Questions for Questionnaire

These questions were decided by our whole group. To see the results and analysis, click here. 

1. How old are you?



2. What is your gender?



3. What is your favourite genre?



4.What sort of endings do you like when watching films?



5. What sort of characters do you prefer?



6. What was the last film you enjoyed?



7. What is your occupation?



8. Who do you usually watch films with?

Representation Quiz

1. Who wrote about the “final girl” in 1992?

The term ‘Final Girl’ was coined by Carol J. Clover in the book she wrote:  ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film’.

2. In what book did they write about the “final girl”?

As said before, Carol J. Clover’s book is called ‘Men, Women, and Chainsaws’.

3. List three traits of the “final girl”/three ‘conventions’.

-Sexually inactive, a.k.a virginal.

-The one who [usually] kills the enemy.

-The last surviving member of a group of peers.

4. Who wrote about existing research on women’s roles in media texts in 1983?

It was Jerry Tunstall.

5. What were the 4 roles mentioned?

-Sexual

-Domestic

-Martial

-Consumer

6. In 1992 research showed that men dominated women on-screen, but by what ratio?

Women were outnumbered by men with the ratio 2:1.

7. What was the only genre in which the ratio of males to females was more equal?

It was prime-time TV advertisements.

8. Name one of the three problems with the findings?

The male roles were mostly given an occupation whilst the women usually had a domestic role.

9. Why does the reading suggest that Ripley (Alien) is ‘more progressive’ than Lara Croft (TR)?

Lara Croft was designed and represented by men and sexualised for a male audience.

10. What are the 3 ‘C’s when discussing the portrayal of women in some lifestyle magazines?

Cooking, Cleaning and Caring.

11. Who wrote Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema?

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was written by Laura Mulvey.

12. (Briefly) describe what is meant by the ‘male gaze’

The ‘male gaze’ is a term used to describe close-ups and point of view shots for heterosexual males to show that they are dominant.

13. Give an example

In ‘The Cabin in the Woods’: the sex scene in the woods with Curt and Jules.

14. Which magazine removed the male centrefold in the 1980s and why?

Cosmopolitan- Women thought it was funny and not sexy.

Similar Texts- Frankenstein (Gothic Horror)

How is this similar?

In Frankenstein, a monster is born from science, with the punishment of him having various mental and physical defects. A scientist called Frankenstein created a human which was deemed against god, thus giving the monster his label and his ugly appearance. In our film, science is used to religions advantage (to make the children more religious) but the experiments went wrong that now the children are murderous and evil.

What can we take from this trailer?

Not much can be said. The trailer is so dated that the conventions of a horror trailer has changed. Narration on the trailer was good though, so there is a chance we could use actual dialogue from the trailer as a voice over, perhaps the mother of one of the children.

The Representation of Women in Relation to The Cabin in the Woods(Goddard, 2012)

1. What were Jeremy Tunstall's 4 character roles for women and do they apply to The Cabin in the Woods?

In 'The Cabin in the Woods', the last character introduced to us that the (person who sleeps around with people) 'whore' dies first (in this case, Jules dies first), then followed by the others who include:

The Scholar (Curt) Curt is smart and brave. He is also very cultured.
The Athlete (Holden) Holden is somewhat good at sports, as suggested when he catches the football earlier in the film.
The Fool (Marty) Marty smokes pot and is irresponsible. He is also very unaware of situations, or at least the others think he is unaware or being dramatic.
and The Virgin (Dana) 

According to the film, the gods care not for the order in which they die, but they want the virgin to survive until the end, and then the gods decide whether Dana lives or dies.

2. How is Dana typical of Clover's 'Final Girl' theory? Please mention: the ending; Dana's appearance and her actions during the film.

During the film, Dana is involved with some relations with Holden, though she never decides to actually fully engage in sexual intercourse. At the ending, the Director mentions that Dana is the Virgin and that Marty must die, which leaves Dana the last to live, but Dana and Marty do end up overcoming the Director, though then she sits with Marty to foresee the end of the world. Dana's appearance is a little androgynous, wearing Jeans with the slight feminine shirt. Most of her skin is covered and she doesn't really show any parts of her body that can be sexualised etc.

3. Jules undergoes mental and physical transformations during the film, what are they and how do they cause her to become a horror archetype?

