The Representation of Women in Horror Films

I am researching how women are represented in Horror Films. In horror films women are typically represented as a damsel in distress, someone who needs to be rescued and taken care of as they are incapable of looking after themselves. The women that we see in horror films tend to vary little in age and appearance, they all tend to be young women who are quite ‘pretty’ or attractive. Woman are also overly sexualised in horror films, as Laura Marley said that the camera uses sadistic objectification on women to give the audience a ‘Male Gaze’ to make them seem more like objects than people. Shots to make these ‘Male Gaze’ include long body shots, panning/looking up at the woman. It has always been conventional to horror films that the women are supposed to be portrayed as a figure of beauty and desire whilst the villain is portrayed as a gruesome heartless killer. The women who are attacked within horror films by the villain/murderer are often represented as ‘sluts’ and people who are involved in drugs or various sexual acts. Up until the 1970’s horror films were mainly half-dressed or nude woman running about screaming until they fall into their own death. This was the genres way of trying to justify the death of all these women, portraying them as bad or ‘slutty’ people to try to make it seem as if they were deserving of the death that was brought upon them. Usually these woman aren’t always seen as vulnerable, as they think they have their pick of anyone and can generally get what they want. It wasn’t until the mid 1970’s when women started to becoming more powerful in horror films, this was due to the rise in feminism, it appeared that women had begun to get sick of being represented as the hopeless, weak women who could not do anything for herself. Carol J Clover came up with the term ‘Final Girl’ in her book ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film’. The ‘Final Girl’ within horror films began to emerge – a girl who’s strength, intelligence and determination to live would develop throughout the entire film to ensure that she lived on until the very end. This ‘Final Girl’ would be able to outsmart and face up to the killer, but come close to her death several times – leaving the audience constantly on edge. Although this whole idea of female strength was appealing to many females, it is quite obvious that as the film develops this ‘Final Girl’ is actually slowly becoming more of a masculine figure than feminine, and the traits that they are giving her are typically male. They normally have quite a unisex name, such as Alex or Billie to emphasise the idea that they are not like a typical girl.

In the 1950’s the first appearance of women as the ‘monster’ appeared with the film ‘Attack of the 50FT Woman’. This film is about an abused wife who grows to a giant size after an alien encounter, who then uses this to her advantage and goes after her cheating husband, destructing anything in her path. The idea of women as monsters/killers was not very popular, as it was very different to the conventions of horror films. In films where women are seen as the killer there is always a reason for it, in many horror films where women are the killer it is due to them seeking revenge on someone who has either done wrong by them or done wrong by society. A more recent film called Hard Candy (2005) is about a teenage girl who lures a paedophile into his doom and kills him, in some kind of retribution for the people whom he has hurt and killed.

Shutter Poster Analysis

Shutter is a 2008 American remake of the 2004 Thai horror film of the same name. The remake was directed by Masayuki Ochiai, and was released on March 21st, 2008. The film is about a newly wedded couple who are moving from New York to Tokyo due to the husbands new job there as a photographer. While travelling the wife runs over a woman in a thin dress (despite the freezing weather conditions) then drives into a ditch, after becoming conscious again they discover there is no blood or body on the car or road and presume the person was alright and leave. They later start finding orbs in all their photographs and then find out that they are being haunted, but not just by anyone, by the husbands ex. We discover that the ghost is seeking revenge on him and two of his friends due to some horrible things they done to her. At the top of the poster we see the text “From executive producers of ‘The Grudge’ and ‘The Ring’” this is a unique selling point for this film as these films mentioned were both very successful and popular. This means that people who have seen and loved either of this films will be more likely to go and see them at the cinema. The tagline for the film is situated at the lower right of the poster just above the title, this says “The most terrifying images are the ones that are real”. This gives away to the audience that the film has a lot of images and photography involved. The title is pretty simple, it is the word ‘Shutter’ capitalized at the bottom right of the poster. All the text on this poster is in a bright white colour, this could connote the flash from a camera or the presence of a ghostly spirit. There is a main image in the center of the poster, but around the outskirts of the image it ranges between 3 different colours: green, black and red. The green is very dark and connotes decaying and rotting, perhaps of a body or happiness, or even sanity. The black represents death and dying, and the darkness of revenge and lies. The red represents murder, the spilling of blood and once again death. Over the image there are a lot of lighter spots and folds, this gives of the impression that the images are aged and damage, and the white spots could be a ghostly presence. The main image on the poster is made up of lots of smaller images, this is intertextual to the name of the film and the idea of photographs being used within the film. The images have all been cleverly arranged to display a ghostly, skull-like face in the center of the image, with a blacked out eyes and mouth. The use of a scary yet clever image on the poster is good for gaining the audiences attention and making it more appealing to people who are fond of horror films. There is conventionally a website displayed in a clear font at the very bottom of the poster so that people can find out more about the film, for example the release date as this particular poster unconventionally does not display the release date.

