The document discusses the horror movie Saw and analyzes its conventions, such as its reliance on graphic violence and shock value over psychological tension. It also examines Saw's lack of character development and jumping straight into graphic scenes without setting the mood first. The success of Saw helped launch the torture porn subgenre of horror films in the 2000s that focused heavily on depictions of graphic violence.
3. Saw relies heavily on the conventions of blood and brutal weapons to create the genre of a
horror.
Saw is a splatter/slasher horror as it deliberately focuses on the gore and graphic violence as
well as using a particular psychopath killer. In this case he is known as ‘Jigsaw’
Saw lacks in psychological mind games and instead concentrates on brutal violence to play
on audience fears and make them feel uncomfortable.
Saw does not rely on setting the mood or meeting the conventions of setting the scene before
an incident happens. Instead it jumps straight into the action and shocks the audience
straight away.
Audiences are intrigued and fascinated by horror films such as ‘Saw’ as it meets the
requirements of the Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory. The audience watches the film in shock but
in an unusual way it is comforting to know that there normal lives are not like the film and
when they leave the film, it will not happen to them.
It is a horror movie that is relying heavily on the shock and reaction from the audience than
keeping the high amounts of tension and building up to the horror moments like
psychological horrors.
Saw does not rely on the audience getting to know characters and protagonists well and
creating a connection. They shock does not come from what is happening to the characters
they have got to know, but by the brutal deaths that different people face.
4. The first ‘Saw’ movie was released in 2004.
Early in the 2000’s the return of the sub genre of zombie horrors were brought back in films such
as ‘28 days later’ and ‘The return of the living dead’. ‘Saw’ was one of the first films in the 2000’s
to bring back the return of extreme and graphic violence into horror films.
‘Saw’ concentrated on the emphasis on depictions of torture, suffering and violent deaths which
had not been previously been used before. This saw the emergence of this particular genre and
saw many films similar to it follow. These included ‘The Torture’ and ‘Hostel’.
Before ‘Saw’ the release of films such as ‘Scream’ had created a chain of horrors concentrating on
the teenage market. ‘Saw’ moved away from concentrating horror films on teenage protagonists
and influenced the genre into more extreme violence and torture of all ages. This played of many
different age ranges fear rather than just the teenage market.
The success of the sub genre ‘Saw’ started was confirmed by the six sequels that were made in the
same way.
The Saw film series holds the Guinness World Record of the highest-grossing horror franchise in
history.
Many people however criticized the ‘Saw’ movies as being a copy of the film ‘Seven’ which was
released in 1995. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman compared the plot to Seven saying,
"In a blatant imitation of Seven, Saw features a lunatic sadist whose ghoulish crimes are meant, in
each case, to mirror the sins of his victims. The twist here is that the psycho doesn't do the killing"
5. The concentration of extreme violence and terror is a convention I would
challenge within my own trailer as I want to concentrate more on a
physiological horror where aspects like this are not as important. I would also
avoid this convention of ‘Saw’ movies as it limits the target audience that
could see my trailer and therefore the market for the film.
Within in my own trailer I would also challenge the convention that ‘Saw’
uses by not setting the scene and getting a connection with the key
protagonists. I believe it is very important in a trailer to see life before the
horror event takes place to show the extreme contrast, especially in the short
time frame a trailer allows. I also believe it is important to gain a connection
with the key protagonists so I can play with the audiences fears and emotions
more within my trailer once they get to know them and guess how they
would react to certain situations. This would help to keep the audience on
edge and constantly frightened.
A convention I would like to use within my trailer is the huge elements of
shock that the ‘Saw’ movies create. Although I would like to build the tension
more than these movies, the huge element of terror and shock created by the
scenes in this movie is something I would like to incorporate in my trailer.
7. ‘Paranormal Activity’ uses ‘found footage’ and is mostly filmed by hand held cameras to give
the effect that the supernatural activity is more realistic and we are realizing their fate at the
same time that they are.
It is a supernatural horror film which plays of psychological horrors.
The film works by creating and building up tension throughout out the day and the action
happening at night. This creates fear and worry within the audience every time we see the
footage being filmed at night.
The film does not heavily rely on blood and gore to be a horror film, instead it plays of the
audience psychological fears and builds the tension slowly to reach the climax point.
The tension and fear is built in the film by the paranormal activity getting worse and worse
every night. This builds on the audiences fear of the night and dark as well as them
expecting something worse to happen each night.
The film still uses the convention of blood at the very end but this is not what has created
the shock and fear within the audience throughout the film.
The film does not use the conventional isolated dark setting and instead uses a modern
house in America. I believe this plays of the audiences fears even more and makes the
situation seem more realistic and relatable.
8. ‘Paranormal Activity’ had the influence on the horror genre by cleverly creating a
low budget horror and showing the effect of how cleverly you can build tension
and play on the audiences fear.
‘Paranormal Activity’ also showed the effect of the home filmed video footage
instead of trying to convey professional filming to create the fear. The terror and
anxiety in this film was created by the realism the home videos created.
Many films towards the end of the 2000’s were becoming remakes of older
horror films such as ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’.
‘Paranormal Activity’ moved away from this and created a genre of horror that
played heavily on psychological fears and relied on no blood or brutal weapons at
all.