Jules' hair product (to dye her hair blonde) had been drugged by the scientists, and the drugs make her less intellectual. This is so she suits the typical stereotype of a 'blonde bimbo', as the drugs have made her less smart.

4. Is Mulvey's Male Gaze theory exemplified in the film and if so, how? Think about framing, camera angles and POV shots.

Yes, I think it is exemplified in the film because of how the cameras make the relation between the audience and the scientists, which builds the bond between us and the POV of the scientists. Also, when the male is shown on screen, the camera usually has a lower angle looking up at the guys, and usually a more level camera for the female characters. This also shows us that the men are the more powerful of the genders in this film.

5. In the film we, as an audience, are made to be voyeurs; when does this happen and why is it important in regards to representation of character?

One particular scene is when Holden finds the one way mirror, and sees Dana undress. the whole concept of the scientist watching the group, trying to engage them into sexual action, and it's like the scientists are like the audience, so we relate to the scientists as being one of us, or us being one of them.

6. (Briefly) summarise the way women are represented in The Cabin in the Woods. Are they objectified and there to provide satisfaction for heterosexual males and/or do they fulfil another role/purpose?

I think that the film doesn't provide enough satisfaction to heterosexual males, as the film is, in my opinion, really gender-friendly. Though the film does sexualise Jules with Curt (which pleases hetero males), but I feel like that is a very small compared to the entirety of the film. The representation of Dana is (somewhat) the hero, and makes the representation of the women in this strong. Marty is actually the one to save Dana by not telling her there was a werewolf behind her.

Primary and Secondary Audiences

We have decided, for our primary audience, is to aim at the modern teenager, mostly female, aged between 16-20. This audience uses social media and are in a higher education. The social media aspect can help when advertising our movie and get our audience sharing about it. Our primary audiences watch popular TV shows, frequently have nights out and play on gaming consoles, have up to date technology and are also learning to drive.

Our secondary audiences are the middle class people who live in large populated area, aged 30 and older. People who read quality magazines and purchase higher quality products are also part of the secondary audience. These people also frequent restaurants and hotels. We also wanted to bring some of the gothic horror fans into our film, like fans of Frankenstein and Dracula.

Similar Texts- In the Flesh

In The Flesh is about the aftermath of an infestation. The series focuses more on the impact caused rather than the actual event.

In this series, we are introduced to a character who had been 'cured' from the infection. This trailer shows us how the infestation has affected the villagers, and it is seen that the now cured main character is not accepted too well in the village, but the main character has to try and deal with the people as well as his own demons.

How does this relate?

In our film, the scientists try and 'cure' the sins from the three children.

What can we take from this Trailer?

The use of cinematography is effective with establishing the characters, so some slow shots may be helpful when trying to establish our story and characters. The use of transitions between the slow shots (the fade in/out) can help with also building tension. Using this effectively can help build tension within our own trailer.

Similar Texts- The Island

The Island (2005) features a substantial amount of people who are to find out that they are clones of someone else, and that they only serve a purpose to hold spare body parts for their original counterparts. There is a lottery that allows the clones to move out of their containment and move to a paradise-like island, though the clones find out that they are 'disposable beings' and then our main character decides to try and do something about it.

How is this similar?

In our film, we have three children kept in strict conditions under a scientific purpose, but instead of our victims regaining consciousness and escaping, they decide to kill their way out because of the genetic experiments have made them think that everyone but themselves are sinners.

What can we take from the trailer?

I think we can take more of a narrative approach to what we could take from the film. The moral of The Island is that having disposable humans at hand that are locked up is wrong, and we should try and incorporate that into our own trailer because keeping children locked up and performing experiments is wrong too.

Similar Texts- The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) starts off with introducing the setting, and the enemy, which are the mutants.

The mutants are formed through too much exposure of radioactive materials. The mutants start off by attacking the three men on the testing site, leading to one of the victims to being stabbed and the other two victims to be slaughtered and then chained to the back of a car, which then drives away. Later in the film, it is known that the mutants do have some form of conscious, as they have some intelligence.

In our film, we have a similar type of mutant, though instead of having a being that has been exposed to radiation, we have chosen to use the more controlled option of having our killers to be genetically altered. Though radiation does this, we chose to have our modified genetics to be in lab, instead of an open nuclear testing site.

