Mulvey's Male Gaze

The Final Girl Theory

Barbara Creed's Monstrous Feminine Theory

Barbara Creed was a Marxist movie critic who developed the theory on Mulvey's Male Gaze. The only difference was the fact that Creed developed her work on the basis of horror rather than the film industry as a whole. Sigmund Freud stated the opinion that we are afraid of women in movies due to the fact that they are castrated human beings, however, Barbara on the other hand, argues that we fear women within movies due to the fact that they are able to castrate and due to their reproductive systems. I.e Freud claims that we as the audience are afraid of women because of their 'abnormally' castrated body but Creed dismantles this assumption and defends women by saying that men are scared of being castrated, hence why women are portrayed as monstrous rather than being monsters.

Conventions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho

Monsters and Villains

Propp's Narrative Theory

Propp's Narrative Functions
A story is a sequence of events, better known as the plot. A narrative is the way those events have been placed together in order to be presented to the audience.
Propp's Narrative Functions:
Propp analysed carious Russian Folktales to understand the main elements within the plot. During his analysis, he found that there were 31 different plot elements, along with the use of at least one of the eight main characters within each narrative. These are as follows:

Levi-Strauss' Binary Opposition Theory

Levi-Strauss' Binary Opposition

Levi-Strauss believes that all narratives are driven through conflict caused by a series of opposing events, this is known as binary opposition. He also said that to understand the word 'Villain', we have to understand the word 'Hero'. Same for 'Sane' and 'Insane'. We don't understand the meaning of words through their definitions, but through their binary oppositions.

Todorov's Basic Narrative Theory

Todorov' Basic Narrative Theory

All stories begin at an equilibrium. After this equilibrium there is a disruption due to action which is then recognized buy the characters within the narrative. After this, an attempt to repair the disruption is made which leads to the reinstatement of the equilibrium. On the other hand, the genre of horror doesn't always follow these steps which is mainly to ensure the audience feels uneasy and experience anxiety due to the non-chronological order.

Films and their context

Timeline of Horror

https://time.graphics/updates/new/25826

Follow this link to access the timeline

Response to Brief

Welcome to my A2 media blog. Continuing my journey into A2 media studies, I have been asked to produce a horror trailer, magazine and poster. I will be working in a group of four including myself. I believe this is going to be a new experience as although I worked in a pair, I haven't worked in a larger group so this experience will push me out of my comfort zone as I will be working with multiple people meaning I will have to bounce ideas off of them before taking any action.

I don't remember the first horror film I ever watched but certainly do recall one movie in particular from when I was younger which is The Hollow.

Watching this movie sent shivers down my spine being one that doesn't really watch horror films, however, this was the first movie that actually had me addicted and I wanted to watch more. This is probably my favorite movie of all time even though it may be a little old without the editing available today which is extraordinary.

Recently, I haven't been given the pleasure to enjoy horror films as I believe they are all so predictable. There aren't enough good cliff-hangers/plot twists these days as more or less all of the ideas have been used up. This therefore has led me away from watching movies all together.

The paranormal is one theme within a film which could send shivers down my spine. Something about the suspense of anything happening is an amazing sensation and the scare, even though it may not be pleasant at the time, it makes it worth the money. 

Horror magazines attract me if there is gore and paranormal beings. Other than that, I won't really pay attention. On the other hand, I tend to enjoy a very suspenseful, action packed and sinister trailer which consists of extreme violence, guerrilla warfare and trapped moments.

During the production of my poster/trailer, I will be aiming to create a hair raising, unique and spine tingling story combined with the paranormal and a murderous sociopath. The reason for this is that the suspense of the unseen plus somebody who is unstoppable will create serious anxiety within the audience which is the overall objective. I need to create a dark, evil look so my aim is to keep the images I use with low lighting along with bold colours such as red for the font to ensure the text attracts readers and viewers.

I am most excited for the production of this trailer as it is something totally different. Making this trailer allows me to develop skills in editing and also presents me with the opportunity to visit different areas and use different shots, techniques and costume to horrify my groups' audience.