final horror series

PB 4

EXEGESIS summary-

Series of Audio-Visual Horror Subgenre Sketches.
Our final project was to do a final and longer sketch that curates a reflection to the ideas that I have been exploring throughout the semester. My research question was “are genre just tropes?” and I’ve found that what makes a genre is not only a grouping of tropes and patterns but also the aesthetics, mood and cinematic experience of emotions within a text. While I have taken upon further research for a wider exploration, we were encouraged to find inspirations for our sketch. The focal point that has been reflected upon my genre trajectory is the inception of genre boundaries that are sometimes taken too seriously into a strict classification of films according to the set-rules that cause the limitation and lack of creativity. This idea is explored by Ishiguro in 2015. Hanich (2010) in the other hand specialised in the idea that the categories we form are part of our experience. For example, horror branches out in a couple of different subgenres including the slasher, thriller, vampires and the supernatural and we can usually tell the difference through the tropes present. I’ve learned that these subcategories are all able to generate the lived bodily experience and fearful emotions including terror, shock, dread and horror. In a nutshell, tropes equal genre which equals emotions. So there comes the second part of my question, can film still be considered a particular genre if its key tropes are removed? My series of three horror-subgenre sketches (which may as well be considered as meta-horror) that includes slasher, vampire and supernatural horror will be the experiment of this study.

Within my three chosen horror sub-genres are tropes and conventions that operate to portray the aesthetics of fear. I had removed each of their key tropes to prove that they are still its genres without sticking to the set-rules. Jackson (2013) defines metahorror as films that self-consciously refer to their own construction and do not break through the fourth wall completely. What I’ve received from Jackson’s ideas are inspirations of metahorror that helped my sketches. So my idea was to omit fangs in Vampire sketch, the presence of knife in my slasher sketch and finally the phenomenon of evil and harmful personality of a ghost in the supernatural sketch.

Although the vampire sketch presents itself as a typical gothic romanticism with its warm hues of the shots, blood and preying subjects, it omits the presence of fangs on any shots.

https://vimeo.com/199307120%20

Likewise, the slasher sketch omits and replace knifes, saws or any weapons to a single red marker that does not in any way look harmful or even bloody. This sketch however, uses fast cutting shots and jump cuts in hand-held movements after longer moments of suspense with perspective and establishing shots.

https://vimeo.com/199303539%20

Finally, the supernatural sketches utilises dark, cold monochromatic tones with unsettling dread and terror background music along with shock tactic especially whereabouts in moments of creepy silence. In addition, the ghost is scary with an all distorted white mask and always appear suddenly except that she is cheeky and comedic unlike the typical dangerous villains of horror.

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Meta Horror and Hybrids

What an interesting mixture of genre are films like the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods? Horror hybrids and metahorror may have inspired me for my final project brief of sketches. As Jackson (2013) suggested, these films are self-reflexive and knows that it is constructed horror. Watching Cabin in the Woods did scare me with its intense soundtrack use, visual gore and “the villains” as well as its nerve-wrecking silences. The part where it is revealed that the characters are put in a place as science subjects controlled by puppeteers explodes audience readings of the definition of horror as genre. It also debatable whether or horror is without say usual weapons utilised in slasher films.

 

Jackson, K 2013, Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror, “Metahorror and simulation in the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods” , pp. 11-30.

Action in Ronin

Purse (2011) signified that the action sequence is the dominance of action films and what basically defines the genre as it “displays dramatic physical action with dynamism and intensity that marks itself out from other sequences”. Action as genre gives the hype or the thrill feeling like riding a roller coaster as cars are about to crash into something with extreme speed. Therefore it needs the thrill and the speed. As Ronin had portrayed, action sequences include the cars speeding up and bashing towards each other while people are running at every directions. Though what if an action film, with the thrill suspense and even car-related, does not incorporate speed? For instance, Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive (2011) can still be considered an action film due to its tropes that includes guns, cars and physical violence whether or not captured in speed or slow-motion. Rian Johnson’s Looper (2012) does not only employ the tropes of action films, it does not really dominate itself with action sequences. Like Drive, Looper had also used art house aesthetics of action sequence that is captured with slow-motion instead of the “need for speed”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UagyHnJAYTM

 

Purse, L 2011, Contemporary action cinema, “Chapter 3: The action sequence“, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 56-75.

