Scream Evaluation

Reviews For Scream

Changes in the two horrors, Scream and Halloween

The changes in horror genre

After the film Halloween was made, producers changed in this particular genre, the typical conventions within the films techniques. Conventions that were used in the film Halloween have been copied making it too unrealistic, it’s not something that could/would happen in real life, and it’s not believable enough, however the violence that was in the film is the kind of thing that happens in society today, for example: people getting stabbed is not as uncommon as it used to be.

The influence of violence from Halloween, projects towards young children as something that’s seen as ‘cool’ and encourages them in a bad way. Horrors were largely projected towards the male gender, this is because they enjoy graphic scenes and in every horror the sexual nature is always involved, causing a big engagement. This was called male gaze theory when women are shown naked to satisfy the male audience’s fantasies. However this cuts out a large part of the woman society, this convention hasn’t changed since the Halloween film. On the other hand, in Halloween, when a victim was being killed, parents where no were in the film, however in the film Scream, the young girls parents turn up at the last minute but were still on the scene.

The director Wes Craven of Scream 1997, decided to change how he made horrors, showing a significant change between Halloween and Scream. As Halloween was made in the 70’s the quality of the film was not as good, for example creating clichés through the use of steadicam which is often used for stalking scenes to create realism that a victim was being followed, however this created good tension as to when something was going to happen in the film.

In the film Scream, mocking’s of the typical conventions that were used in Halloween, as well as other films, were used as a guideline as to when someone was going to get killed/murdered, the actors mocked this in Scream, however it still represented when they were going to die. An example of the mocking’s, was when the boy was standing in front of the television telling the other teenagers the typical ‘sayings’ that are mainly used in horror films. This reinforces that this is when they get killed because, the boy stated that the victim generally says “I’ll be right back” and they never do. This happened in both films. This use of pastiche was used by Wes Craven to highlight the outworn generic conventions of these predictable horror films.

Another difference between the films Halloween and Scream is the background music. The music in Halloween was monotonous making the killers approach too obvious to the audience, however Scream uses atmospheric music and also an unrecognisable tune, the director has changed the music throughout different scenes so the audience don’t expect what is about to happen. The sophisticated high Tec soundtrack created a better quality of suspension build up throughout the film/scenes. The music was carefully timed in Scream, to keep synchronised within the actions.

The significant difference of the camera use in Scream shows the point of view from both the victims and the killers angles (high and low), creating a sense of sympathy for the victims, also the victims realisation is not as dim as in scream (the characters were not as stupid, for example Drew Barrymore in the opening scene not ringing the police in the first place, normal common sense). Also the fast moving camera work and editing create good affects in Scream, unlike voyeuristic stalking in Halloween.

Promotional posters for the film Scream used the most well-known character, Drew Barrymore, she’s been known in the films, E.T, Charlie’s angles, 50First Dates and many more famous films. The reason for her use in the picture was because they wanted to create suspense, making the audience believe she’s going to survive throughout the film, even though she doesn’t, this creates a shock to them. This goes against the typical generic conventions of a horror film, or any film, for the big named actors to die first. This is a significant difference in the two horrors.

Horrors such as Halloween rarely use big names as they are budget films and cannot afford to pay actors like that to play a role. Examples of the budget cuts is that they used unknown actors, everyday suburban locations, boring, obvious typical conventions such as the soundtrack to the killer, no high Tec special affects etc. However Scream was a big budget film with a number of known actors, for example, Neve Campbell (Sydney), Courtney Cox (reporter), Henry Winkler (headmaster) and Drew Barrymore (1^st Victim).

Other differences would be that Wes Craven created the equal fights in Scream making it more realistic, as they get their chance to get away, and are able to inflict injuries upon the two killers, argument e.g. when Tatum hits one of the killers with a bottle.

This is also a significant difference; there were two killers instead of one in Scream.

However Wes Craven reinvented the Halloween masked icon in Scream, and the killers in both films use knives, which is also an icon for horror films. He created the same killers. Wes Craven still kept some of the old conventions used in Halloween so the diehard horror fans could still anticipate the events, but challenged most of the clichéd outworn conventions. This revived the horror genre and the audiences for these films grew. 

A2 Halloween Evaluation

Brief

A promotional package for a new horror film, to include a teaser trailer (maximum 60seconds), together with a film magazine front cover, featuring the film. Also to produce a promotional poster of the film. (All images and soundtrack to be original).