Slasher Genre Overview Vodcast Notes TBC

Blogging on sample openings

Last house on the left (Wes Craven,1972)
Budget 90k
Gross 10m
Opening: White on black - for the opening - to create realism
ELS of ducks haven't seen any characters yet
Quality of film shot onto is not very good 16m
Title barely readable
6 titles in the opening
Girl has the characteristics of a final girl
Long takes and limited shot variety
Necklace is a magical object - significant piece of mise en scene

The denotation of the exposition at the start of the film is white writing with a sans serif font. This writing is chosen to look realistic to a scare audience. It uses fairly conventional media language. The film opens with a pan of an extreme long shot which then cuts to a different part of the environment. It has been a convention of all the slasher openings i have watched so far that it starts with an environment shot and not just the characters. A lot of the exposition is done by showing graffiti. Initially by the protagonists name being on the screen. The quality of the footage on the film isn't very good. Also at the beginning of this film there are some discontinuity editing. 

Halloween (John Carpenter,1978)
Budget 320k
Gross 60m
Opening: Starts with an establishing shot uses narrative enigma to not show the 'killer'
Nice effects used
Blue tint applied - not quite right - atmosphere
Rule of thirds is used, action is in the centre (the house), two trees on either side
Signifies a stalker 'killer'
15 year elipsis
Bad weather signifies something bad is going to happen
Opening is 7minutes long

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Budget 800k
Gross 50m
The first shot of the film there is non diegetic music and an audio bridge connecting the credits to the opening sequence. They provide exposition of the date time and place on the screen separately over the opening shots. The first shot is an extreme long shot which is also an establishing shot, it is of a city setting and is a birds eye view. This shot slowely pans across the city. There is then a dissolve transition used to move into the next shot. The panning continues and this pan and cross dissolve sequence happens 3 times. 
The next shot to be shown is a zoom on on a random window in the city. This represents the hand of fate and the fact that this horror that is about to take place could have happened to anybody in the city and they were randomly chosen, making the audience more scared becasue it could possibly happen to them. The zoom then continues through the window like the audience are spying on the people in there. This is a very similar idea to Peeping tom, also released in 1960. 
There is a panning shot across the room and then a long shot, slightly high angled of a girl very much centred in the frame. It is clear that this is who the audience should be concentrating on. The Guy is only in the edge of the shot which signifies he is less relevant. The girl shown here is the scream queen (marianne) and she is a real archetype of a scream queen that a lot of scream films from other films are based or related too. 
By the end of these first inital shots it is 2.53 into the film.

When A Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979)

Budget 70k

Gross 21m

In this opening, we see a teen girl who appears to represent Clover's final girl character. She is introduced to the film holding school books as she is babysitting, which is how the final girl is signified; being academic. However, she does not have brunette hair like stereotypical final girls do. Instead, she has ginger hair, which confuses the audience as we do not know if she is a final girl character or a scream queen, despite common scream queens being 'non academic' and hating school. The girl is then having a phone call to someone and is talking about a boy. She first appears on screen holding books, but seems to be more interested in talking to someone about 'Bobby'. This confuses the audience even more, because the stereotypical final girl is either single or is not interested in boys. This character is polysemic, meaning she could be the non stereotypical final girl or scream queen.

   We also see reflection Todorov's theory of equilibrium, as the film begins with a regular day to day event of a teenager babysitting. The equilibrium begins to be disrupted as continuous phone calls are passed through, from an unknown character, who is signified to be the antagonist as he is suggesting something is wrong. 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel, 2003) 

The start of this opening goes against Todorov's theory of equilibrium as he said that we should start with equilibrium, encounter a disruption of this equilibrium (dis-equilibrium) and then solve this by creating a new equilibrium. The film starts off with images of a crime scene and police officers, which signifies dis-equilibrium. We then go to equilibrium as we view the 5 main characters, which is not the order in which Todorov suggested it should be.

  Carole Clovers theory of the final girl is also reflected. The first character the camera fully focuses on has brunette hair and appears to be the sensible one out of the group. This character is the stereotypical final girl, used in many slasher films. However, she appears to have a relationship with one of the boys in the group, which goes against the stereotypical final girl character, who, in Clover's book, supposedly does not have a boyfriend. We then see people in the back kissing. Both the boy and girl are blonde, which signify that these characters are most likely dumb, and sexually active. The girl is the stereotypical scream queen, which is the binary opposite of the final girl character - the theory of binary opposition was created by Levi-Strauss. The boy could also be known as the 'scream king'. 

   Within the group, there is a character who is framed as 'the other'. He wears glasses and is nerdy and appears to be the only character within the group to not be in some kind of relationship which signifies he is different. He appears to be the annoying one, who the others do not like very much which therefore means the audience do not empathize very much with him. 

Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)

The first character is a blonde woman. Her blonde hair signifies she is the scream queen of the film. As well as having the stereotypical appearance of a scream queen, she is home alone, which is a common signifier of the slasher genre. We learn that the girl has a boyfriend, which is also anchorage to signify she is the scream queen figure. Equilibrium is portrayed at the very start as well, as the girl is simply preparing popcorn and is on the phone, although she does not know that the man she is talking to is the killer. As she begins to realise, the equilibrium becomes disrupted. This is another example of Todorov's theory being applied to a slasher film. 

   Barthes' theory of narrative engima is also slightly applied to the opening. To begin with we only hear the voice and don't see the physical body. When we do see the killer, he is wearing a mask, so we still do not entirely know who it is and what their motive is.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)

The opening starts with a panning shot following the character's feet using narrative enigma well hear not revealing the character and leaving the audience in mystery to who the character might be.    

The Texas Chainsaw Masacre (Tobe Hopper, 1974)

Budget 83k

Gross 30m

The opeing shot is a close up of a mangled up face, then the camera slowly zoom's out of it and reveales a shot of a grave yard with a dusty american background also theis scene has diegetic audio of a radio which is telling the audience of what crime happened to make this startling scene apear.

There is a black background, also there is a use of san serif font which indicates the film will be very dramtic and scary. The titles go upwards off the screen so that more come up however this can give off a sence of mystery of where its leading

Scream 4 (Wes Craven, 2011)

The film starts out with the company ident for Dimension films, over the top of this a phone rings it then fades into a the phone ringing and a teenage girl with brown hair picks up, possibly the survivor. The person on the end of the phone asks "Who am I speaking to?" and the girl hangs up saying "Wrong number" another teenage girl is introduced. They are about to watch a movie and say they are going scary. They then go on about the reason's why it was good and bad, the girl who picked up the phone starts playing around with a knife like in Scream 1, which the scream queen did.

Franchises

Too mention a few...
Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978: Compass International, $320k: $60m [world; $47m USA], 7.9) 18 - 
Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980: Paramount, $550k: $40m, 6.3) 18 - 
Nightmare on Elm Street, A (Wes Craven, 1984: New Line Cinema, $1.8m: $25.5m, 7.4) 18 - 
Leprechaun (Mark Jones, 1993: Trimark Pictures, $900k: $8.6m, 4.3) 15 - 
Scream (Wes Craven, 1996: Dimension Films, $22m [IMDB: $15m]: $161m [world, USA $103m], 7.2)18 -

Scary Movie (Keenan Ivory Wayans, 2000: Dimension Films, $19m: $278m [world, USA $157m], 6.0)18 -
Saw (James Wan, 2004: Evolution Entertainment, $1.2m: $103m [world, USA $55m], 7.7) 18 -
Slashers tend to be franchises,