Let me in Analysis

Let Me In 
The movie that we watched is called ‘let me in’ it is a horror film from 2010 set in In Los Alamos, New Mexico, it features famous actors Chloe Grace Mortez and Richard Jenkins, from the start the movie is more of a mystery sub-genre but in my opinion that changes further on in the film to a vampire film as we discover the girl is actually a vampire, from the first scene of the police man talking to the person in the hospital bed (who you can’t see properly) you assume it is a crime thriller of some sort, you then assume he jumps out of the window and you just want to watch more to find out the back story of why this person has just killed themselves and left a note saying ‘I’m sorry Abby’, it makes you want to know who Abby is.

I think this is different to traditional vampire films as you are on the side of the vampire rather than being on the side of the humans who are fighting the vampires.

This film doesn’t follow a traditional narrative structure as it starts off with the event and then you learn the location and characters rather than learning who everyone is and then the event taking place. I think the theory this links to the most is Todorov’s theory.  The structure of this film is different to most as it starts at the middle of the film and then goes back in time and then reaches this point and then continues, I have seen this in some films however I think it is quite rare but I think it worked well as it added extra edge to the film as you start learning all the characters and you try and put pieces together.

The setting and location of this film fits perfectly with the genre as it is in a remote location, most scenes are usually outside at night time which is perfect for a horror film. As previously said a lot of the film is at night(due to one of the main characters being a vampire) but when the movie is at day time it is very dark and dull, I think they do this to show how lonely and awkward the main character the young boy is. 

The film has a typical good VS evil theme  however because you are placed on the side of the vampire it challenges our notion of good vs. evil, as it is about the vampire and although she kills people for their blood you are kind of on her side and then the boy helps her as well rather than saving the man so it’s kind of like evil turning good evil but you think of Abby as good as she is young and looks innocent- this goes with the typical female stereotype in society- the girl being innocent and then too weak to get her own blood hence why she gets the man to kill people for her and gets angry at him when he doesn’t and says “what am I supposed to do it myself”. However the boy in this film although goes with the typical “quiet boy who gets bullied stereotype, I feel he challenges the stereotype and he comes out of his shell throughout this film and I think Abby is the reason for this, Such as when she tells him to hit back at the bullies and he does, I think she does this because she knows they will be together like the previous man who was a boy when he fell in love with her and she needs him to be strong so he can look after her, carry her around( as you see in the last scene) and kill people for her just like the other man.

I feel like the whole audience challenges the traditional narrative as everyone ends up rooting for Abby who is the vampire who kills people and would usually be the ‘baddie’ in a film. This film is quite an airy film and there isn’t much sound perhaps to add to the awkwardness of the boy and to add to the intensity of the killing scenes and the girl. 

The representation of women in horror films

I am writing about how women are represented in the horror films House of Wax, Wrong Turn, Scream and The Crazies. I have chosen these films as I think at least 2 of them support the female theories about films such as the male gaze theory and the final girl theory. I have watched all of these films recently and they are all on YouTube if I need to re watch a scene. I am writing this essay to see how relevant and true the theories we learn about are in horror films and how women are represented.

The film House of Wax is an American- Australian horror film from 2005 it is about a group of teens who become victims to a set of twins who kill/kidnap people and turn them into wax figures in their house of wax and the fight for their lives brother and sister (also twins) Carly and Nick go through while all their friends become victims to the twisted twins, another film I will be looking at is Wrong Turn from 2003 which is about Chris Flynn crashing into a group of 20ish year olds after their car tyres get burst with barbed wire in a cut through the forest as the main road is traffic jammed the story follows them being hunted down by a group of inbred cannibals, Scream is a 1996 thriller about a masked killer who starts killing off teenagers and  Sydney’s fight as friends become victims to the masked killer and The Crazies is a 2010 apocalyptic style horror about a disease that turns people into viscous killers as it follows Sheriff and his pregnant wife who are not only trying to escape the disease but also from the government who are trying to kill everyone in the town.
Laura Mulvey’s theory ‘the male gaze’ suggests that women in movies are just an object of a man’s desire; they get put in certain clothes- tight and small or very minimal, the camera angles on them will be mainly body parts- legs boobs etc. and they will either die or be saved by the male hero in the film. This theory is supported in House of Wax as the female characters wear tight tops and a scene in House of wax features Paris Hilton stripping down into her underwear and then being chased by the killer, the camera focus’ on her The crazies doesn’t apply to the male gaze theory as the main woman is a wife so therefore older in her 30’s and pregnant and the other girl in it is younger, a bit more innocent and wears patient clothes and the deputy’s jacket for the majority of when she’s in the film. Wrong turn uses male gaze as all the female characters wear tight tops with low cleavages on show, one of the women characters is shown performing a sex act just before she ventures into the forest and is murdered brutally. Scream follows the male gaze theory in the fact that the woman at the start is home alone and is being chatted up my the killer on the phone, then in my opinion doesn’t really follow it much more as the other girl isn’t too sexually dressed and is a virgin right up until the end however her best friend does dress in a short skirt. 

