SLASHER GENRE Character Archetypes

Scream Queen
The first character I will be discussing is the 'scream queen'. This stereotype is usually busty, blond, dumb, attractive and open about her sexuality.

This film opening below (from the film Scary Movie) very clearly represents and portrays how the 'scream queen' is in slasher films:


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In this film opening, the narrative and characters are entirely influenced by the film 'Scream'. This film, 'Scary Movie', really plays on the common stereotypes found in the slasher horror genre. The scream queen in this film opening is blonde, very busty, attractive and she decides to pick, from a choice of weapons, the banana which is the most dumb thing someone could do because if she had a weapon she could have defended herself. Also, in this film opening, she is making popcorn, as 'Casey' did in the film 'Scream'. Making popcorn to eat while watching a movie is quite a teenage thing to do, so, this connotes that teenagers can relate to this character and that hobby connoting that the target audience is also teen.

Examples of 'scream queens' in existing slasher films are:

'Annie Brackett' and 'Lynda Van Der Klok' from the film 'Halloween':
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'Casey Becker' from the film 'Scream':
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'Casey Cooper' from the film 'Scream 2':
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'Marion Crane' from the film 'Psycho':
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'Drew Decker' from the film 'Scary Movie':
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Final Girl
The 'final girl' is usually the main protagonist in slasher films and she normally survives. She is tough, resourceful, somewhat nerdy, intelligent, slightly unattractive, innocent and a virgin. In some cases the 'final girl' can be a boy therefore making it the 'final boy'.

Examples of the 'final girl' in existing slasher films are:

'Laurie Strode' from the film 'Halloween':
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'Sidney Prescott' from the films 'Scream', 'Scream 2', 'Scream 3' and 'Scream 4':
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'Jody Marken' from the film 'Cherry Falls':

'Alice Hardy' from the film 'Friday the 13th':
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'Cindy Campbell' from the film 'Scary Movie':
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'Nancy Thompson' from the film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street':
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Killer
Then there is the anonymous killer who is usually a man wearing all black, black leather boots, holding props such as knives, hammers, chainsaws or axes etc... The killer's face won't usually be shown, making them anonymous; Although, some slasher films do show the killer's face or reveal who the killer is at the END of the film. In some cases the killer may be female e.g. in Jennifer's body, it is also known to the audience throughout the film that Jennifer is the killer.

Examples of the 'killer' in existing slasher films are:

'Michael Myers' from the film 'Halloween':
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'Jason Voorhees' and 'Mrs. Voorhees' from the film 'Friday the 13th':
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'Freddie Krueger' from the film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street':
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'Ghostface' from the films 'Scream', 'Scream 2', 'Scream 3' and 'Scream 4':
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'Ghostface' reveal in 'Scream':
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'Jennifer' from the film 'Jennifer's Body':
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SLASHER Auteur Directors

John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, musician, editor and composer. Although Carpenter has worked with various film genres, he is associated most commonly with horror, action and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s.

Most films of Carpenter's career were initially commercial and critical failures, with the notable exceptions of Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), and Starman (1984). However, many of Carpenter's films from the 1970s and the 1980s have come to be considered as cult classics, and he has been acknowledged as an influential filmmaker. So-called cult classics that Carpenter directed include: Dark Star(1974), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988) and In the Mouth of Madness (1995).

Carpenter is also notable for having composed or co-composed most of his films' music; some of them are now well-known, with the main theme of Halloween being considered a part of popular culture. He released his first studio album Lost Themes during 2015, and also won a Saturn Award for Best Music for Vampires (1998).

Filmography:
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Wes Craven
Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. He was known for his pioneering work in the genre of horror films, particularly slasher films, where his impact on the genre was considered prolific and influential. Due to the success and cultural impact of his works in the horror film genre, Craven has been called the "Master of Horror".

He is best known for creating the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise featuring the Freddy Krueger character, directing the first installment and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, and co-writing A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors with Bruce Wagner.

Craven also directed all four films in the Scream series and two films in the Hills Have Eyes series. Some of his other films include The Last House on the Left, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The People Under the Stairs, Vampire in Brooklyn, and Red Eye.

On August 30, 2015, Craven died of brain cancer at the age of 76 at his home in Los Angeles.