Drama in a bottle

 

As we’ve watched bottle drama episodes this week, it really blew my mind how creative these construction of space is. There are just lots of ways to get around a little of cash left when crating a TV show, like the Community bottle episode where it took place only within one single location and focusing on dialogue and performances. Similarly, Coherence uses minimal cast in a small space within a house though successfully convey dark tense elements through it’s cinematography and editing. These bottle dramas may be constructed out of limited budget but became innovative in its own way. Belton (1988) explains that the space in Rear Window is “quasi-theatrical in its pro-filmic unity and three-dimensionality and yet also cinematic in the flat, multi-windowned design of the apartment…”. This signifies that bottle episodes resembles a series of clips of movie screens but with an importance to the performance yet also the overall aesthetics and compositions.

rearwindow1

 

Belton, J 1988, MLN Comparative Literature, “The Space of Rear Window”, publish The Johns Hopkins University Press, vol. 103, no. 5, pp. 1121-1138, <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/2905203>. 

 

What colour is the film?

 

With the use of chiaroscuro lighting, femme fatale, overtly use of sets (an obvious fake but still wonderful and embraced), film noir does have its dark German expressionist influence side. The genre operates in the dark where mystery is the key tropes and viewers almost always see a detective. I did just called it a genre. But is it? House (1986) shared that there are both sides to the argument. Some say it’s not a genre, that it is merely a “specific period of film history” or a film movement. We also prospect that film noir is the mood of film, the style and tone rather than genre. I myself believes film noir to be an adjective of a film, whether in terms of genre, style or movement. Just as we say that The man from U.N.C.L.E (2015) and the film we watched on week 8 screening, The Killers (1946), are film noirs. When we say “film noir”, we think of that mood where smokes are around you and all that jazz is playing. Thus, it can definitely be a genre since genres define and better yet describes what the film is.

 

Vampires also evolves

We have been reconstructing “vampires” whether inspired contextually as if they are meant to adapt and evolve (or live immortally) throughout the eras. They basically camouflage as humans since they were invented through the classical Victorian era and now contemporary settings. From Dracula (1992) to the classical Interview With a Vampire (1994) to sci-fi inspired Underworld (2009) and the teen culture Twilight (2008), various different elements were played around to mix with the “vampire” genre. Despite the diversity of contexts and elements, we can tropes-out that they are usually wealthy, sunlight intolerant and many other characteristically tropes presents. These films often come back to the idea of love and romanticism in which defines the whole essence of vampire culture. Though, what I have found inspiring is vampire filmmaking that break out of this traditional pattern such in Twilight, where sunlight doesn’t burn but instead shines them. Also in A Girl Who Walks Alone at Night, a contemporary western-tinted vampire film not of the typical english/american origin but rather from Iran.

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The idea that they co-exist with humans, even only on films makes me question how genre forms. Like the vampire culture, genres do also evolve and overtime barriers do get blurry. But aren’t we as viewers, audiences and filmmakers causes the change and vice versa? is each new film the one changing us?

Horror Sketch

PB 3

After a pitch presentation about my intentions and interest of study, I’ve came into further brainstorming thanks to the feedback from the panel. I’ve wanted to explore the emotions or reaction generated by different sub genres of horror and how they may have been a hybrid for a mixed emotion response. Inspired by pieces such as ballet performance film, Black Swan (2010) that also incorporates psychological thrilling elements and Into the Woods (2014), a dark fairytale musical, I was motivated to a boundary-blurring piece to sketch. Therefore in my pitch I thought I would experiment on a challenging and opposing genre such as a hybrid of horror-musical, a rare yet interesting genre collision. As Allan pointed out as a feedback that emotions associated with both genres are opposites, it got me thinking can horror be a musical? The panel also encourage me to think of examples in which however, it is difficult to think of a legitimate terror, suspense kind of horror that also include musical elements to it. Therefore, I’ve further retouched my idea of a sketch that instead, will focus of horror use of music/soundtrack and its affect on audience fear emotions. This sketch perhaps is a resemblance to a horror film with a lot of music within, as well as conveying sonic narrative, instead of experimenting a musical horror film.