Orphan Poster Analysis

Orphan is a horror film that was released in 2009 as a psychological thriller, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. The film is based on a couple who have recently been trying for a baby but after the death of their unborn child they decide to adopt a mysterious nine year old girl. The poster for this film itself is not at first obviously frightening like most horror posters you see. It is quite conventional for a horror poster to use a gory or terrifying image on their poster as it is more likely to intrigue the audience into the happenings within the film and what is causing all the trouble. Despite not covering these conventions I believe that this poster is still very powerful in portraying a feeling of fear and wonder into the audience. The image used is a split screen, so that each side is completely identical to the other so that the girl looks completely perfect and mirrored. Use of children within horror films has become increasingly popular, especially with the children being the problem/villain. The main subject of this poster is the young girl – Esther – perfectly positioned in the middle of the frame with not a hair out of place. The use of children as the villain is very unnerving for adults due to the fact that adults – especially ones who are parents themselves – expect to be in charge of children and be able to stop them getting into mischief and danger. The idea of a child being able to cause such grief that they can’t stop or control and potentially bringing death upon them appears terrifying to the adults. Another reason why it is so terrifying for both adults and children is that in horror films it is bad enough when a member of the audience can relate to one of the victims of the killer, but when they can relate to, or are bringing up someone who relates to the psycho killer in a film it will put the audience on edge and make them begin to fear for their own life. This is why I think the main image on a whole from this poster is very powerful when it comes to unnerving the audience. The text at the top of the poster states in capitals ‘THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ESTHER’ this and the child’s devilish look just below the text connotes that she is bad news and immediately makes the audience question her sanity and what she is capable of. Her eyes are definitely a main focal point of this image as they are completely blackened out, black eyes connote the demon and a paranormal presence. The red choker around her neck could connote the need to choke or shed her blood. The title of the film is presented in a way in which it looks as if it has been handwritten by a child, this is intertextual to the idea of the film – as it revolves around children. The title is in white so that it stands out from the image of the girl, but the edges of it look blurred and gives the impression of orbs that can connote paranormal presence. At the bottom of the poster there is the text ‘Can you keep a secret?’ It is in a red font – red connoting death, blood and hell. At the very bottom of the poster we see a list of logos and websites, along with a release date of the film. These are all very conventional symbols/text on a horror poster as they need to let the audience know who is making and or distributing the film and when it is coming out. The distributor and makers of the film are a unique selling point for the film as if they are a big well-known name more people will be likely to go and see the film.

Saw 2 Full Film Analysis

This film does not start how most horror conventionally begin, nor does it conform with Todorov’s theory of the Narrative Structure of horror films. Saw 2 begins with a gory scene of a man struggling to keep his own life in a timed trap, which then gruesomely shuts onto his face killing him instantly. This is shocking for a horror film as we expect it to start with soft scenes that tell a story that lead to the horrific events, the reason this film starts like this is because it is a sequel so is starting where the first one left off. Despite jumping straight into the gore and not giving the audience a beginning story to follow, the audience can still understand the concept of what is going on in the film without watching the first one. At the beginning of the film we still get an idea of 3 main characters that interact with each other, the main one being a police detective - Eric Matthews who starts of as hero and then becomes the victim at the end of the film. The other two main characters that he interacts with is his son, Daniel and a female co-worker who is helping him crack the case of ‘Jigsaw’. This is how the gruesome scene we are shown at the beginning of the film links back into the narrative of the story, shortly after we see Eric investigating the case of this man who has been killed by the trap. This is how the story starts to unfold as at this crime scene ‘Jigsaw’ has left a note for Eric saying ‘Look closer Detective Matthews’. Although reluctant at first Matthews then finds a clue that leads him to the whereabouts of Jigsaw. In between visiting the crime scene and figuring out the clue to the whereabouts of Jigsaw we see a scene of Detective Matthews and his son, towards the end of this clip they have a disagreement about something and Matthews then shouts at his son telling him to ‘go then’ (meaning back to his mothers rather than staying with him for longer). This is the last we see of his son until he is put in danger. Matthews goes with the SWAT team when they break into the hideout of ‘Jigsaw’ and find him attached to a life support machine (he is dying of cancer). It is here they discover that he has trapped 8 people in a house – including Matthews son and Amanda (a heroin addict from the first film). We soon discover that this house is more than just a trap, it also has a poisonous gas that after inhaled for a certain amount of time will cause people to bleed to death – a vital twist to the plot of the movie. They can see monitors of each room in the house and a timer, which is apparently counting down the time that the people inside have left. From here on we then get scenes switching from inside the house of trapped people and in Jigsaws hideout where the police and SWAT team are. We see several people in the house die/get injured as they try to retrieve the antidote that will stop them bleeding to death, the people watching the monitors also see this. These are a series of bad events that all link to the people trying to save themselves, the fear of death starts to turn some of them mad and this is when they turn against each other and there become conflict between the victims and they start killing each other. ‘Jigsaw’ has challenged Matthews to a game – in which all he has to do is sit and talks to him to have the safe return of his son. As the SWAT team are still watching the monitors and more people are getting caught in traps or getting killed by the other people in the house the safe return of Matthews son is seeming less and less likely so he lashes out and forces ‘Jigsaw’ to take him to the house. Him and the SWAT team break in to the house but fail to find anyone living as all of the alive people are in the basement and hidden parts of the house. Basements and small enclosed parts of houses tend to connote danger and fear, and evoke a tense suspense for the audience. There are two major twists that we find out towards the end of the film that shock the audience and keep them drawn into the film until the very end. The first twist that we discover is that all of the footage on the monitors were recordings and when they saw people dying they had actually died a few hours ago. They discover this twist when the SWAT team have already broke into the house and found nothing, leaving Matthews in the house on his own still searching for his son. It is at this point when Matthews is left alone in the house that we find out the other major twist in the film. The woman from the first film – Amanda – whom we presume is the assistant hero in the film as she is helping Matthews son survive in the house, is actually the co-villain. Whilst Matthews is looking for his son she attacks him with some form of tranquiliser and knocks him out, as he is waking up again he sees her leave and lock him in. The tape next to him that he proceeds to play tells him how she has been working with Jigsaw and will continue his work after he is dead. This is a very open ending to the film and once again is very unconventionally for a horror film. Most horror films tend to have a equilibrium at the end of them, creating closure and a final ending of the film where they know that the evil is gone/dead and that there is no more to worry about. The reason this film is set out this way is due to the fact that the creators of the film knew that they wanted to create another sequel, so to make it very likely that the audience of this film would want to go and see the next one they have ended it on a cliff hanger. This makes the audience want to know what is going to happen to all the people and want to know if Jigsaws devious plans will ever be finally stopped.