Filmography:
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SLASHER FILMS Timeline

PEEPING TOM

(Mark Powell, 1960)
Budget: £135k
US Box Office: $84k



PSYCHO
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Budget: $806k
US Box Office: $32m
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"Alfred Hitchcock had made his name as the "master of suspense" with brilliant, glossy thrillers like Rear Window and North by Northwest, but Psycho was altogether different - the like of which most cinema-goers had never seen.

With its shocking bursts of violence and provocative sexual explicitness, Psycho tested the strict censorship boundaries of the day as well as audiences' mettle - and it gave Hitchcock the biggest hit of his career.

Awakened to the box office potential of violence and sex, mainstream filmmakers followed suit".

- BBC News

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THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
(Wes Craven, 1972)
Budget: $90k
US/Worldwide Box Office: $3.1m, $10m


THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
(Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Budget: $300k
US Box Office: $31m

THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE SLASHER GENRE
A quote I found from the book:
'The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies'
By Peter Normanton
"Way Back then, you could scream all you wanted, but it was never going to make them stop, as for an entire decade the doors to the madhouse were thrown open to a plethora of hack and slash killers who were free to slip into school dormitories, college campuses, the woods, shopping malls or for the very unlucky their local neighbourhood. Each was armed with a sharp knife, with blood murder in mind. There never was a decade quite like the eighties".

HALLOWEEN 
(John Carpenter, 1978)
Budget: $300k
US/Worldwide Box Office: $47m, $70m

FRIDAY THE 13TH
(Sean S. Cunningham, 1980)
Budget: $550k
US/Worldwide Box Office: $40m, $60m


PROM NIGHT
(Paul Lynch, 1980)
Budget: $1.5m
US Box Office: $15m

DRESSED TO KILL
(Brian De Palma, 1980)
Budget: $6.5m
US Box Office: $32m

GRADUATION DAY
(Herb Freed, 1981)
Budget: $250k
US Box Office: $2m

THE PROWLER
(Joseph Zito, 1981)
Budget: $1m

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
(Wes Craven, 1984)
Budget: $1.8m
US Box Office: $26.5m



THE DECLINE
There was a decline in the slasher genre between 1985-1995. It's popularity declined substantially but didn't die out completely. There were still many films released within these dates:

1985
The Mutilator, Blood Cult, The Ripper

1986
Killer Party, Mountaintop Motel Massacre, Truth Or Dare?, April Fool's Day,

1987
Blood Rage

The mid-1980s also had a wave of sequels.

THE REVIVAL OF THE SLASHER GENRE
NEW NIGHTMARE
(Wes Craven, 1994)
Budget: $8m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $18m, $20m


SCREAM
(Wes Craven, 1996)
Budget: $14m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $103m, $173m



SCREAM 2
(Wes Craven, 1997)
Budget: $24m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $101m, $172m


I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
(Jim Gillespie, 1997)
Budget: $17m
US Box Office: $72.5m, $125.5m



BRIDE OF CHUCKY
(Ronny Yu, 1998)
Budget: $25m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $32m, $50.6m



URBAN LEGEND
(Jamie Blanks, 1997)
Budget: $14m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $38m, $72.5m



SCREAM 3
(Wes Craven, 2000)
Budget: $40m
US/Worldwide Box Office: $89m, $162m

Slasher EG2: Halloween (1978)

Halloween

John Carpenter (1978)

BBFC 18, MPAA R

Film Opening Length: 

Budget: $325k
UK/US/World Box Office: ?, $47m, $70m
Theatrical Distribution in 

Production Companies: Compass International Pictures, Falcon International Productions
Distributors: Compass International Pictures

LINKS:
IMDB, RottenTomatoes (Tomatometer 93%, Audience 89%), BoxOfficeMojo, Wiki

Trailer for 'Halloween':
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POSSIBLE INFLUENCE FOR MY FILM

I like the stalkerish shots of the sister and boyfriend in this film opening and I want to include this style of stalkerish shots in my film opening somehow. Also, I may want to include similar kinds of non-diegetic music in my film opening, I really like the non-diegetic music at the start of this film opening.

COMPANIES/IDENTS
There are no film idents shown in this film opening, because of the time period it was made in (the 1970’s). Back then, film idents weren’t a common thing to see at the start of slasher films.

