Sample Questions and Answers on Horror Movies: Slasher

Readings containing answers:
Pinedo, Isabel Cristina. “And Then She Killed Him: Women and Violence in the Slasher Film.” Introduction to Film Studies Readings.

PowerPoint file:
Gendered Horror

1.     Which of the following apply to the movie You’re Next? (Choose more than one if applies)

a)     Females are objectified.

b)     Males are objectified.

c)     Monsters are objectified.

d)    Objects are objectified

2.     The minefield of the contemporary horror film, with its bloody display of the all-too-often female body in bits and pieces, is fraught with danger for …………….

3.     In studies of horror film the female viewer is accused of …………….

4.     According to PowerPoint file for this week (Gendered Horror), what is the first Slasher sub-genre movie?

5.     ……………. spectatorship of horror is a much neglected and misunderstood topic

6.     What can be a proof for horror film being a pleasure for men?

a)     Men feel sympathy with victims in the horror film

b)     Little boys and grown men make it a point of horror to look, while little girls and grown women cover their eyes or hide behind the shoulders of their dates.

c)     Women feel satisfied when watching a horror film

d)     Men hold their girlfriends’, sisters’, or mothers’ when watching a horror film, while women feel sorry for the monsters.

7.     Carol Clover advances the idea that the primary pleasure for male viewers of the genre is a … rather than a ……………. one

8.     The female spectator who is truly deprived of ‘solace and...

9.     Barbara Creed, who turns her attention to female monstrosity, maintains that the monstrous- feminine in the horror film speaks to men about their ……………. of women

10.  The feminist movement, founded on the imperative that women must be free to control their own bodies, has repeatedly drawn attention to the issue of …………….

Answers:

http://film1000alinfarhadipour.blogspot.ca/2016/02/answers-1.html

Good Questions about Horror Movies, and TA Alin's Answers from the Reading

A student’s question:

Hi Alin, 

I was just creating the study notes for the upcoming test and I just had to ask a couple questions to clarify: 
- what would be a good example for genre iconography? I have the definition I’m just confused at a good example that would get me full marks on the test

- my last question is in regards to the “final girl”. I was at the lecture and I did the required readings for last week which is where this was, but the notes that I had don’t explain it according to Isabel C. Pinedo and Carol Clover. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this email, 

X. X.

-------------------------------------------------

TA Alin’s answer:

Hello,

Answer 1:
Genre iconography, as I know, refers to the pictures, symbols, and signs by which a genre may be distinguished from other genres. For example, iconography of Horror genre involves blood, dead bodies, screaming females or children, knives, monsters, low-key lighting etc. Or Romantic Comedy involves homes, beds, kissings, high-key lighting, nature, etc.

Answer 2:
Here is what I found about Clover and Final Girl:

5Sanchez, José, ed. Introduction to Film Studies Readings. 3nd Custom Edition.
P. 75:
“But to reduce the mechanics of the genre to this gender polarized formulation is to ignore the female character, whom Clover aptly names the “Final Girl,” who survives the onslaught to which most of the other characters, male and female, succumb. The surviving female is distinguished from the victims by being allotted more close-ups, screen time, and reverse shots from her perspective. Her character is more fully developed, and she is less likely to be the object of sexual scrutiny, less subject to the controlling gaze (Dika 89, 91). Like the killer, she is able to see, hear, and speak authoritatively. Like the viewer, she directs an active investigative gaze at the events surrounding her and so comes to understand the magnitude of the violence that threatens her (Clover 48, 35). Like the viewer, the surviving female adopts paranoia as a valid position from which to know. She trusts her misgivings and keeps her eyes open; she exercises what Judith Halberstam calls “productive fear (1995, 126—27). Because the surviving female is conscious of being watched, she becomes watchful. Her ability to look is crucial because it enables her to subject the killer to her controlling gaze, and thus to transform him into an object of aggression and herself into an agent of violence.”

P. 78:
“In a male-dominated social order only men do the violent things the surviving female does; therefore, within the terms of hegemonic discourse she is not really female. This is what compels Clover to read the Final Girl as a male in drag. Writing about the popular press’s reception of Thelma and Louise (1991), a mainstream film about women who kill, Hart summarized it thus: “This representation is not really about women; it is about men. Now you see women, now you don’t” (74). But her words could just as easily apply to Clover’s analysis of the surviving female. Hart continues: What is it that we are seeing when we see women who are not really women but are perhaps ‘really men’? One answer,” Clover’s answer, “would be the projection of male fantasies,” but another answer is that women who are “really men” are lesbians (74).”

Best regards,
Alin

Five Main Features for the New Romance According to Steve Neale

Steve Neale identifies five main features for the New Romance:

1.  Asserting values of old-fashioned heterosexual romance.

•  Reclaiming conventions of classical Romantic Comedy.