Sinister Trailer Analysis

The film of the trailer that I am looking at is called Sinister, it was released in 2012 and is a supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and was written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. The trailer starts of slightly unconventional to normal trailers, as it starts at a dark scene, with fast transitions between shots and a voice over which we presume it is from a news program. The voice over says “New Details today in the gruesome murders of a family found earlier this week.” During these vocals on screen we see a dark shot of a house – which we later see in the light – and some circled photographs of the family and a drawn picture of them, names underneath. This lets the audience know that something bad has already happened and leads them to believe that the person that plotted their death is still out there, leaving the audience with a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity. After a blacked out screen appears with the text ‘9 months later’ on it the trailer then begins to follow the conventional scheme of a Horror Trailer. It starts with soft scenes and establishing shots that introduce us to the main characters in the film and where it is that the film is set. Which we can see is a small community and the house is one story with an attic – which connotes a place where hidden terrors and secrets of the past could be kept. We get in total about 15 seconds of slow, soft, daylight scenes in which we see the family in their new home and hear in the voiceover them talking to each other having normal conversations. In the vocals here we hear the lead male say that the family had to move house because his ‘new story was here’, this makes the audience relate the idea of the deaths of the first family we are introduced too the lead males new story. We then get to a scene where the lead male and his wife are going to bed, which then leads us into a series of darker shots. The first dark shot is of the lead male going into the attic – once again connoting the idea of hidden secrets and fear – the man comes across a box filled with old film and a projector. Before he investigates this we get a screen come up with the text ‘From the makers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious’ on, this is a unique selling point as this were both very popular and well known films. He begins to play one of the tapes in the box and then we hear him say to himself ‘That’s the family that lived here’ – meaning the family that lived there before them. There are a lot of cuts from the lead males face and the images being projected onto the wall until there is a loud ambient screech and it quickly cuts from the image on the wall of the families death (being hung) and the lead male jumping in shock and fear. He then turns off the projector and it cuts to black, then when it comes back in the lead male is in a police station talking to a police officer about what he has found. This then leads to an investigation of what has happened and what all of this means by the lead male, until he finds out exactly what is causing it all and sees it within the films footage. Another screen comes up with the text ‘Once you see him’ on it while we are hearing the lead male talk to who we presume is some kind of psychologist who specialises in paranormal activity and introduces us to the killer ‘Bagoul’. We then get loud thuds and another screen coming up to say ‘Nothing can save you’. The scenes that we see after this all are in quite quick transitions that are getting faster as the trailer progresses and more events continue to happen. These events – although only seeing second snips of them – all have very jumpy and suspense building sounds and pictures in them, they are also all now shot in dark and eerie environments. We hear the lead male say to his wife as an voice over on the clips happening ‘Get the kids, pack the car, we have to leave here now.’ We then fade to a screen that looks like dissolving film and see the projector, still rolling but clicking as the film has finished. In these first 3 clicks the screen flashes black, then after every click has a tense, scary, 1 second piece of film footage to go with it. The clicking sound gets louder as these clips progress until it is a loud thud. It then gets to the point where we see a group of children sat on the floor in front of a screen that has a projected image on it, we instantly presume that these children are from the families that ‘Bagoul’ murdered. It then cuts to the lead males’ face that’s is looking at them looking distressed and scared, then when we cut back to the children and projector screen we see ‘Bagoul’ on the projection and the he jumps out from the left side of the camera into the actual scene, creating a very jumpy moment for the audience, this part is very conventional for a horror film trailer, to end with a bit that will make the audience remember it the most. With the loud noise that accompanies his appearance we then fade to a screen with the title of the film on. This is the first time we are actually told the title of the film (at the end of the trailer) this is for two reasons, the main one being is that the title will now stick in their head, as if it was shown at the start of the trailer the audience probably would have forgotten the title by the end. The other reason is that the audience then have to watch the entire trailer to then find out what it is they’re actually seeing clips from. We then get a dark image that looks like a blacked out figure quickly pop up onto the screen and then we see a website and other information for the film like social networking sites to involve a wide audience. We then see film dissolve, which relates back to the whole idea behind the movie itself and then the screen goes to black. This film follows the pattern of Levi-Stauss’ idea of binary opposites, for example in this film good vs evil. From the trailer we can already tell that some of the characters in this film are very conventional to what we expect to see within a horror film. There is a lot of use of children being the ‘possessed killer’ in this film, children are often used within horror films as the combination of their innocence and ability to kill is terrifying to the audience. Also as adults are so used to being in control and having power over their children the idea of children being able to have a hold over them and control or even kill them is really quite unnerving. From the trailer of this film we can also see that there is a person of authority – a police officer – who has no real power over the situation, a character type that is also often seen in these films.