‘Paranormal Activity however is never bland, and tends to make viewers believe
what they're seeing is plausible, such that every creak, groan, and bump in their
own homes just might not be what they think it is. That is the true effect of this
sub-genre of horror movie; the injection of possibility into the viewers psyche.’
Often, the thought of something happening, whether positive or negative, is more
impactful than the actual event. This is why moviegoers will (for better or for
worse) probably see an influx of movies like this. Better, because hack-and-slash
is tired, and worse, because the suspension of disbelief only has so long of a shelf
life. To be more specific, most of what the viewer experiences are sounds -
bumps, keys falling, etc - which allows the imagination even more to work with.
We hear the thumps, hear them getting closer; the anticipation for what we might
see works its magic.
9. A convention from ‘Paranormal Activity’ that I would use would be
the use of the hand held camera and footage. I think this makes
the film look more realistic as the protagonists are filming all the
action themselves and it looks as if they are wanting to find out
what is going on rather than them being filmed. The hand held
camera also creates the effect of fear within the audience and for
the key protagonist.
I would also use the conventions and same techniques that the
film uses to build tension and play psychological mind games
with the audience. I want to avoid the brutal violence and torture
and build on the audience fears through the tension built.
I want to explore the ideas of a supernatural horror like
‘Paranormal Activity’
I would use these conventions and build tension by slamming
doors and lights switching off as they are easy to create with the
camera and resources that I have available. These conventions
will be able to appear more professional than if I tried to convey
a torture scene. I do not have the equipment, actors or settings
to make my horror look believable. This would be the easiest sub
genre to convey.
10. Gothic Film – this is a type of story that contains elements
of Goth and horror. It may have romance that unfolds within the
horror film, but it usually suspenseful. One of the most earliest horror
movies created was apart of this sub-genre. They include universal
horror films, such as The Phantom of the
Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy. Modern gothic
horrors: Sleepy Hollow, Underworld, The Wolfman, From Hell, Dorian
Gray, Let Me In and The Woman in Black.
Examples
11. Slasher film - This is a type of horror film usually involving
a psychopathic killer stalking, and killing a sequence of victims in a
violent manner - often with a cutting tool, e.g. an axe or a knife.
Slasher films can also overlap with the crime and thriller genre.
Examples of Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Know What
You Did Last Summer, Friday the 13th, Child's Play and A Nightmare on
Elm Street.
12. Psychological horror - this subgenre relies on characters' fears, guilt,
eerie sound effects, beliefs, emotional instability and sometimes,
the supernatural. This is used to build tension within the film and to
further the plot. Examples of this include The Uninvited, Gothika, The
Ring, The Exorcist, Session 9, The Others, The Mothman
Prophecies, 1408, The Shining, Stir of Echoes, The Innocents, The Sixth
Sense and many others
13. The classic narrative structure of the Horror genre has to have a
protagonist character within the film. Horror is based upon conflict
and dilemmas the main characters endure.
From the main list of characters, several character types are chosen
for a horror film: the heroine/hero, the evil "monster" and the
supporting characters. In the 'Woman In Black' film, the protagonist
character/hero is Arthur Kipps, and the villain is the woman in black.
Horror films try to connect with the viewer - with the expectation
that the viewer will identify with the hero. Some narratives, typically
seen in the sub-genre of slasher films, are very common and
unoriginal when it comes to the film plot/storyline. For example, the
film would revolve around the story of a killer that had a traumatic
childhood past or even psychotic medial issues. Thus, ending up
killing people at random, or with "reasoning". Within this stereotypical
narrative, the characters are usually teenagers, all so happen to be
killed off in a sequence, generally leaving one to survive.
The fate of this "hero“ (the one left to survive) tends to be left
unknown, in the hands of each individual horror film.
Narratives
14. ‘An audience can be described as ‘a temporary collective’ (McQuail 1972) – I would
disagree with McQuail with the idea that audiences change all the time because an
audience that is interested in watching a horror genre are attracted back to the same
codes and conventions. The target audience for a horror varies between ages but all
are attracted to watch a horror film due to the generic conventions that it includes.
Though there are different sub genres of horror, the same audience continues to watch
them and each horror film does not attract a different audience.
‘…the tendency to concentrate solely on why audience consume the media rather than
extending the investigation to discover what meanings and interpretations are
produced and in what circumstances i.e how the media are received’ (O’Sullivan,
Dutton & Rayner 1994) – I believe this theory to be true for the horror genre. We
watch a horror film for the fright and terror of it and not to receive a moral message at
the end. In most horror films, the issue is not resolved at the end meaning there is no
satisfaction or moral message taken away from it. Audiences watch horror films for
the anxiety and the thrills they receive from it and then walk away at the end and
forget about it. It does not leave them pondering with moral issues. For example , the
cultivation theory does not relate to the horror genre as it does not make you take
anything in particular away from the film or affect the way you learn and think about
the world.
15. Conclusion
From the research I have gathered, I know now that the
main reason in why people watch horror movies is to have
the feeling which is an intense emotion. Others watch it
for the sake of watching it and I have gathered that these
are mainly young teenagers who want to have fun. Every
horror film will have an audience and it shows there will
always be a market for this film genre.