2.  Nervousness relabeled as “eccentricity.”

•  Hallmarks of either or both member of the couple.

•  Neurosis/Nervousness/Eccentricity cured, marginalized, and sometimes adopted by the right partner.

3.  Return to a linear narrative.

•  Suggests events in courtship actually leading somewhere.

•  Counters threat of female independence.

4.  Use of romantic music.

•  Evocation and endorsement of   signs and values of “old-fashioned romance.”

•  Catalogue of “oldies” performed by original crooners or re-recorded by contemporary artists.

•  Seeks to banish the ‘nervousness’ and attempts to  reclaim the conventions of the Classic Romantic Comedy

•  Films return to a linear narrative to suggest that events in the courtship are actually leading somewhere

•  Persistent evocation and endorsement of the signs and values of the ‘old-fashioned’ romance

•  ‘Nervousness’ is still prevalent, however, has now been relabeled as “eccentric” or “whimsical”

•  One partner is ‘cured’ when they come in contact with the ‘liberating eccentricity’ of the other partner

•  The ‘wrong partner’ is the one who ultimately remains permanently neurotically eccentric
•  The heroine/female is somewhat contained; positioning of the heroine returning to a traditional role

5. Films become self-conscious

•  evoking heterosexual intimacy

•  endorsing its signs and values

•  full awareness of fantastical nature (wish-fulfillment).

Y Tu Mama Tambien/And Your Mother Too (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)

Some Important Scenes

Two frames in the cinematic frame remind us that we are watching a movie. Self reflexive movies keep us aware, or remind us, that we are watching a movie, and that they are CONSTRUCTIONS (MOVIES).

Here is another shot when Luisa looks at the camera, reminding us that we are watching a movie. Direct Look at the camera is one of the features of THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS. You can find some of the Tom Gunning's description of THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS in Understanding Movies pp. 378-379.

Here are some famous shots from The Great Train Robbery (USA dir. Edwin S. Porter, 1903). These shots have become symbols of THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS, where the villain looks and shoots at the camera, reminding, and making us aware, that WE ARE WATCHING A MOVIE, A CONSTRUCTION!

Here is another shot where the man talks about Compos the goalie. This reference/allusion to the world outside the movie is another feature of self reflexive movies.

Disruptions in sound that follows by narrator's voice is another feature of self reflexive movies. In some self reflexive movies sound track and shots are not synced.

Some Helpful Excerpts for Exam from Week 10 Readings

Note:

These are just some highlighted excerpts from week 10 readings. All of the other readings are important, too but I did not have time to highlight all their important points and post them. To know about all the readings for EXAM, please read the SYLLABUS. Do not forget to read "Self Reflexivity", as well, in Introduction to Film Studies (pp. 9-15)

Selected from "Post Theory" (pp. 376-384)

from Understanding Movies

"Movement" (pp. 140-150)

from Understanding Movies

This time, the pictures are taken by my broken cellphone camera! Hopefully I will scan them in future.

Essay Instructions

A Student's Question:
I am really confusing with the instruction of our first essay. I have no idea of how to write it.

Answer:

In brief, first, you need to see the “Shot by Shot Analysis Chart”. Fill it out by looking at only “the first 10 shots” of the movie “The Morning Guy”. You can watch the movie here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSiMY9tRYt0

Then, write an essay on how the film communicates its message(s) by using “formal elements” such as use of camera movement, mise-en-scene, colour, sound, music, etc. In other words, you need to discover and discuss the meaning of the movie by analysing its shots.

Please check the instructions in the pictures below. Read them carefully, and then, if you still have any questions, ask in the comments section, and I will try to answer them as soon as I can.

*Although all the instructions are indispensable, I have highlighted and underlined the important points, so, you read the document easier, at least without missing them.

Respectively important:

1. Highlighted in pink
2. Highlighted in yellow
3. Highlighted in orange are referring to what you can find at the end of the document, and you need to either read/see, or download.
4. Underlined

**To enlarge the pictures, click on them.

Download “Shot by Shot Analysis Chart” and the movie The Morning Guy from here

Readings: 

a) Introduction to Film Studies Readings

b) Understanding Movies

c) PowerPoint Files

To be downloaded from here

Click here to download the original document (FILM1000A Essay 1 Instructions.pdf)

Click here to see the original document (A Guide to Writing a Film Studies Paper).

High-Key&Low-Key Lighting in Cinema

A Student's Question:

I am really confusing with the high-key light and low-key light. Could you please give me some examples or explanation of those two kinds of light? 

Answer:

High-Key Lighting

Low-Key Lighting

Source: 

Understanding Movies

Louis Giannetti

Jim Leach 

pp. 413-414

For more info, please check:

http://filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_lesson_cinematography.htm