire leaping amongst gravestones in what appears to be broad daylight, seem doubly surreal to us now. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919), often cited as the 'granddaddy of all horror films', this is an eerie exploration of the mind of a madman, pitting an evil doctor against a hero falsely incarcerated in a lunatic asylum. Through a clever framing device the audience is never quite clear on who is mad and who is sane, and viewing the film's skewed take on reality is a disturbing experience, heightened by the jagged asymmetry of the mise en scene. This era of horror started just after the First World War and a lot of the horror movies reflected the war. For example, ‘Dr Caligari’ (the mad doctor) represented how society had gone crazy and the jagged asymmetry and clever framing of the films represented the weirdness of how society was evolving.

 

·         Monsters and Mad Scientists – 1930s and Universal Studios Horror

Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The advent of sound, as well as changing the whole nature of cinema forever, had a huge impact on the horror genre. The dreamlike imagery of the 1920s masks a visual representation of 'horror' which were replaced by monsters that grunted and groaned and howled. Sound adds an extra dimension to terror, whether it be music used to build suspense or signal the presence of a threat, or magnified footsteps echoing down a corridor. The horror films of the 1930s are exotic fairy tales, invariably set in some far-off land peopled by characters in period costume speaking in strange accents. Horror was still essentially looking backwards, drawing upon the literary classics of the 19th century for their source material. Some of the films included in this decade of horror are The Mummy (1932) with Egyptologists suffering the effects of an ancient curse, King Kong (1933) the chest-thumping giant gorilla atop the Empire State and Freaks (1932) a horror film that horrifies rather than frightens. It is worth noting that mad scientists were also represented in this decade's horror films. 1933, the year Hitler came to power, saw something of a peak in mad scientist movies; it seems the genre was horribly preminiscent of the scientific horrors to come in the Nazi-run concentration camps over the subsequent decade.

 

·         The Primal Animal Within; Werewolves and Cat People – 1940’s

If the horror movies of the 1930s had dealt in well-established fictional monsters, looking back towards the nineteenth century for inspiration, the 1940s reflected the internalisation of the horror market. It was wolves that posed the main global threat at the outset of the 1940s. Hitler himself strongly identified with the iconography and legends of the wolf. The name 'Adolf' means "noble wolf" in Old German. So it seemed a natural step for Universal to follow up their minor 1935 hit, The Werewolf of London. Although there is a well-established werewolf mythology extending back to the ancient world, there was no single established story (as with Dracula and the vampire myth) to use for easy adaptation. It fell to screenwriter Curt Siodmak to pen a story to fit the title Universal had been knocking around for a while. The Wolf Man (1941) is a mishmash of several wolf legends, with added ingredients. Siodmak stirs pentagrams, gypsies, silver bullets and the full moon together to create a robust myth. Never one to miss a trick, Universal followed this up with Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (1943). Feline alternatives, Cat People (1942) was another that represented the internalisation of horror and follows a young woman, Irena who carries with her the belief that she is cursed, and will turn into a large, dangerous cat if she consummates her marriage. A mainly psychological thriller, much is made of what lurks in the shadows and the audience is left to make up their own mind.

 

·         Mutant Creatures and Alien Invaders – 1950s

The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead, homecoming soldiers and bereaved widows had too many horror stories of their own to appreciate fantasies on the big screen and the dawning of post-war posterity in America brought with it a new breed of monsters, adapted specifically for survival in the second half of the twentieth century. The messages from WW2 were clear: no matter how heroic your men, how skilled your generals, how staunch your supporters on the Home Front, at the end of the day it was technology that counted. Bigger. Better. Deadlier. Like the atom bomb. The more advanced the technology, the more powerful the nation. The horror films of the 1950s are about science and technology run riot, an accurate enough reflection of reality for a confused populace, wary of the pace of technological change. The aim of the 1950s was thrills, thrills and more thrills, and these new breed of monsters never fail to deliver on the action front. Nonetheless, they are highly entertaining, and provide a crude, Technicolor snapshot of the way America desperately didn't want itself to be. Mutation on existing themes provided the inspiration for countless 1950s MONSTERS. Radiation (or other unspecified scientific processes) could either enlarge (Godzilla - 1954) or shrink (The Fly - 1958) existing life-forms. This era's obsession with the monster movie stems from the fears generated by co-existence with the atom bomb. Monster movies offered a vision of destruction created by non-humans; instead of generating chaos and disaster, humans represent a force for good, often manifested in a yearning for peace as nations and organisations unite against the common threat, thus providing a cathartic couple of hours' escapism from the realities of the Cold War.

