Research Rationale

Scream/Blair Witch

lassof 2025 by Ishrah Jama

Wells' Research and Cohen's Moral Panic

Devil's Due - Marketing Strategy

Devil's Due is a psychological horror film that was released in 2014. It follows the story of a young newly-wed couple who get kidnapped on their honeymoon where the women gets impregnated with the devil. It focus on her weird and terrorizing pregnancy. The film has a budget of $7 million and made a box office of $36.9 million.

On 14th of January, before the release of the film, Fox released a promotion video of an remote control baby stroller that had a face robot doll inside onto the streets of New York City to scared any pedestrians walking past.  This video went viral and created a lot of hype over the film.

Fact's about the video:

• It was created by a three-man digital agency called Thinkmodo
• It took 4 weeks to build the stroller.
• The baby's realistic skin was made out of silicon.
• The hair once belonged to a goat and each strand was stapled to its skull.
• Vomit was made out of water, thickening agent and food colouring.
• The baby cries came from a iPod that was hidden in the stroller.
• It cost between $500 thousand and $1 million

Male Gaze and Voyeurism

Preliminary Task - Director's Commentary

Preliminary Task - Final Clip

Preliminary Task - Editing/Filming Process

Preliminary Task - Storyboard and Schedule

Preliminary Task - Horror Clip Analysis

Clover's Final Girl and Creed's Monstrous Feminine

Clover's Final Girl Theory

Carol Clover's Final Girl theory states that there is usually a girl left alive at the end of the film to comfort the villain/monster. They are defined as the heroine who is 'acting' as the male protagonist. This theory is most often applied to horror films ( in particular, slasher films). The final girl is also supposed to be the person to live so they can tell everyone else the story. This theory comes from Clover's book named 'Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film' (1992).

'She alone looks death in the face, but she alone finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (Ending A) or to kill him herself (Ending B)' - Clover 1992, p.35

The final girl is listed to have certain trait:

She is sexually unavailable or virginal 

She has a unisex name

Book Smart / Intelligent

Independent

Socially awkward

'The Final Girl is boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine - not, in any case, feminine in the ways of the friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and her sexual reluctance set her apart from other girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects, not to speak of the killer himself.' - Clover 1992, p.40

Example: Laurie from the 1978 film 'Halloween' throughout the film is portrayed as a smart virgin who listens to the rules unlike everyone around her who are constantly having sex, drinking or smoking. Laurie is seen to have different interests than her friends, whilst they go out partying, she babysits.

Barbara Creed's Monstrous Feminine

• Barbara Creed is a Marxist feminist film critic.
• She based her work predominately on horror and slasher films.
• Her theory suggested that within media, women are shown as monstrous as well as the natural female functions.
• She used Freud's psychological theory to help build her theory.

Example: Carrie (1976/2013)

Most of the female characters in this film are presented as monstrous. Carrie is bullied by teenager girls and has a mother that is a religious fanatic. She ends up killing everyone further proving the point that all women are evil.

In the blood prom scene, we see how periods, a natural women function, has been used to connote an message of disgust and humiliation. At first, when she received her first period,there is a look of horror in her face whilst her classmates further shame her. When she gets blood on her shorts she is looked down upon mt the male head teacher. Women's blood and pig's blood are both shown in the film hand in hand to link to Creed's idea that like pigs, women are dirty animals.