Wes Craven
Wes Craven is an American film director, writer, producer and actor who is known for his work in horror films, especially slasher and supernatural. He was the director of the famous films Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven has changed the genre of horror in many ways over the years. He believed that the best place to film horror films is in stereotypically safe places (Hospitals, Schools, churches etc.) In the famous film A nightmare on Elm street, Craven uses this theory as it's mainly set in teenagers homes. This makes the films effective in making the audience scared because it's set in a place which is usually safe and comfortable. He also uses the theory that in horror films when parents or carers are absent that is when bad things happen. For example in Scream, the victims parents go away and she's left home alone in a huge house in the isolated countryside, leaving her vulnerable.This will make the audience feel uneasy and anxious about what is going to happen to the victim because she is unable to get help. |
Carol Clover
Carol Clover is an American professor of film studies who has published ideas and developed theories of gender in horror films. She is credited for her development of the 'final girl theory' The Final Girl Theory is a commonly used concept within both thriller and horror films. It specifically refers to the last girl in who's alive to confront the killer in order to tell the story. According to Clover, the final girl in many horror films shares many common characteristics including their unisex names, the fact they are sexually unavailable (or a virgin) and they usually have a history with the killer which gets revealed later on. The final girl theory has been used in some older films such as Scream when Sidney Prescott's boyfriend is her killer. And in more modern horrors like 'You're Next' when the final girl was seen as innocent and vulnerable but survived till the end which gave an unexpected twist to the narrative. |
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Wheeler Winston Dixon
Wheeler Dixon is a very experienced filmmaker and scholar who is currently the Ryan professor of film studies in the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He emphasized the idea that both men and women in horror films aren't actors, they're sites of activity. This suggests that the victims in horror films are made to showcase the killer to the audience in order to make them scared. The fact that the actors are "sites of activity" suggests that horror films are made to highlight or develop real life situations to make the audience feel a certain way and relate to the characters. |
Stuart Kaminsky
Kaminsky is an american mystery writer and film professor who studied the use of weapons in the genre of horror.He explained that "the weapons used in horror films are extensions of the people using them". His theory suggested that there are no guns used in slasher horror films due to the fact that they are too clean and don't give the same effect as a knife or axes. Knives and axes are used in slasher horror films as they focus more on the gore but also because they are personal weapons which allows the killer to be more involved and makes it a very intimate death to make the audience feel scared. |
Personal weapons such as machetes, knives, axes and hammers are more common in slasher horror films because they make the audience feel more scared than just watching somebody get shot. The idea that the weapons are extensions of the people using them in the film suggests that some killers in horror films are more iconic due to the weapon they use which makes it part of their costume. For example, in the popular 1984 film Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy Krueger's knives are attached to his gloves making him one of the most iconic killers in the horror genre of all time.
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