Hypodermic Model Theory

What is this theory about?

This theory suggests that media influences individuals directly by what people call 'injecting' information into people to trigger a response that they want.

This theory came out through assumptions, not research or experiments. Assumptions suggested tat people are no longer controlled by their instincts anymore and are therefore controlled by media influences which s how the hypodermic needle model theory came. 

How this relates to horror genre is how it is displayed. When most people come out of a horror film  they believe that whats has happened to someone in a horror is capable of happening to them so it is like someone has injected something into our brains to make us believe that these tings in horror films are true. 

Roland Barthes' - Enigma Code

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Today I looked at a film called The Blair Witch Project that was released in 1999. This is a American psychological horror film written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardon Sanchez. This is based on a true story which happened to a women called Elly Kedward that banished from the Blair Township which a forest shown in the documentary film. This movie was influenced by the films The Shining, The Omen and Jaws as presumably the witch in this film is hidden from the viewer which leads to the suspense of the unknown just like in Jaws.

The first of the trailer that is above is a small teaser up to 37 seconds and what I find effective about it is that the screen is all black and what you can hear is the persons voice who was one of the uni students that went missing eventually in the end of the movie. This makes the audience want to listen more as there is nothing on the screen until the girls face shows in a awkward camera shot which is there to make the audience feel awkward as well. What I also find effective is the non-diegetic and diegetic sounds occur when the title of the movie comes on the screen to show the power of this. You can hear the women breathing heavenly and sounds as if she is frightened and scared. 

The second part of the trailer is the longer trailer and is really simple. How this is effective is that I do not know what the person is really saying apart from three people being missing and then you see a person running in the end in a forest. This does not give much of the story away which makes the audience think and want to find out the real story by watching the full movie. 

When It comes to creating my own horror trailer I need to bare in mind not to give the whole story away within them minutes because I would want the audience to have the feeling of wanting to watch the whole movie due to the suspense and scare them at the same time.

Carrie (2013) Poster Analysis

Here is a horror poster of the new re-make of Carrie. What I found appealing about this poster is the insides of her eyes are red. This implies that she is not human in the sense but is in the face and body of a human which I found interesting. Also she has cracks and blood stains on her face which makes the viewers feel uncomfortable as they would not usually see this on a normal human being. Also the eye level of Carrie in the poster looks as if she is directly looking at the audience to make them aware of her presence. The colours used on the poster are the common colours that are used in the genre horror which are red and black.

Another thing I found really interesting about this poster is there is a cross shadow on her face and a caption across  her face saying 'GOD WON'T SAVE YOU.' Why I find this intriguing is because as I have seen the original film and trailer for this film, I can see that Carrie's mother is very religious in the film which shows a clash of relationship between mother and daughter as they is a devil with the daughter. 

Overall I think that this poster is appealing according to the genre Horror as it gives me a sense of fright as that is the aim of the poster to make the audience feel frightened before watching the actual movie so in this case this is an successful poster.

Here is the trailer to the re-make of Carrie (2012):

Claude Levi Strauss

Claude Levi Strauss was an thinker for European academic from the middle 20th century. He suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that is caused by a series of opposing forces.

Binary ----> Conflict ----> Driven  narrative forward

Here are some examples of the theory of binary opposition:

- Light and Dark
- Good and Evil
- Strength and Weakness
- Right and Wrong
- Human and Alien
- Silence and Noise
- Sanity and Insanity

An example of Claude Levi's theory is used in Harry Potter the movie. As you can see below is that there is more light shown on Harry Potter as he is the good guy (victim) and the evil  mean is Voldemort has less light shown on his face so he is representing that he is evil. I can also spot that Harry looks like a normal human being whereas Voldemort looks deformed and alien type as he has no 
nose.

The Theory of the 'Male Gaze'

The theory of the male gaze was founded by Laura Mulvey. Laura Mulvey wrote s very influential essay ''Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'' (1975.) This suggests that the way women are viewed in cinema is 'unequal'. The camera necessarily presents women as ''sexualised'' for the pleasure of men.

Overall Laura Mulvey says:
- Women are presented as sexual spectacle objects of pleasure
- Men have this gaze to avoid being 'castrated' 

Here is a diagram of the male gaze I drew in lesson explaining how the 'male gaze' works during a scene.

An example of the male gaze is Carrie (1976) in the first shower scene of the movie. As you can see in this scene in the movie is that teen age girls are happily changing in the changing rooms and smiling at each other which does not happen in reality. This is an example of a male gaze because a man would think this would happen in a girls changing room and walking about openly without clothes. Also the camera zooms up in the areas Carrie is washing herself in the shower without showing a lot but shows how a male would be pleased by it.

Critical Theory!

Here are some opinions from some critics based on the movie Halloween (1978.)

Halloween (1978)

Last week during my media lessons, I have been looking with my class at the move Halloween (1978) and how the director uses camera angles and shots for specific reasons to make scenes scary. What I found different about this horror movie is that the first scene is from a point of view shot of the killer and that he is walking around and in the house. Then as the killer is about to murder the girl who so is the killers sister, puts on a mask which can see through as it is a point of view which makes me feel uncomfortable seeing as the audience. In the end of the scene we find out that the killer is a young boy who was the girl who he just killed little brother. Due to editing I found that after finding out that a young boy was a killer, the pace of the point of view shot was slow which seemed to me as an viewer that a child does not know what he is exactly doing and if he is doing something wrong whereas a normal killer would be rushing and running with tension.

Here is the trailer to the movie:

Common Conventions of Horror

I researched and came up with a list of what I usually see in most horror films generally. By doing this it would help me create my horror trailer by looking at the common conventions that are usually used in most horror movies and will apply it in my way in my trailer.

Conventions of  Horror Genre =

Mise-en-scene:

-Knives

- Blood stains

- Darkness

- Isolated places (big empty houses, countryside – away from the city)

- Contrast between light and dark (normally to represent the characters)

Camera work and editing:

- Quick cuts

- Hand held shots (documentary)

- Zoom

- Slow panning

- Point of view 

- Eye line match

Music and sound:

- Slow calm music then goes silence (e.g. insidious 2)

- Loud frightening music

- High pitched screaming

- Phone ringing.

Common characters:

- Innocent child which is usually the villain until it is revealed in the end

- Men/women wearing red to symbolise danger

- Ghosts/spirits

Icons:

- Dolls moving 

- Big knives 

- White masks e.g. scream

- Candles

- Religious Imagery e.g. cross 

Narrative and themes:

-Hybrid

- Slasher

- Zombies/aliens

- Paranormal (e.g. spirits) 

Todorov's Theory

Todorov was a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher who lived in France since 1963. His work on narrative theories from the 1960s onwards, suggested that stories in films begins with a equilibrium or status quo where any potential opposing forces are in balance. This is then disrupted by an event which sets a chain of series of events and then problems are resolved so that everything goes how is mean to be in the world of fiction.

Equilibrium = State of well being and normality between the protagonists.

Disequilibrium = Normality is disrupted  due to a conflict or an occurrence of an event.

New equilibrium = The outer force is defeated and a new state of well being s acquired.

 I applied Todorov's theory on the film Insidious 2 as well...

Equilibrium: everyone starts settling down in the grandmothers house without tension whilst their old house was causing them problems.

Disequilibrium: The same things that happened in insidious 1 started to happen in the grandmother’s house with the piano playing and things being moved about at night times.
New Equilibrium: In the end they get rid of the bad spirit and the family is safe and at peace.

Propp's Theory