What can we take from this film trailer?

The trailer is somewhat slow to begin with, and I didn't feel like that the trailer was scary, though rather the editing is good with quick jump cuts and use of screen time for each shot. This is something to consider when making our trailer. I also found that the audio in the trailer was really effective, so that can also help us make an effective trailer.

Questionnaire and Results

​Survey summary

When asked their age we found that 66.67% of the people surveyed are between the ages of 16-20. This enables us to use this as our primary audience for our film trailer. This is the age range that we were targeting with our film trailer.  When asked for their gender 78.79% of people who responded to our questionnaire were female. This surprised us as the majority of the respondents said that they would watch our film, from our past research we found that the most likely candidate for horror films were teenage boys. Out of the 33 people surveyed 4 said they would not watch the film, however one stated that they don’t like horror and another stated that they do not watch horror/thrillers but they do like the sound of the plot. When asked about what types of endings that the candidates like for films 45.45% of the people surveyed stated that they like horrors open with no clear endings. This result from our survey enabled us to keep the ending open and making the audience want to know more. For question seven which was ‘What film did you last enjoy?’ all of the respondents put different films however they are all similar as they were all big blockbuster films. When asked what their occupation was 14 of the respondents were still in education and 8 of the respondents have job. When asked who they watched films with 17 of the respondents watched films with other people, including friends, partners and family. This enables us to consider a secondary audience with people who may not have chosen to watch this film but are watching it with other people. As most of the respondents were female this result supports past research that girls generally go to watch films with other people.

Genre

From the table above the most popular genre of film was comedy with 41.38% of the people surveyed ‘strongly agreeing’ with the genre choice. This was closely followed by action where 27.59% of the people surveyed stated that they ‘strongly’ agreed with this genre.  As we can see from the table above most people ‘strongly disagreed/ disagreed’ with the genres of romance and thriller. Even though this was said the majority of people would still watch our film based on the synopsis given at the start of the questionnaire.

Character types

From the table above we are able to establish that most people surveyed like the idea of a female hero and they like villains. Our lowest result was of a religious character and the princess. 

Overall people do want to watch our film and like the concept of the film. Most of the respondents wanted a female hero to star in the film and the respondents wanted the film to have no clear ending. 

FDA UK Distribution Guide and Questions on Film Distribution

What is meant by the term film distribution?

Film distribution is the selling of the film, and trying to sustain the film within the marketing process, being, keeping the film in the cinemas and have the film get a lot of advertising attention.

What does a film distributor do? 

The film distributors find a specific target audience, and then find out why and when the target audience would like to see the film. The film distributors also estimate the total budget of the film, and they also estimate how much the film would make in it's gross profit. The film distributor also builds relationships with other business to form partnerships and sponsors. One example, taking from the latest TMNT film release, Pizza Hut made limited edition pizzas in relation to the film. The pizzas had names based around the film, which in turn, helped advertise the film more successfully. The film distributors also try to make people interested in the film, which can be achieved through sponsorship as well. The film distributor also has to talk to the cinemas to let them show the film.

How does reach relate to film distribution? 

What is reach? Here's a brief description: " It is just the number of people who are exposed to the medium and therefore have an opportunity to see or hear the ad or commercial. Reach may be stated either as an absolute number, or as a fraction of a given population." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reach_(advertising)

So reach is the target audience the distributors are aiming at, and want those specific people to primarily watch it. In this case, yes, reach does relate to film distribution. When the distributors of the product are discussing the possible primary target audience, they must pick a certain type of person that fits the genre of their product. One example is horror film fans are typically stand-alone men or groupies. Frequency also comes into this, though the there is a correlation between the frequency and the amount of money it would cost. If most people are exposed to your product then it is more likely the person exposed will decide to invest their money into your product. 

What is meant by the distribution plan?

The distribution is the plan to of how to release the film to make the film as successful as possible. Sometimes timing can help boost numbers when coming to the theatrical release, though misuse of the system can break those numbers and in fact, decrease numbers. If the movie is about Christmas, the distributors will negotiate with the willing cinemas to show the film closer to the festive times, instead of in the summer time when the setting does not fit. Distribution plans also help set targets, like financial targets. This comes into play when the distributors also have to plan out trailers and advertising campaigns without going over-budget, and if used effectively, can also help boost numbers on movie viewing numbers (this also means to try and make the film stand out, and make the audience want to watch it, which creates competition between the different film distribution companies). 