 

·         Ghosts, Zombies, Satanism and Your Family – 1960’s – 1970s

Despite the often tragic events of this era, there was a seeming feeling of optimism, the sense that humanity was moving forward, onward and upward. The concept of Cold War lost heat and the mutant monsters of the 1950s now looked a little silly. No aliens had turned up either. If every generation gets the monsters it deserves, then the horror movie goers of the 1960s got... themselves. Going to the cinema to be scared at this time was the equivalent of gazing in the mirror, and noticing, for the first time, that there was something a little... strange about your own face. A number of ghost stories hit the screen in the early 1960s that still have the power to startle today, transcending their black and white photography and minimal special effects. They are simple stories that only require the audience to suspend disbelief in increments, and often, as in The Haunting (1963) operate from a position of scepticism. The characters do not believe that they are being affected by supernatural forces until too late (if at all) and the horror lies in the journey the protagonist takes between sanity and psychosis. These movies reflects a change as woman were put on the frontlines and the woman that ‘misbehaved’ according to the old order would be the first (or even the only) characters to die. Were these movies subliminal warnings to women, an exhortation to behave, or suffer the consequences? These movies throb with psychosexual tension, and take a sadistic satisfaction in the suffering of the beautiful heroine. The protagonist is a final sacrifice rather than a Final Girl. A few Zombie movies also made their way into this decade. Night of the Living Dead (1967) is an incredibly influential horror film which contained some tight performances, excellent make-up and special effects, and those genuinely terrifying moments.

 

·         Hammer Horror – 1970s- Mid 80s

Hammer Films is a film production company based in the United Kingdom and is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Films from this decade were sometimes known as Video Nasty’s as they could make films for less money. Children are the focus of horror in many key 1960s and really reinforces that kids can be spooky. Yet this theme dominates the 1970s, as the crumbling family unit becomes the source of much fear and mistrust. This time around 'the enemy within' is not a shape shifting alien from another planet altogether. This time the enemy is to be found in your own home. This theme is definitely shown in The Exorcist (1973) which has been voted ‘the scariest movie of all time’. It is also shown in Shivers – 1975 (It’s your Mum), The Shining  - 1980 (Your Dad) and The Omen – 1976 (Your little Boy).

 

·         Slasher Movies and their Descent into Postmodern Parody – 1980s

Horror movies of the 1980s exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up. Everything that had lurked in the shadows of horror films in the 1950s could now be brought into the light of day. But did this mean that horror films became more or less scary? Some films which show no monsters at all manage to terrify through suggestion, providing triggers for the audience's imagination and letting them scare themselves. A slasher film is a subgenre of horror film, and at times thriller, typically involving a mysterious psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims usually in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie involving graphic acts of murder, the slasher as a genre has its own set of characteristics which set it apart from related genres.  Halloween (1978) was one of the first slasher movies that really represented the ‘final girl theory’.  Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was another and also Scream (1996). Around this time, the horror genre became so predictable that along came the horror parody’s.  Scary Movie (1989) is a brilliant example of this.

 

·         Format Fears and Moral Panics

By the end of the 1980s horror had become so reliant on gross-out gore and buckets of liquid latex that it seemed to have lost its power to do anything more than shock rather than amuse. It seemed that horror had become safe, a branded commodity bringing easy recognition and a rigid set of expectations. However, each generation needs something to be scared of, and the 1990s got its own special brand of boogeyman: the serial killer. As horror appeared to run out of original ideas, more film-makers turned to re-making old ones, re-interpreting old narratives through a postmodern, 1990s lens. Serial killers are often represented as having more-than-human powers, which is where movies about them stray into the horror genre, rather than being thrillers; although the monster is human, he has a supernatural edge which makes him all the more frightening.

 

·         Gore returns with a Vengeance – ‘Gore-nography’ or ‘Torture Porn’ – 2000s

The year of 2001 brought with it the unfortunate events of September 11^th. The events of that day changed global perceptions of what is frightening, and set the cultural agenda for the following years. The film industry, already facing a recession, felt very hard hit as film-makers struggled to come to terms with what was now acceptable to the viewing public. But, by 2005, the horror genre was as popular as ever. The monsters have had to change, however. Gone were the lone psychopaths of the 1990s and along came the ‘Torture Porn’.  If you’re the sort of person who like to watch good surgery on un-anesthetized people you can join millions with the film Hostel (2005) which is jam-packed with torture and dismemberment. Other films filled with blood and guts are The Devils Rejects (2005) and of course the very gruesome Saw (2004). A lot of people are baffled as to how far this new stuff goes and why so many people nowadays are so obsessed with torture.

 

(A few references from ‘Horror Film History’ and ‘Wikipedia’)