Horror: Horror Film and Repetition Essay

Submitted By CdHolmes1
Words: 704
Pages: 3
Open Document
Candice Holmes
Professor Godwin
HUM 201
7 March 2013

I’m Safe…. Oh no! There it is Again!

Repetition becomes an engine of horror when the viewer allows the constant replay of old fears to creep into their minds. Commonly found in the Horror Film Genre repetition has been used to create a trap for its victims as well as the audience. Creating the allusion of escape, repetition builds up a cyclic feeling of safety and then cuts out the sliver of hope with the return of the monster or whatever is terrorizing the cast. In Francis Ford Coppola’s film Dracula the repetition of shadows and transformation is used to emphasize Dracula’s inhumanity. In The Thing, by John Carpenter, the constant return of the alien in a new form illustrates suspense and captivates the audience, successfully creating a trap. Repetition is a timeless device effectively used by directors to draw in the audience instilling the underlying themes of the film to build a truly horrifying world. Coppola’s use of eroticism is constantly repeated in the film. Gender roles became an interesting tool for the seducing and then destruction of the men in the movie. Lucy, Mina’s best friend in the movie is a victim to Dracula. He pursues her in an unknown wolf-like form and rapes her before turning her into a vampire. Throughout the film rape is repeated; Jonathan is raped and drained by Dracula’s brides and in the midst of passion Dracula almost rapes Mina as he tries to stir her subconscious memories. This dramatic tone brings to light the disgusting act of rape. Only the foulest humans on earth can commit such a deed yet rape is easily displayed repeatedly on the big screen. This repetition mocks the norms our society created leaving the viewer uncomfortable and scared. Here repetition is expertly used to push past social boundaries and the human psyche formatting horror. However this repetition is not only used to traumatize the audience with blatant sexual acts but to also create Dracula’s persona. Much like the Thing, Dracula takes on many forms making it hard for the cast and thus the audience to pin point what the monster really is. When Jonathan enters Transylvania we see Dracula manipulating the shadows around them. Dracula’s appearance at the time is much like a decrepit old man. Again, Coppola plays on the social norms of sweet helpless old people to set up the scene for Dracula’s next transformation into a hideous wolf beast. Dracula turns again into a dashing young prince and the finally into his ancient form on his death bed. The repetition of transformation intrigues the audience for it is something that we cannot comprehend. This is horror! The continuous battle against the unknown is fought by
Show More

Related Documents: Horror: Horror Film and Repetition Essay

Horror Films Essay

continue to remake Horror films with reference to Nightmare on Elm Street 2010? This essay links to my coursework because I have produced two print articles for Media Magazine and Heat magazine. This relates to the key issues around Horror in my essay because I have produced a review for a newly released Horror film written by a break through female writer Lena Dunham and an interview with writer. In this essay I will be exploring the key issues around Horror as a genre and how horror has engaged…

Words 2027 - Pages 9

Examples Of Suspense In The Tell Tale Heart

variety of literary devices such as imagery and repetition. By exploring the use of repetition, the author manipulates the pace of his story to build up the suspense until the climax of the story. The effective application of this technique means that the author is able to involve the readers into the tension of the story. In passage 10, the beating of the heart is constantly referred to and described as it grew “louder, louder!” The continuous repetition of the word “louder” and other amplifying phrases…

Words 909 - Pages 4

Night Of The Living Dead: Film Analysis

After participating in Slavic 2230, the mere thought of a monster only being a monster is preposterous. The horror genre allows storytellers to fully express opinions and fears without specific direction towards a person, group, illness, or anxiety. A monster is never only a monster, but also an interpretation, metaphor, or an anthropomorphized object. This figure is usually a symbolization of societal issues, fears, or anxieties during that era. These anthropomorphized creatures may be literal…

Words 1705 - Pages 7

Essay on Slashers: Horror Film and Audience Expectations

Developments Genres are based on the ideas of repetition and difference. Within the genre, the repetition is the common conventions audience expectations of character, story, structure, context and instructions associated with the genre. For the slasher genre, regardless of cycle, the repetition is... * The killer * The final girl * The initial scare * The pot event * The body count * The knife * The isolated setting * The ineffectual parents * Subjective…

Words 1787 - Pages 8

The Production Of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

1900’s, including a 1926 silent film, a 1936 film – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a 1959 musical and a 1960 ballet. Sondheim based his musical on a 1973 play by Christopher Bond. Bond, borrowing from The Count of Monte Christo, Shakespeare, and The Revenger’s Tragedy, recreates a character in Sweeney Todd that is a tragedy of circumstance, and is more sympathetic. Sondheim saw the play that year and realised the potential of the story as a horror musical. Sweeney Todd – The Demon…

Words 1617 - Pages 7

Satire and Stereotyping in the Birth of a Nation and Bamboozled Essay

Spike Lee's film Bamboozled (2000), cinematically stages American mass entertainment's history of discrimination with humiliating minstrel stereotypes which was first brought to film in 1915 by D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. ‘Blackface' minstrelsy is a disturbing legacy that began as a tradition in the early 1800s on stage, with white actors using burnt corks to darken their skin and "allowing them to portray African-American slaves, usually as lazy, child-like providers of comic relief"…

Words 3022 - Pages 13

Holocaust Film Analysis

them were the Jewish race. Young adults in high school are constantly being exposed to the Holocaust through film and literature. Nonfiction film and literature are an excellent form of learning about the Holocaust because they tell the actual experience of the survivors. Fiction films, on the other hand, don’t really do a job on describing the Holocaust accurately. The first Holocaust films were different than then they are now. According…

Words 1180 - Pages 5

Science Fiction: An Overview Essay

It’s simple to escape from life while there are millions of books, films and TV programmes at our disposal. In my younger years, whenever I was upset I would shield myself from the cold reality with a blanket and a warm, hard-cover barrier of an immersive story, filled with convoluted problems beyond my imagination and solutions that could be solved within a hundred pages. I was most content with new worlds, majestical creatures and paradoxical concepts. Science fiction was my escape. Science…

Words 767 - Pages 4

Supernatural Essay

Majumder February 23, 2015 TV Program Review Essay Many associate science-fiction and fantasy-fiction with the “geeks and nerds” of schools, offices, etc. However, that is not necessarily true. Such kinds of fiction, along with horror-fiction fascinate many people. Fantasy and horror fiction use incredible figures that tend to stand out and attract the watcher to view more. Supernatural, a television show that contains all three types of fiction, uses multiple characters to create an outstanding path for…

Words 914 - Pages 4

To Kill A Mockingbird Character Development

Throughout this film there are major characters that have shown development throughout the story. The three main characters that showed this development the most was John Coffey, Percy Wetmore, and Paul Edgecomb. The character that I felt presented and met the qualifications was Percy Whetmore. To be a developed character in certain cases means to morally or physically develop throughout the story that is being told but it also means who sold the part the best, made the audience believe in this character…

Words 861 - Pages 4