What is meant by the marketing plan? 

The marketing plan is the physical materials of the marketed product in question, There are many ways to help market the product in any physical form. One popular choice of marketing is through posters advertising and marketing the film. There are a couple of poster types that can help advertise a film. One of them is a teaser poster which doesn't explain much about the film but shows that the film is in production. One other poster is the official release poster, which would be released more widely. Another form of teaser and official marketing strategies is through the medium of trailers, which serve the same purpose except the trailers are advertised through television or in cinemas or with any media based platforms, like YouTube. One other popular convention of marketing is through social media, having Facebook and Twitter accounts to advertise the film. This can help with publicity of the film because of how social media has recently become a mainstream product in itself.

What is the difference between advertising, publicity and promotion?

Advertising and promotion are almost one alike, though advertising tends to aim more directly at the consumer base, whereas promotion is to raise awareness of the new product or media without actually targeting the consumer-base directly. Advertising can also be used for giving a different meaning to something else. One example can be found here: http://www.marketingprofs.com/Faqs/showfaq.asp?ID=108&CatID=1

Publicity is when something is given attention from a form of attention. Taking 'The Woman in Black (2012)' as an example, Daniel Radcliffe appeared on talk shows and on the news to talk about the film, and the publicity act did not cost anything, but was broadcasted through popular media: (Skip to 7:26)

Find a teaser poster, teaser trailer, main poster and main trailer for a horror film and put them on your Blog – who was the distributor and in how many countries was it released? Can you find how many screens it was shown in on the opening weekend?

I have chosen Shaun of the Dead to research into. I found the following;

Teaser trailer for 'Shaun of the Dead':



Official Trailer:






The Box Office information was found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365748/business?ref_=tt_dt_bus

Audiences and Institutions: The Woman in Black (Watkins, 2012)

Using the marketing Prezi and knowledge of the film, answer the following questions;

Who do you think the primary and secondary target audience is for The Woman in Black? Why?

A primary target audience for The Woman in Black could be the adolescent male, as discussed in the 'Men, Women and Chainsaws'. The writer, Carol J. Clover, says that 4 out of five men rented this one horror movie, and "it's renters of both sexes were under the age of 25". This could be linked to the Woman in Black audience, as the film itself is rated a 12 from the BBFC and the trailers suggested the film was scary for that kind of audience.

A secondary audience could be from the Harry Potter franchise, with Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) advertised the film through videos and talk shows, trying to reel in a secondary audience to watch the film he was in. This was a great tactic because Daniel Radcliffe is known worldwide for the role he played in H.P and all the publication he gets helps advertise the film more. Another secondary audience can be people, maybe middle-aged, who are highly cultured (going to theaters and watching plays etc.). The reason for this is because the Woman in Black is also a book, and there was also a theatrical adaptation to the book. Also, there was also another Woman in Black film (1989) prior to the new release. The book of 'The Woman in Black' was also re-released with the film cover on the front of it, with Daniel Radcliffe, which helped the older existing audiences of the book be interested in seeing the film.

How was The Woman in Black marketed? (Think about genre(s), subgenre(s), media platforms, target audience, promotions, size of campaign, etc.).

The Woman in Black was marketed as a horror film, featuring ghosts and paranormal activities. The film was released in cinemas in major countries including the UK, Canada, USA and Australia. The film was then released on DVD and Blu-Ray, and was also put up for sale on iTunes as a downloadable film. Amazon also stocked the film in physical form, and entertainment shops like HMV stocked the film, also having promotional posters for the DVD releases. For the target audience, it was very large, having a wide range of people being targeted, (as stated above) like the Harry Potter fans, middle-class theatre goers and horror fans alike. The campaign for the film costed the production around half of the overall budget, which suggests the campaign for marketing the film costed around $7,000,000. 

Do you think the marketing materials for the film were appropriate? Why?

Most of the advertising was appropriate. There were well placed adverts and different backgrounds for websites, and Daniel Radcliffe advertising through social media and on national television. The trailers on the other hand, I felt were a little too inappropriate as the trailers built up too much suspense and causes most people to jump. As an example, a Harry Potter fan hears about the film and watches the trailer, though they don't like horror, the trailer could easily put the person off watching the film at all.

