The Strangers Teaser Trailer: A slideshow genius

The Strangers (2008) is a Thriller/Horror film starring Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler directed by Bryan Bertino. The film is about a young couple who's home is broken into by three masked criminals who trap them in the house and hunt them down. The film was said to be influenced by the Manson murders of the 1960's.

I particularly like this trailer because of its unconventional use of slide show pictures. The trailer starts with a slide show with prominent flicker sounds and pictures of different houses. It then proceeds to an intimate scene between two newlyweds who then walk over to their front door when someone whispers "you're gonna die".

The trailer uses the idea of someone invading your personal space to create fear. This is apparent when someone on the other side of the newlyweds new home whispers "you're gonna die". This creates fear because it is a known fact that one of life's most threatening events would be someone breaking into your home; your comfort zone. And metaphorically also, this idea creates fear because a persons home is their refuge and their 'safe place'.

How would we bring this 'space invasion' idea into our trailer? Well, it would be an interesting twist on events if we are able to bring this stereotypical horror theme of a 'stranger in the home' and maybe make the stranger the good character. By doing this, the viewer would see it as a fresh, new look on the Horror genre.

Male Gaze

For years, male characters had the upper hand in the film world. They were always portrayed as  suave sharp characters who get all the ladies. In some cases, how the female character were portrayed, the female audience were not completely satisfied with. In popular film, females were heavily shown as sultry, attractive characters. James Bond films were particularly known for their stereotypical view on women. But in 1975, the female perception was completely turned round.

Laura Mulvey, a professor of Film and Media at University of Birkbeck wrote her infamous essay 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema' where she introduces her theory on 'the male gaze' and her feeling of the gender power asymmetry.

The male gaze, occurs when the audience sees the scene from the heterosexual mans point of view. For example, if a male is in conversation with a female in a film scene then the camera may concentrate on the females body parts such as her legs or hips etc.

I personally feel that the male gaze can come across very objective towards female characters being equal to the male characters. As well as the camera (from the males perspective) concentrating on the females assets, the women are also shown as vulnerable characters because of the angles used.

I would like to take the idea of the male gaze and subvert it. It would be interesting, especially in a horror film, for the male character to be shown as the vulnerable character; even to show the male character as the woman's attraction rather than the suave, sharp man. I believe that this would be effective in a horror film because it could easily make the viewer uncomfortable  Furthermore, if I could somehow use the subversion as art of the main idea behind the horrific events, it would make the male gaze subversion more effective and noticeable.

The Shining: A Horrific Success

The Shining is a psychological horror film (classed as ultimate horror) released in 1980 directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson.

 

The Shining uses several horror conventions. For example, the extreme camera angles (high angle, low angle) the imagery (compelling shots used to scare the viewer) and the eerie music. The director was able to use low angle shots to create fear and tension. For example, when Jack (Jack Nicholson) is locked in the cupboard, the director used a low angle shot so in the frame you can only see Jack's head, his hands against the door and the door handle. A shot as abstract as this is able to take the viewer out of their comfort zone because of how unreal it looks.



A screen grab from the film. This is a good example of Kubrick's cinematography

The director used 'male gaze' in the film to show that Jack is as vulnerable as the coinciding female character. When Jack walks into the bathroom he sees a beautiful woman in the bath. She steps out and makes out with him. As they make out, she turns into a mouldy, decomposed body. This scene shows that Jack is mentally unstable because he is led to believe the woman was alive and beautiful because of his hallucinations. Often in horror films the woman is the vulnerable character in a 'male gaze' situation. In this circumstance, the meaning is subverted and Jack is the vulnerable character.

The shining has key ingredients of a horror. It starts out as an equilibrium-everything is seen as almost too normal. Starting a horror film as an equilibrium is key to making a good film because it heightens the limit to how far out you can take the films gore, blood, gut and murder stories.

The film includes eerie music through most of the film which could build tension. For example, when Wendy (Shelly Duvall) was running through the snowy yard, eerie music was playing whilst diegetic sound of the drafty wind could be heard.  This builds tension because it leads the viewer to believe something is about to happen; the character is in danger but nothing other than the eerie music shows that.

One of the infamous symmetrical visuals from the film.

Also, The director used a lot of non-diegetic eerie and ambient music to create an uncomfortable atmosphere. For example, when the mother cannot find Jack she wonders around the empty hotel corridors calling out his name whilst eerie, sinister music plays over the scene. This music can make the viewer feel uneasy because of its unwelcoming atmosphere. Also, the director can be indicating that the mother is fearful of her surroundings by using the non-diegetic eerie music.