Paranormal Activity 1 Trailer

The title is always shown at the end of the clip, this is so that the audience have to continue watching until the end to find out what it actually is and so that the title stays in the audiences memory.In the trailer we are not told who stars in the film because there are no big stars in it as it was a low budget film. The scenes that we saw in the trailer were the reactions of the audience who were previewing the film, and then from the actual film content it began with soft scenes and establishing shots to give us the idea of where it is and what is happening, then it leads to tense, suspense building scenes and then goes onto jumpy and scary scenes. There is no music used within the trailer, just ambient sounds to draw the view in and create atmosphere. The speed of editing at the start of the clip is quite slow, to first draw the viewer in, then the cuts progress to get quicker and quicker until they reach a sudden ending. On the very last frame of the trailer it is telling you how to get the movie shown in your area, or to ‘Demand it’ by following the link shown at the bottom of the screen. Event 1: Main male character is seen holding a video camera. Questions this leads to: What is he filming/hoping to film and why is he trying to film it? Event 2: Couple asleep in bed. Questions this lead to: What’s going to happen to them? Is there something in the house? Are they going to get hurt? Event 3: Light quickly swinging in the lounge. Questions this leads to: What has happened? Who or what has caused it? What they are going to do to protect their selves? Event 4: The flour that they had put on the floor has been moved and there are footsteps on the floor. Questions this leads to: Was it a ghost? What does it want with the people? Will it harm them? We do get a strong sense of narrative from this trailer, as it shows us the beginning and what they are trying to do a long with some of the events that happen throughout the film. The only thing we do not know is the ending, therefore leaving the audience wondering what does happen.From the trailer we do get a general gist of what happens in the trailer and it creates a good tense and eerie atmosphere.The typing at the beginning of the trailer begins to build suspense straight away, then the ambient sounds used create the creepy horror atmosphere and the dark scenes also do this, making us realise it is a horror genre straight away. I think the film is aimed at a late teenage audience to any age above depending on what genre of film they prefer. In this trailer we are seeing more footage of the audiences reactions to the film than the actual film footage, this would be a unique selling point for this film as it is showing the effects the film had on the other people and making the audience wonder what is happening in these scenes. ‘Paranormal Activity is one of the scariest movies of all time.’ By ‘bloody disgusting’ a horror movie review website. ‘Genuinely Horrifying’ by ‘film threat’ another online critic website. ‘The entire auditorium was freaked out of their minds.. people were physically shaken.’ By Dread central. This gives us an idea that the target audience for this film would be people that would want to be scared, and enjoy being scared, typically the people who would watch this film would also maybe be fans of other supernatural horror films such as the Haunting in Connecticut and Amityville Horror

The history of horror films from aimeebpreham