Essay Plans

"The audience may know what to expect, but are still excited by genre texts." To what extent is this true?

• 
  Repetitive elements within the slasher genre are:
• Final girl, Carol Clover (1992)
  
  Sex equals death in slasher films.
  
  Audiences enjoy repetition and are comfortable knowing what to expect within a media text.
• 
  Psychotic murderer, usually a male

Introduction

This essay will explore to what extent the audience are still excited by genre texts, even though they know what to expect with focus on the ‘slasher’ genre and films such as Halloween (1978), Friday 13th (1980), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1997).

Recent developments in genre have included the emergence of parody, pastiche and hybrid forms. Show how such developments have influenced the nature of media texts.

• 
  Scream is a postmodern text . The phone call could be called a pastiche of ‘When a Stranger Calls’ (1979).
• 
  The opening scene also offers intellectual pleasures as the audience who has knowledge of other slasher films becomes the ‘insider’.
  
• Scream is a postmodern text . The phone call could be called a pastiche of ‘When a Stranger Calls’ (1979).
• Scary Movie is a parody which has elements from several other films e.g. Scream.
  
  Introduction

This essay will look at the recent developments in genre have included the emergence of parody, pastiche and hybrid forms and how these developments have influenced the nature of media texts, with focus on the slasher genre and films such as Scream (1997) and Scary Movie (2000).

Account for the popularity of one genre of your choice. Illustrate your answer with examples.

• 
  Slasher films reflective of the zeitgeist.
• Final girl links to second wave feminism in the 1970s.
• Scream (1997) reinvigoration of the slasher genre- postmodernism.
  
  Slasher films get progressively explicit as audiences become increasingly desensitized to violence- compare the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre to its modern remake counterpart.
  
  Introduction

This essay will look at the popularity of the slasher genre and will focus on slasher films such as Halloween (1978), Friday 13th (1980), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1997).