IDENTIFYING ANY PROTAGONISTS
The first characters shown in this film opening are a couple kissing and having sex. Since the film is of the slasher genre, you can connote that these two characters are ‘scream queens/kings’. Usually, at the start of a slasher film a ‘scream queen/s’ is/are killed.

OPENING SHOT

The opening shot has a really long take of 3 minutes and 6 seconds. This shot is entirely in Point-Of-View (POV). This POV shot starts on an extreme long shot of a white house. This establishes the setting to the audience. 

The opening establishing extreme long shot is of a house to establish the setting/ setting the scene to the audience and to connote that the main event (killing) is going to happen here.

TITLES
The entire first half of this film opening is just titles. You can denote that the titles are sans serif, they alternate between the colours yellow, orange and red to connote that the film is a horror (the red connotes blood). The actual names of the cast are in upper case lettering and the roles e.g. director of photography are in lower case lettering.

The first titles shot is of the film institution: Compass International Pictures. 

The font colour starts yellow then changes to red just like the first one. This happens throughout all the titles (colour changes from yellow to red). All the titles are in upper case to emphasise the film's dramatic, horror, spooky mood/atmosphere; this gets the audience engaged already. 

A pumpkin appears on the left side to connote that this film is set during halloween (pumpkins are used only during halloween) and that the film is set around the idea of halloween.



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The pumpkin has gradually zoomed in through every change of titles to connote the prominence and importance of the pumpkin (signifier of halloween) to make the audience very aware that the film is about halloween. The fonts are still red to connote the horror genre.


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This is the last title shown, it denotes the setting to the audience.

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After the first scene (the girl in the house is killed by her brother, Michael) there is another title shown. It creates a kind of bridge between the film opening to the main body of the film. The title is the exact same as the title shown at the start of the film opening; so it is being denoted that the main body of the film is set in the same town as where this girl in the film opening was killed. The audience are provided with exposition of the setting again.

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This title is the same as the title shown at the start of the film opening but instead of saying 1963, it says 1978, so 14 years later. Also, instead of the date saying Halloween, it says October 30. This has been done so that there isn't much emphasis put on Halloween because the events about to happen at the start of the main body of the film are not related exactly to Halloween.

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MISE-EN-SCENE FOR EXPOSITION

This long shot is seen from someone's view (Michael's) making it a point of view shot and is handheld/shaky to connote that someone is watching these two characters and that something is going to happen to them (these shots are trying to get the audience to feel uneasy and scared). The fact that these two characters are the first to be shown normally connotes that these characters are the main protagonists but since this film is a slasher horror, it actually connotes that they are the scream queens/scream kings. 

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You can see in this shot the person who is stalking/following the couple (Michael) opening the drawer and taking out a knife. You can see the sleeve this person is wearing which denotes to the audience that this person is wearing a halloween outfit (a clown outfit) to further connote this halloween setting.





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This person picks up the mask from the floor and puts it on so the audience can see what this person sees through the mask. This is also a point of view shot. 







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The audience can partially see here a naked woman (the girl from the couple) with blood pouring out of her connoting that this person in the mask has just stabbed/killed her. Also, the fact that this woman is naked further connotes that she is the stereotypical scream queen.




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This is a crane shot to connote the end of this scene/the film opening. It is somewhat countertypical to reveal who the killer is at the start of a film. Also, the audience is being given some context now that these new two characters have entered the scene. It is clear that these are the killer's and the dead girl's parents. So the context given now is that the girl from the couple was supposed to be babysitting her younger brother but instead she invited her boyfriend to come over so they could have sex while her parents had gone out. This is somewhat normative behaviour of teenagers, therefore allowing the audience to relate with the teenage couple (Uses & Gratifications theory).  

NARRATIVE
Barthes’ narrative enigma can be applied to this film opening. 

SOUND/GENRE SIGNIFICATION
The entire first half of this film opening is just titles. Throughout this title sequence, non-diegetic sound is playing. You can denote this as shortly held piano notes and long-held chords, long-held electronic synths and short-held ticking clock/time bomb diegetic sounds. 

SHOT VARIETY
There are only two shots in this film opening, the first shot has a really long take of 3 minutes and 6 seconds. This shot is entirely in Point-Of-View (POV). The second shot is a crane shot zooming out on Michael Myers in a clown costume with a knife in his hand.