What kind of release did the film have? (Big/small? How many cinemas showed the film on its release?)

The film release was very large, especially for a horror film. Horror films average around 1,200 as a good release, but The Woman in Black (2012) [see below] had over 3,000 screens in the opening weekend. This was due to the large advertising campaign and Daniel Radcliffes appearances in the media to publicise the film.

How much did The Woman in Black cost to make? (Production budget) AND what was the industry impact of The Woman in Black? (Think box office and trends).

According to IMDb, The Woman in Black costed around $17m to make, but in the films first weekend, the Box Office broke $20 million, and reached around $25 million for the entire weekend of both the UK and USA. Here is the chart from the IMDb website.

Information found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596365/business?ref_=tt_dt_bus

The film made an overall box office of $127,730,736, according to the Wikipedia article.

Why do you think the film was so successful? (You must come up with at least two reasons).

Daniel Radcliffe- He is a worldwide known actor for his famous role as 'Harry Potter', but Daniel advertised his new film to existing Potter fans by showing on TV and Talk Shows, but also releasing videos on YouTube and social media platforms for younger audiences who also recognize Radcliffe.

The Advertising Campaign- The campaign was huge! The film had taken over some websites for a couple days, including The Sun, YouTube and newspapers. With so many media platforms, the advert was hard to miss, which lead to everyone wanting to see it because of how the film was 'hyped' and constantly talked about.

Narrative Theory in Relation to Halloween (John Carpenter,1978) and The Crazies (Breck Eisner, 2010) (Three Sections)

Section 1;

The term 'Classical Hollywood Narrative' means the overall structure of a Hollywood movie during the 1920s to early 1960s. According to the Wikipedia article about Classic Hollywood Narrative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Hollywood_cinema), the story has a structure of beginning, middle and end, with a direct conclusion to the end of the story, meaning no cliff-hangers, and the story was explainable in a reasonable fashion. One theorist, Tzvetan Todorov, who came up with the theory called the "Todorov Theory". Todorov came up with a small chart showing how a film works, using the term "equilibrium" and "disequilibrium", and it goes a little like this chart shows:

(Chart made by me, information from Narrative Theory handout, used similar chart design from the handout. Picture of Todorov found here: http://www.yenra.com/quotations/tzvetan-todorov.jpg)

The usefulness of the 'CHN' helps us a lot with defining a story and following along with the narrative with ease. This is also helpful when trying to define certain characters, like in a Fairy-Tale movie, it helps to define who the villain is, who the hero is and shows us how the hero will defeat the villain. CHN can also be used for understanding media text for the same reasons, as again, we can see who is good or bad etc. Unfortunately, Halloween does follow this CHN (Todorov's Theory) but then Halloween decides not to kill Michael Myers, the main villain of the franchise. As the writers did not want Michael Myers to die, it disobeys the new normal equilibrium, and the story does not end, leaving the story unfinished, ready for more sequels and ultimately getting the viewer to want to see the next Halloween film, which this works to help sell more at the box-office etc.

Vladimir Propp, a Russian folklorist and scholar, decided to analyse hundreds of Russian folk tales to see whether the stories follow a basic narrative structure. Propp was able to identify 8 different (main) character roles and also found 31 narrative structures within these folktales. The character roles consist of:

The Hero- The main protagonist, usually being the winner over the villain.

The Villain- The 'baddie'... usually creates disequilibrium.

The Donor- Provides the hero with a weapon/object with magical property

The Helper/Sidekick- The person who aids the hero (sometimes being the Donor as well)

The Princess- The 'reward' for the hero, and usually the ransom for the villains schemes

The Father (of said Princess)- Who rewards the hero, usually with the princess

The dispatcher- Who sends the hero on their quest.

The False Hero- The double-agent... ends up hindering the hero instead of helping the hero.

