Question 2: In what days does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products?
The Slasher sub-genre has conventions which we tried to follow. The killer is usually male. He wears a mask or disguise, something more sinister than a hooligan's hoodie, for example the killer in Scream wears his instantly recognizable mask.
The killer has a preferred weapon, usually a knife but not always as we see in Nightmare on Elm Street where Freddy uses his claws that he makes for himself at the start of the film. Also the killer never kills for the sake of it, and there is always a deeper reason for it, in Friday the 13th Freddy kills because he was killed. Overall the killer is mysterious and by the use of restricting shots the audience is prevented from seeing the killer properly until the desired climax.
The setting is always domestic, in Halloween the first victim is murdered in her own bedroom. The victims are generally female.
We have tried to apply some of these conventions to our film. We have chosen a domestic setting and a female victim for our film. Also the killer does not appear until the murder itself takes place. It is important to follow conventions so you do not alienate the audience, otherwise they might think that your film is 'cheesy' or just not very scary at all.
We have challenged certain conventions, as our film does not have a stalking scene. In a sense it is like the victim comes to our killer instead of the other way around. We did this because we felt it would create a greater sense of desperation if it felt that by running the victim would bringing themselves closer to their own death.
Halloween 1978 Opening
Scream 1996
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