Foundations of Fear - The World of Horror Filmmaking



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'Possession' - Film Analysis

  Possession: noun -  1) the state of having, owning, or controlling something.                                       2) the state of being controlled by a demon or spirit.      There are few things within the human experience as potentially painful, traumatic, or devastating as divorce. The severing of a union made in happier times, no matter how mutually beneficial, is an affair that leaves its mark upon both partners. Tempers flare and accusations fly  as resentment and suspicion reign supreme. It is perhaps then no mistake that one of horror’s most overlooked films, the psychological /supernatural thriller Possession (1981) , deals almost exclusively with this theme. While other horror films such as Night of the Living Dead or The Purge may speak to allegories of political and societal dysfunction, Possession ’s boundaries lay firmly with...
Read more

A Matter of Cultural Identity

       In Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a British airman, torn between life and the afterlife, falls in love with an American servicewoman. In order to gain more time with his newly found love, an “appeals trial,” of sorts, is held in order to grant a stay-of-execution on the young airman’s death. Central to the argument of the prosecution, the Continental Soldier Abraham Farlin, is that this Englishman is little more than a corrupting influence on the life of a young, Bostonian woman. The defense, personified by the airman’s friend, the late Dr. Frank Reeves, argues, in turn, that America and England are more alike than even the superficial and historical similarities. “Does [a glass] break because it faulty or because it is glass?” The prosecution asks. “We are all as God made us,” he argues -- asserting that the difference between an American and an Englishman is as clear-cut as the difference between an American and a banana. Reev...
Read more

Keating: The Emotional Curve

 Film scholars have traditionally been at odds as to whether story is provided in service of spectacle, or vice-versa. This dichotomy has further delineated into three distinct categories of narrative operation:           Classical , Alternation , and Affective .       However, a separate model (or, perhaps, refining of the Affective model) has since been classified to accomodate for nuance heretofore unacknowledged: the Cooperative model. This cooperative model asserts that spectacle and story work hand-in-hand to create a series of highs, lows, victories and defeats for the protagonist to experience, and the audience to feel, vicariously. This meandering of story, with dramatic ups and downs, are referred to as “emotional curves.”      In traditional film discourse, the Classical model maintains that narrative is the dominant figure in a Hollywood film. Every diegetic moment acts in service of progressing the fabula...
Read more