The usefulness of this theory helps us analyse and decipher the different character roles more easily, as most films follow this rule, with the exception of a few characters missing. The film Halloween features some of these characters. The villain being Michael Myers, as suspected early in the film. The main hero is Laurie as she ends up surviving Michael's attacks, even though Myers is now on the run. The Donor is not found in the film Halloween as the actual story of Halloween is more surreal than it is fairy-tale. The Princess, Father and Dispatcher are also absent in this film, unlike the Helper/Sidekick. The helper can be shown as the two children that help Laurie to try overthrow Michael, but end up calling for help as requested by our hero. Another helper could be the doctor of Michael Myers, as he stops Michael from killing Laurie by shooting Myers several times. There is not really a False Hero, but Laurie's friend Annie comes into this category slightly, as Annie is an irresponsible friend who smokes and does everything Laurie would not really do.

Binary opposition is the contrast between Good and Evil, Dead or Alive etc. Basically two things that are the exact opposite to each other. This theory was thought up by Claude Levi-Strauss, who talked about how everything has a binary opposition, like exampled above. Binary opposition is useful in media texts to help the viewer understand who is good/bad etc, which helps the audience to follow on with the story, make story predictions and be engaged in the film. 

I will now list 5 binary oppositions seen in Halloween.

Good/Evil- Laurie being good and Michael Myers being "pure evil".

Sources: http://wiki.halloweenmovies.com/images/5/5f/Laurie_Strode_Halloween_1978.jpg

http://wiki.halloweenmovies.com/images/1/15/Michael_Myers_Halloween_1978.jpg

Responsible/irresponsible- Laurie being responsible and Annie being irresponsible.

Death/Life- Dead teenagers laid out on the bed and hung in the room while Laurie is investigating.

Child/Adult- Laurie takes responsibility and tells the kids to run and find help while she tried to mind 'dead' Myers

Virginal/Sexually Active- Laurie being a 'virginal girl' and her friends being sexually active.

Bordwell and Thompson as they are most famously known, came up with a theory of "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space." What this means is that when we watch films, we link different events to make the film more understandable to us. We link flashbacks/flash-forwards to certain characters who are involved with the flashbacks, we also link replayed action and also slow motion moments. Connecting several scenes together in the movie, the viewer will also try make sense of the situation at hand, coming up with conclusions etc. This is useful in media texts as it helps the viewer fully understand who, what, when, where, why and how. We can use this in several ways to decipher a film to make a full understanding of it. One example of this cause-effect theory in work is when Laurie runs away and Michael Myers chases Laurie to try and kill her. Myers chasing Laurie is the effect of Laurie running away, by the cause of Myers wanting to kill her. Another cause effect situation is when Laurie tells the children to run outside to call for help, ultimately leading the Doctor of Myers into the house to help Laurie when she is being attacked. Two events end up having an effect, though we don't see the events happening. One of them being when Myers runs away after getting shot and falling off the balcony. We don't see this happen, but the next scene is different shots of the places Myers has been in the film with his heavy breathing over the top, implying Myers ran away. Another event that we don't see but we know about is Myers setting up the dead bodies in the room of Annie's house. This then causes Laurie to scream and run after seeing the bodies, but we don't see when the bodies were set up like they were in the bedroom.

Section 2;

How does the start exemplify a common technical code of the horror genre?

The start of Halloween consists of Low Key lighting, high pitched parallel music to build suspense. A P.O.V of Michael Myers, and ambient sounds that can be hear like bushes rustling.

How does the setting fit the horror genre?

The story is set in a small town where everyone knows each other, and the towns history. Creepy abandoned house is introduced and strange sightings from our main character, Laurie. Most of the story is set at night on the day of Halloween, where kids dress up as ghosts and ghouls.

What iconography of 'innocence' do we hear or see early on?

When Myers kills his sister, you can hear her scream, but women are usually seen as delicate and innocent. Also when Myers' mask is taken off, he is just a child with a trick or treat outfit on, and an innocent look on his face.

What was the main industry impact of Halloween?

Halloween was a huge success, though the film budget was very low, the popularity lead to the films studio making large profits. Halloween was a simple film to make, and it didn't require too much money to make.

Name some slasher films that followed on from Halloween.

Friday the 13th Pt.1 and Pt.2, Prom Night, Terror Train, Bloody Valentine, Night School, The Burning, Graduation Day, Happy Birthday To Me, Hell Night, The Slayer, The Prowler, and more. The films listed all came out in a couple of years span. (1979-1981)

What are the four plot rules of the Slasher film sub-genre which Halloween began.

1. A traumatizing experience that created the main psychopath killer, in this case, Myers' doctor mentions Myers was born evil, thus having no remorse for his actions.