Carol J Clover, born in July 31^st 1940, is an American professor of film studies who published the book ‘men, women and chainsaw’s: gender in the modern horror film’ in 1992 which featured the well-known theory ‘final girl theory’, the final girl theory suggests that if a woman character is to survive to the end of the film she has to be a virgin, not smoke or drink alcohol and not wear provocative clothing, be educated and have a unisex name. My chosen films don’t really fit the final girl theory except House of wax as although she is dressed in tight clothing and has a boyfriend at the start you don’t she isn’t seen being sexual with her boyfriend unlike Paris Hiltons character who then goes on to get murdered, she also discuss’ going to start a new job and she fights back and although her name is Carly it can be shortened down to Carl. The final girl theory doesn’t apply to Wrong Turn as although a female character survives till the end, her name being Jessie isn’t unisex, she wears tight clothing and there is no mention of education. The Crazies’ Judy is a lot older than the others being married and pregnant, she spends most of the film in patient scrubs, being rescued by her husband and her name is Judy although she is well educated as she is a doctor and she almost sacrifices herself for a younger girl so she is brave. In scream the film girl theory applies up until the end as she is a virgin until towards the end, also her name is Sydney which is unisex, she doesn’t dress provocatively and she fights back from killer.

After people started realising that all films would portray women in a sexual, degrading, weak way and the only females that would survive in films would be if they were virgins or if they were saved by the male, films began to change- although some still follow these theories most are more diverse with who survives and how the females are portrayed, this is most likely due to a public outcry from feminists as these theories are sexist and degrading.

Jeremy Tunstall is a theorist who believes that all women in films are represented in four main ways; Domestic, Consumer, Sexual and Marital, for example women are shown as either busy housewives, mothers, sexual objects or shoppers. This is applicable on slightly to some of my chosen films- The Crazies has the pregnant wife as a martial figure as not only is she pregnant she protects and looks after the younger female character. House of wax shows Paris Hilton as the sexual object however none of the four roles fit Carly as she is educated and this isn’t one of the categories, again the main female doesn’t fit the film Wrong Turn as she isn’t particularly any of them however one of the other female characters fits the sexual object, this is the same in Scream.

To conclude, I agree with both the Male Gaze theory and the Final Girl theory as both are obvious and relevant in most horror films, women are sexual objects who will die if they wear provocative clothing- this happened in 3 of the 4 horror films I looked at, all but The Crazies however this doesn’t follow that sort of story line so therefore doesn’t fit either theories.  House of Wax agreed with these theories the most as Paris Hilton dies right after she does a strip tease (filmed with shots on her body parts Male Gaze) she then is chased whilst wearing nothing but her red lacy underwear and a flimsy jacket and is killed- we also know prior to this she thinks she is pregnant therefore not being a virgin so she would ever have fit he Final Girl criteria’s. So therefore I think the Male Gaze and Final Girl theories are both relevant in horror films and I agree with both of them. 

History of Horror

The Crazies Analysis

The Crazies

The Crazies is an American Thriller released in 2010 directed by Breck Eisner, it is a remake of the 1973 film, the film stars successful actor Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. The movie is set in a fictional town Ogden Marsh in Lowa, known as the ‘friendliest place on earth’, the movie follows Olyphant as the Sheriff and Mitchell as his pregnant wife, their town becomes accidently infected with the ‘Trixie’ virus after a plane carrying the substance crashes in a lake whilst on its way to be incinerated- the lake that happens to be the towns water supply, the virus turns the infected into unaware serial killer zombie types after 48 hours, the sheriff discovers this and asks the mayor to turn the water supply off- he objects however the Sheriff does it anyway. The army then start taking people and splitting up the infected and the non-infected, the sheriffs and his wife get separated however the Sheriff rescues her and the story is following their survival and fight, other characters are with them such as the deputy who saves their lives as he mentions however becomes infected so sacrifices himself and a young girl ‘Becca’ who works with ‘Judy’ the wife, she is a weaker character as she is only a teenager and gets killed by the savages they come across, the sheriff and his wife are the last standing until the very end when not only they would have radiation poisoning from the nuclear bomb that blows their town up (ordered by the government yet covered up) as they enter a new town we are informed that it will all happen again so we assume they will die.