 

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The Imaginary Space of Musicals

As we watched One Night the Moon (2001), my ideologies about musical was a bit challenged considering a typical happy ending, harmonic emotion embodied by the genre. The film musical in the other hand, incorporates a gothic vibe in terms of the use of dangerous Australian landscape as its setting. Let alone an ending that devastates two parents who found their daughter died due to the area’s geography. The reading by Grant (2012) also talks about how only film musicals feature an imaginary space even if it is ostensibly a real location and depicts its space as charmed by the magic of performance. Nevertheless, it does reminded me of the film adaptation Into the Woods (2014) the presents a unique kind of musical in dark fairytale world. I’ve also encountered the difference between film musicals and film that contain lots of musicals. Musical refers to “films that involve the performance of song and/or dance by the characters and also include singing and/or dancing as an important element” (Grant, 2012). Where although a film includes a dominantly music and soundtracks as its subject such as Pitch Perfect (2012 &2015) and The Sapphires (2012), they are not musicals because the characters do not perform for expressing their emotion but rather consciously sing and dance for the purpose of stage performances.

The Pleasure of Fear

The terror, the shock, the dread and the fear after a horror film have been the mental disruption in my experience for over a week. This cinematic fear causes me to sprint right back to my bed at night after going to the bathroom. But how can cinematic fear be ‘pleasurable’? As Hanich (2010) mentioned, it is because it consists of “precious moments of subjective intensity”. Which includes:

  • Metamorphoses of the lived-body
  • Foregrounding of time
  • Instances of collectivity

What makes a film horror and why would it generate fear in the first place? Sound plays a big role here in assisting horror aesthetics in relation to the screen. Imagine for instance, if the film shows someone walking in the dark with a harsh lighting but there wasn’t any sound. It might look scary, but it wouldn’t have a significant terror impact. Let alone shocking, as almost all the time that we are shocked is because of the loud ‘bang’ sound that suddenly made viewers (or even just a listener) jump.

 

Hanich, J 2010, Cinematic emotion in horror films and thrillers, “Pleasures and Counterbalances”, Routledge, New York, pp. 24-36.

The Evil Queen

In this week 4 studio we’ve watched the action sci-fi horror, James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). Or what we might call it now is not as “horror” as the contemporary supernatural horror films we see in today’s cinemas. Though, Aliens does incorporate horrific frightening devices such as the dark antagonist “being” and the intense background music that puts the audience’s heightened emotional stress at the edge of their seat. What is interesting about this kind of film are the action heroine, monsters and the portrayal of female power. As Bundtzen (1987) explored, “its depiction of female fecundity, prolific and devouring, is so powerful and fictively generative”. We can see Ripley’s motivational success towards saving the child and to destroy the alien monster that threats the humanity. We can also see the powerful female alien, responsible for more of the alien reproduction and their aim to conquer human home. Both sides are eager to survive and that is the nature of all species whether it is male or female. Aliens shows the idealised motherly figures, such as the alien and Ripley to protect their little ones for the survival of their species. Further depiction of the female sexuality is complemented with visual designs such as the alien form that “resembles female genitalia…” while showing a “graphic display of female anatomy” (Bundtzen, 1987). These designs can be a rather revolting representation of femininity, but its creativity happens to encourage the promoted female power and heroine across action (or other) films as well as our society. 

Here are some thoughts on various heroines as well as strong female antagonists/ characters:

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Bundtzen, L. K. 1987, Film Quarterly, “Monstrous Mothers: Medusa, Grendel, and Now Alien”, vol. 40, no. 3, publish University of California Press, pp. 11-17.