2. The killer returns to the site of the event, usually on a specific date which allows the film directors etc. to use a name like Halloween or Friday the 13th. In this case, Myers returns to his old house where he murdered his sister and begins to kill on the same night.

3. The killer stalks and graphically kills a group of obnoxious and stupid teens of both sexes, usually with a blade, sometimes a gardening/farming equipment. In Halloweens case, Myers has a large kitchen knife.

4. A 'final girl' survives. The final girl is usually tomboyish/virginal, and she tries to overcome the killer, though the killer never really dies. In this case, Laurie is the girl who survives because of how reliable and organised she is, and how she is unlike her irresponsible friends.

Give three ways in which Laurie is androgynous.

Laurie is presented formally, usually revealing little body skin, and staying closed off in a fashion sense.

Laurie is responsible. She babysits two children and takes action into her own hands, and she tries to kill Myers more than once. She even cares about her work, and wants to go back to get her school work.

Laurie's name is also unisex, and can be used to call both boys and girls.

What does the extract mean by "a reactionary sexual agenda"? 

Because Laurie does not follow the norms of a typical female, as she is tomboyish, she is reactionary to the typical female, thus she doesn't really follow any of the stereotypes women are given, unlike her friend Annie who is sexually active and only cares about herself and sex. This leads to Laurie surviving

How does the director, John Carpenter, counter the suggestion that Halloween had a reactionary sexual agenda?

John Carpenter uses the sex in the film as a distraction for the teenagers. John basically said the teens were not ready for an attack because of how they were distracted by each-others presence. Because Laurie was not sexually active, she survives, and people speculated that John Carpenter was only killing off the characters because they were having sex, but he says the sex was only to make the teenagers not pay attention.

Why does Mike Myers kill his sister?

Why not? Myers' doctor explains that Myers was born pure evil, and that all the therapy could not stop him from being pure evil.

Section 3;

Does 'The Crazies' follow the CHN? Why or why not?

In a sense, yes, but the film shows the new Equilibrium before it shows the normal one, though I think this is used to build suspense in the film, and get the viewer to think about how it happened.

How many of Propp's character types can be identified in the film?

The hero; The sheriff of the main town in question.

The Sidekick/False Hero; The Deputy helps through the film, but turns slightly crazy, before coming round forced upon by the Sheriff, and then helps the Hero again.

The Princess; In some sense, this isn't applicable, though the villain is absent, The hero still has to save the Princess from the Army and escape with her.

The Dispatcher; the sheriff himself, as he stumbles upon the plane and then takes action into his own hands.

The Villain; somewhat, is the government/army. They cause the Disequilibrium, though by accident.

List five examples of binary oppositions in the film and explain them briefly.

Sane/insane; the sheriff and the crazies

Good/evil. Normal human to spreading 'virus' 

Sheriff/Deputy; How the sheriff's role is much more important than the Deputy's.

Military/Public; Military have much more power to detain and order the general public.

Prey/Predators; in a metaphorical sense, the Sheriff and his group are the prey, and there are two predators, the infection and the military. 

Identify the three 'durations' and give an estimate of the time each duration covers.

Looking for the plane in the lake- The time looking for the crashed plane must have taken 2-3 hours from traversing the forest and getting the boat.

Being walked around by the deputy- 2 hours tops. Being forced to walk around while the Deputy points a gun at the Sheriff and his wife.

Getting to the new city. Taken probably a few days in a montage, change of clothes and locations, large fields, suggest a long distance.

Give two examples of events that cause later events in the film, but which occurs before the film 'starts'.

The development of the biological weapon and the transfer of it.

The plane crash. Causes the people to go crazy by the chemical transfer through the water.

When and where the water is drunken/received

List two events from the 92 minute film that happen in a different time and space to the one we are shown.

The ending. The two end up in a new place, but the military believe that the two may be infected, which in turn, makes the whole thing happen again (the contamination protocol).

The infection spreading from the two main characters, as opposed to the water supply being the speader.

Horror Character Analysis- Xenomorph from the Alien Franchise

Source of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(creature_in_Alien_franchise)

Gorenography Powerpoint- Millie and Roisin

Gore returns with a vengeance from rozzachu

DISTINCT- 15/09/2014