The Crazies does follow Todorov’s theory if you get rid of the start and end of the film as it begins with a ‘2 days later’ clip and ends with a cliff-hanger however because of these parts it doesn’t follow the classic Hollywood structure.  Lots of Propp’s character types can be identified in this film; hero- Sherriff as he rescues wife and is at alive at the end of the film, Donor/Helper- Deputy as he helps the Sherriff through the majority of the film yet when he discovers he is infected he sacrifices himself in order to save the Sherriff and his wife, Princess/ Father- Wife as she is the wife of the hero however she almost sacrifices herself for her young friend and in my opinion the villain is a number of people- the infected, the army and the baddie gang killing people for fun however there is no major villain.

The binary oppositions in this film could be sanity/insanity, monster/human, military/ civilian, day/night, healthy/unhealthy. The male gaze theory isn’t really relevant in this film as the main woman in the film is pregnant and although does need saving she almost sacrifices herself to protect the younger girl who also isn’t objectified sexually in any way as she is always covered over and although she dies she doesn’t support the final girl theory either as although she does have a boyfriend- who dies, she doesn’t have sex, or do drugs or drink alcohol and the final girl in a sense doesn’t either as we know she’s not a virgin as she’s pregnant, she also is the classic blonde beauty in a film- who would normally have died.  

This movie done well having made an estimated $50 million worldwide by May 2010 probably as this film is what the general public love- a jumpy thriller with gore and a fight for survival. I really like this film; I liked the jump scares throughout as it keeps you on the edge of your seat, I liked the storyline- the fight for survival and how there wasn’t really a point in the film when they was safe, there was always something going wrong or there was a threat to them and I also liked the ending as I thought all the characters would’ve died however the cliff hanger could lead you into thinking they are going to die anyway or it was sequel bait however a sequel was never made.  

Halloween Anaylsis

Halloween (1978)

Halloween is an American slasher film directed by John Carpenter in 1978, with an unknown actress making her debut as their lead, this movie plummeted Jamie Lee Curtis into her successful movie career. The film is set on Halloween in 1963 in a fictional remote town in Illinois, the movie starts with a POV shot of someone peering through windows and then entering a house and getting a knife out of the kitchen draw, when then follow this character as they hide from the young adult couple fooling around and then going into the bedroom, the boy is then seen leaving when the POV character then going upstairs and selecting clown costume pieces such as a mask, we then see the women naked on her dressing table when this character we are following stabs her to death, the person then goes outside and is confronted by his parents- at this point we learn that this murderer is 6 year old Michael Myers, the film then skips to 15 years later when he escapes from a mental asylum and returns to his home town and proceeds to stalks our main character Laurie Strode and her friends- going on to kill all of her friends and tries to kill Laurie who fights back and survives, at the same time Michael’s psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis is tracking down Michael as he knows what he is capable of and is scared for the safety of others as he says in the film “I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil.”

This film briefly follows the Todrov’s classic narrative structure, with a brief equilibrium at the start and a hard choice on which is the actual event of the film either when Michael kills his sister or when he escapes the mental asylum, in my opinion the event is when Michael kills his sister however others believe the event is when he escapes.

This film supports the ‘Final girl theory’ with Laurie not being like her friends who end up being killed- she dresses like a 30 year old woman, she doesn’t wear makeup, doesn’t go out, doesn’t have sex or even want to go to a dance with a boy and most importantly fights the serial killer and wins- she is boyish and a virgin supporting this theory and also makes her androgynous. This film also has a ‘reactionary sexual agenda’ meaning if you have sex, take drugs or drink alcohol you die, however our ‘final girl’ Laurie is seen doing drugs previously in the film which challenges this but the fact that her friends die whilst having sex supports this. This film follows the male gaze theory in a way as one of the female characters who dies is naked, she is sexually objectified and then killed (also supporting the final girl theory).

This movie created the ‘slasher’ film trend- a sub-genre of the horror genre, a horror film that is about a serial killer, Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Hell night as well as many others followed, this was because they were cheap to make and didn’t need known actors and people enjoyed them- Halloween grossing $47 million at the box office and $70 million worldwide an equivalent to $250 million as of 2014, a lot considering the film had a budget of $300,000 which was considered a lot at the time, Halloween is one of the most profitable independent films.

The four plot rules of a slasher film which Halloween began are, a traumatic event in the past which creates a psychopathic killer, the killer then returns to the site of the event-usually a specific date, the killer stalks a group of teenagers and kills them and then the final girl survives. This film’s iconography is innocence- right from the start as the killer Michael is only a small child and he is dressed up for Halloween as a clown and Laurie being a virgin.

I didn’t like this film that much as I didn’t really understand the concept of Michael creeping on this particular group and then killing them yet not dying himself, I did like the jumps cares however the storyline didn’t really do much for me in my opinion.