SLASHER GENRE Conventions

1. There is always an anonymous, sometimes masked killer. 

2. Usually set in/at a forest, school, toilets in somewhere, in a house, by a lake, on a camp by a lake - these are all isolated places where there is no help for the characters and no hope of finding somewhere to run. There is also the use of pathetic fallacy which consists of thunder and rain used to enhance on the use of isolation. Also, usually, the scary, sinister scenes are set at night because it's dark and the dark connotes evil.

3. There is more than likely low key lighting throughout the film or at some points in the film. 

4. There is the character/s of the 'scream queen/scream king', there is usually more than one 'scream queen/king' in the film who die one by one in the film. 

5. There is the character of the 'final girl' in the film, she is a resourceful, nerdy, intelligent, usually brunette character. She survives the killer in the film and usually kills the killer. 

6. Commonly, a group of teenagers are the protagonists of the film. One of them being the 'final girl' and the rest being the 'scream queens/kings'. 

7. Stereotypically, the authority figures in slasher films are useless - final girl's father is commonly a police figure.

8. There is frequent use of dutch angles to make the audience feel uncomfortable and that something bad is going to happen. 

9. Todorov's 5 part narrative structure can be applied to slasher films - for example, the 1st and 2nd stage, the equilibrium and disruption, take place in film opening. The 'scream king and/or just scream queen are killed by the anonymous masked killer at the start of the film opening.

10. Propp's character archetypes theory can be applied to slasher films - the villain/antagonist archetype is very evident within the anonymous killer and the the hero/protagonist archetype is very evident within the 'final girl' character. 

11. You will commonly in slasher films see the group of teenage protagonists who are the scream queens and kings, doing immoral acts like having sex, doing drugs, smoking, drinking alcohol or doing something rebellious.

12. You will also commonly see the group of protagonists split up to explore somewhere individually or go somewhere alone to fetch something. For example, after a couple have had sex all alone in a house, the male in the couple says he's going downstairs to get a beer, therefore, they are both now alone.

13. Stereotypically, you will see the victims in the film and the final girl say for example "hello, who's there" or "this better not be a joke this isn't funny Annie cut it out" when they are all alone somewhere and hear noises of someone else being there. 

14. Levi-strauss' binary opposition can be applied to slasher films - between the killer and the 'scream queen' in the film opening and also between the 'scream queen' and 'final girl' who we see after the 'scream queen' dies. 

15. Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory can heavily be applied to slasher films - the scream queens/kings are usually objectified and sexualised within slasher films. Their bodies are on show, so for example, in the film 'Halloween', you see some of the scream queens' topless, this is done to attract a strong male audience.

16. Amount of film idents is between 1-3, duration between 5-10 seconds.

17. The duration of the film openings is between 3-13 minutes.

18. There is use of fast cuts and whip pans to create suspense and action.

19. Opening shot is usually an extreme long shot but can sometimes be a close up of an object of significance.
Some quotes I found from books that are relevant to slasher genre conventions:
'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".

Slasher EG5: Bride Of Chucky (1998)

Bride Of Chucky

Ronny Yu (1998)

BBFC 15, MPAA R

Film Opening Length: 

Budget: $25m
UK/US/World Box Office: ?, $32.3m, $50.6m

Production Companies: Midwinter Production Inc., Universal Pictures
Distributors: Universal Pictures

LINKS:
IMDB, RottenTomatoes (Tomatometer 44%, Audience 46%), BoxOfficeMojo, Wiki

Trailer for 'Bride Of Chucky':
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COMPANIES/IDENTS
There is only one film ident shown in this film opening, which is for 'Universal Studios', one of the 'big six' conglomerates. This is common for the slasher genre to only have one film ident shown. 

OPENING SHOT
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The opening shot is a tracking LS/ELS of what you can denote as a traditional bricked building with the American flag attached to the roof of an archway. This denotes the setting to the audience as the US and connotes that the setting is quite traditional, formal and patriotic. You can denote from this shot that rain is pouring, that there is thunder and lightning (from the flashing effects on the shot) and that it is night time. 
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TITLES
There is a lot of titles shown in this film opening. Before the opening shot, there are two intertitles shown, in this order:
1. Universal Pictures presents
2. A David Kirschner production
3. A Ronny Yu film

After these three titles, the first scene of the film takes place. There are no more titles until this scene has ended (when the bride of Chucky walks off with the pieces of the doll Chucky, that the policeman had stolen from the 'Lockport Police Dept. Evidence Depository'. Here is the order of titles after this scene has ended:

1. 4 Main actors
2. Main Title: Bride Of Chucky
3. 3 Actors including the voice of chucky
4. Co-Producer
5. Casting by
6. Costume Designer
7. Opening Title Song Performed by 
8. Music Supervisors
9. Music by
10. Chucky and tiffany dolls created by
11. Based on characters created by
12. Chucky and tiffany puppet effects created by
13. Edited by
14. Production designer
15. Director of Photography
16. Executive Producers
17. Produced by
18. Written by
19. Directed by

IDENTIFYING ANY PROTAGONISTS
The first character shown is a policeman. It is stereotypical that the first character to be shown in a slasher horror film is the scream queen/scream king (person who gets killed by the killer). Proving this point to be correct, this policeman character in this film is killed by the killer (the bride of Chucky). The bride of Chucky is slowly introduced through close up shots of her feet and legs, to create a sense of narrative enigma (Barthes) for the audience of who this character is. You don't see her face until after she has killed the policeman character.   