  

Other than music, the director used the diegetic sound to create an awkward fear of the characters surroundings. For example, when Danny hides in the cupboard from Jack, diegetic drafty wind sound accompanies the visual. This drafty sound can create an awkward fear of the characters surroundings because the empty sound crates a feeling of nothingness. And that feeling makes the characters seem alone; loneliness.

The director used clever techniques and tricks to create effects with the mise-en-scene which can be completely missed without proper analysis. The main smart technique was that the majority of the frames in the film were symmetrical. For example, Jack will be positioned somewhere in the middle of the room with nearly the exact same props and structure on both sides of the frame. The hotel lobby and the hotel managers office, amongst others, were all symmetrical. The director used symmetrical scenes accompanied with, the majority of the time, long shots or mid shots, because it causes the viewer to somehow feel tranced in the scene. It feels like the symmetrical shots force the viewer to subconsciously concentrate on the scenes which leads to being emotionally tied to the characters and the story.



The infamous scene where Jack haunts his frightened wife and child



What is a Horror?

I was faced with a question that sounds straight-forward initially. 'What is a horror?' A Horror film is designed to scare the viewer and take them out of their comfort zone. They often include a creepy/scary character causing havoc in the movie world. But it is not so easy to answer such a broad question with no examples.

An Ultimate Horror film causes psychological fear. Viewers are spooked by the unimaginable and the fear of empty frames, wide empty areas, silence etc.

There are 9 types of Horror films:

• The Ghost Story  (The Sixth Sense/ Silent Hill)
• Classic Monster  (Frankenstein)
• Vampire             (Dracula/Queen of the Damned)
• Zombie              (28 Days Later)
• Slasher             (Freddy vs. Jason, Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
• Animal              (King Kong: Original)
• Serial Killer       (Halloween, Hannibal)
• Horror Sci-Fi     (War of The Worlds)
• Supernatural    (The Ring, The Eye)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Influential? Or a creative disaster?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is a silent German film directed by Robert Wiene. I recently watched the film and did not enjoy it. I found the film hard to follow. This is because of the mellow dramatic acting and constantly seeing a new character turn up. The film is one of the first horror films but I do not think it deserves that title. The music, throughout, was mid-tempo and did not create any suspense or tension. Many times, with the music on the film, I expected to see two people sitting on a porch on a hot summer’s day but instead I saw a man woken from the dead trying to kill a helpless woman to happy music. However, the director successfully used German expressionism to create depth and space on the small sets and painted angles on the floor. 

Several things about this film allows it to be considered a pioneering film for the 1920’s. Most films of the time had an obvious villain and the viewers could often guess who it was. In the film, the police arrest a man who they accuse of being the murderer but he only confesses to trying to murder someone else. This causes suspense because the viewers know that the killer is still on the loose. As this film went against the typical conventions, it was a first in its kind to use a false plateau.

This film carries a lot of conventions that Hollywood directors play on in today’s film industry. Such as the helpless female character trying to fight back but effortlessly fails, and the police thinking they have caught the criminal but it turns out they have arrested the wrong guy. These are two things that are in most films today, particularly Horror and Thriller films. Amongst these typical scenarios, there were many other things in the film that we see in movies today. This proves that it could be considered as one of the most influential films of all time.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is one of the most influential German Expressionist films. The director uses the expressionism for various things. He uses the expressionism for the strange set shapes and to create shadows and silhouettes in scary moments. Using expressionism to create silhouettes and scary shadows can successfully frighten the viewer because of how big the monster appears compared to how small the woman is.

Every horror movie, whether it is old or new, should be able to leave the viewer in fear. What keeps the viewers in tune with the story is the ‘fear of the unknown’. Which means that we should be ‘tied in’ to the story because we do not know what is about to happen; and that is supposed to frighten the viewer. But in the case of this film, the violence is mild and the killer is visible to us all. Because of this films blatant horror flaws, it should not be considered one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

German Expressionism. What is it?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is one of the most influential German Expression films

Coming straight out of the First World War, German filmmakers did not have the money to compete with the lush, creative films being made in Hollywood. So the filmmakers from the German UFA spurred up a genius idea to ditch the extremely pricey sets and use symbolism and mise-en-scene to create depth and space on the small sets whilst creating a deeper meaning to the movie and almost making it a surreal experience.

Introduction to Media Coursework

Hello, Daniel here. This blog is going to follow the development of my A2 Media coursework. Through this blog. I will show how the common and obscure conventions of Horror film trailers have influenced me and my final product. I will examine, through in-depth analysis, 

Accompanying me on this project are Layla May Kaftan Morady and Hannah Licia Heath. They are also A2 Media students. Although the three of us have creative traits and work ethics, we will all hopefully produce something quite amazing.

I will start by taking a look at the origins of Horror film genre and its influences. Among other things, I will also explore the conventions of a typical horror film in its early days and how it has changed in the past 100 years.