Film Theorists & Slasher Films

When you watch a slasher film, you know what you’re going to get. While it’s correct that every genre of movie has a certain formula, in a slasher you can put the following elements together like a recipe:

    * The killer is a white male with his identity concealed

    * The victims are attractive young people, mostly females, who are killed one by one

    * The murder weapon is handheld, usually a knife

    * The film contains a past event that has traumatised the killer, with the main action set in the present where an event reignites the killer’s vengeful drive

    * The sole survivor is a girl

Examples include: Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Prom Night, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scream or Psycho.

Halloween

While it’s true that the ‘final girl’ could be seen as the hero of the slasher film, as she alone escapes from the killer, the girl in the slasher film can’t be the main character, because it’s the killer that makes all the action happen. She just reacts.

This theory comes from Laura Mulvey, who argued that when you watch any film, you watch it through a man’s eyes. Her idea of having a “male gaze” meant that whenever you have a female character in a film, she is essentially passive, and males are the active, powerful ones in the story. Let’s look at a breakdown:

Laura Mulvey: Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema (1975) 

The 'male gaze’:

·      Women are represented as sexual objects of pleasure for the characters and audiences who are predominantly male.

·     The gaze is constructed through the camera man and production team.

·     In most cases horror is typically known to be filmed and directed by men and made for the male audience.  

·     The main aim is to create and frame a shot that looks through the male perspective or character. Thus, this objectifies the female body/character.

·      The audiences gaze is constructed through these devices and angles that concentrate on the female body in a sensual, vulnerable or dreamy way.

This theory is supported by:

Van Zoonen (1994)-'Men look at women; women watch themselves being looked at.'

Suzanne Moore (1988)-'Male bodies are only on display in certain conditions-always in active poses.

Camera mechanisms that objectify women

James Bond is a classic example of the Male Gaze