SOUND/GENRE SIGNIFICATION
At the very start of the film opening there is a lot of use of diegetic sounds to create impact on the audience, these sounds are thunder and rain. 

SHOT VARIETY
NARRATIVE
MISE-EN-SCENE FOR EXPOSITION
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TYRANNOSAUR SWEDE: Evaluation

DIFFICULTIES
Scene 1:

• When filming, Mr Burrowes and the tripod were seen through the transparent doors of the school building where we filmed. Also, in some other scenes we filmed I was sometimes oblivious to how the tripod and camera bags were in the background of the shots. 
• I found it very difficult to film shots from a point which was higher than the tripod's height. Richard (the main character) is very tall and the only way to film him from head to shoulder was to use the camera handheld, therefore the shots were shaky. 
• There was a lot of noise in the background from school children playing sports on the basketball area so it got in the way and distracted what was going on in the scenes I was filming. Also, sometimes it really overpowered the sound of Richard speaking. I had to adjust the sound levels. It distracted the plot/narrative, making the plot something it isn't. 

Scene 2:

• I realised after filming all the shots, that some shots were too dark of Richard (he was standing infront of the window in with the light on his back and not his face which was bad because William did have the light on his face because he was facing towards the window. This made me learn that next time I will think about each aspect of lighting and positioning of characters. 
• Secondly, I did not film all the shots needed, I realised at the end of the editing process that I did not film a shot of Will chasing Richard out of the common room, which was necessary. This helped me learn that next time I should make a proper call sheet and not forget to film anything, that every shot is written down on paper that is needed to be filmed. 

Scene 3:

• For lighting, I didn't really think about enough or properly, so unfortunately some shots had too dark, too blue (blue tinted) or too bright lighting. This was when I filmed Martina and Richard talking together. Martina was in blue tinted lighting and Richard was in yellow/bright lighting. 
• I think the final shot of this scene could have been better but there wasn't enough time to work on it even more. 

After this exercise, I learned how to edit a lot better in terms of cutting to different shots in a non-linear way and using continuity editing also. I also thought my filming skills have improved by being able to use the tripod and camera together, making certain angles and filming shots with no shakiness or blurriness. I thought the second scene in the sixth form common room was edited very well compared to the other scenes. I did think the editing process took longer than that of the editing of the 'microdrama' but that's because I learned that, to make the quality better and to make the film look fluent and non-linear you have to spend more time working on the editing, but overall I enjoyed the editing process. 

The equipment used:
Manfroto Tripod
Sony A58 Camera
Amazon tripod

TYRANNOSAUR SWEDE: EG and RD

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EG1: Cherry Falls (2000)

Cherry Falls

Geoffrey Wright (2000)

BBFC 18, MPAA R

Film Opening Length: 

Budget: $14m
UK/US/World Box Office: $3.1m, ?, $91.3m
Theatrical Distribution in 

Production Companies: Rogue Pictures, Good Machine, Industry Entertainment
Distributors: USA Films, October Films

LINKS:
IMDB, RottenTomatoes (Tomatometer 50%, Audience 31%), BoxOfficeMojo, Wiki

Trailer for 'Cherry Falls':
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SLASHER GENRE: Titles Research

After looking at many slasher genre film examples, I discovered that the font and font colour of the titles connotes the slasher horror genre. Also, the order of the titles in slasher films is usually:
1. Company Names
2. Director
3. Roles/Cast
4. Director Again

Into more detail the title order is usually:
1. Production Company
2. Second Production Company
3. Third Production Company
4. Director's name then film
5. Actor 1
6. Actor 2
7. Actor 3

FILM EXAMPLES
'Scream' Franchise Titles
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'Halloween' Titles
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'Friday the 13th' Franchise Titles
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The font of the titles is usually the colour white or red on a black, dark background to create a contrast, like the contrast between good and evil. Horror fonts can also be serif or in upper case. The three main colours the titles usually will be are white, black or red to connote the sinister, bloody, gory, dark nature of the film (the horror genre). 

SLASHER GENRE: Sound

The sound in horror slasher films is usually very scary, suspenseful, creepy and makes the audience's heart beat fast and irregular. Also, the music can make the audience hold their breath unconsciously and therefore feel more scared. 

Here are some non-diegetic music examples from existing slasher films: 
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