PB 4
EXEGESIS summary-
Series of Audio-Visual Horror Subgenre Sketches.
Our final project was to do a final and longer sketch that curates a reflection to the ideas that I have been exploring throughout the semester. My research question was “are genre just tropes?” and I’ve found that what makes a genre is not only a grouping of tropes and patterns but also the aesthetics, mood and cinematic experience of emotions within a text. While I have taken upon further research for a wider exploration, we were encouraged to find inspirations for our sketch. The focal point that has been reflected upon my genre trajectory is the inception of genre boundaries that are sometimes taken too seriously into a strict classification of films according to the set-rules that cause the limitation and lack of creativity. This idea is explored by Ishiguro in 2015. Hanich (2010) in the other hand specialised in the idea that the categories we form are part of our experience. For example, horror branches out in a couple of different subgenres including the slasher, thriller, vampires and the supernatural and we can usually tell the difference through the tropes present. I’ve learned that these subcategories are all able to generate the lived bodily experience and fearful emotions including terror, shock, dread and horror. In a nutshell, tropes equal genre which equals emotions. So there comes the second part of my question, can film still be considered a particular genre if its key tropes are removed? My series of three horror-subgenre sketches (which may as well be considered as meta-horror) that includes slasher, vampire and supernatural horror will be the experiment of this study.
Within my three chosen horror sub-genres are tropes and conventions that operate to portray the aesthetics of fear. I had removed each of their key tropes to prove that they are still its genres without sticking to the set-rules. Jackson (2013) defines metahorror as films that self-consciously refer to their own construction and do not break through the fourth wall completely. What I’ve received from Jackson’s ideas are inspirations of metahorror that helped my sketches. So my idea was to omit fangs in Vampire sketch, the presence of knife in my slasher sketch and finally the phenomenon of evil and harmful personality of a ghost in the supernatural sketch.
Although the vampire sketch presents itself as a typical gothic romanticism with its warm hues of the shots, blood and preying subjects, it omits the presence of fangs on any shots.
Likewise, the slasher sketch omits and replace knifes, saws or any weapons to a single red marker that does not in any way look harmful or even bloody. This sketch however, uses fast cutting shots and jump cuts in hand-held movements after longer moments of suspense with perspective and establishing shots.
Finally, the supernatural sketches utilises dark, cold monochromatic tones with unsettling dread and terror background music along with shock tactic especially whereabouts in moments of creepy silence. In addition, the ghost is scary with an all distorted white mask and always appear suddenly except that she is cheeky and comedic unlike the typical dangerous villains of horror.
These sketches are self-reflexive of its genres in a way that they play with the most prominent key tropes whether is it omitted, subverted or replaced. Coming across Jackson (2013) notion that metahorror films are “at once definers of the genre and moments or examples of it”, I’ve found that it is because of how they deconstruct the limits of the structures they operate within. These films are commenting on genre conventions by denying genre structure and knowledge, extending beyond the horror genre.
Another point that supports my research question is hybridity, which is one of the examples that blur the lines of genre boundaries. Films such as Cabin in the Woods (2011) and the Scream series have indeed explode genre theories. As Jackson (2013) had suggested, these films demonstrate the evolution of the relationship between reality and representation in an increasingly mediatized society. My sketches exemplifies this idea because its play with tropes and therefore, challenging “our understanding of originality and authenticity” (Jackson, 2013). We never really see the person “behind the mask” in slasher films or at least it will be revealed towards the end of the narrative. So my slasher sketch heightens the importance of slasher conventions by a challenging and authentic no-mask villain.
What genre is are not just tropes accumulating together to construct its genre. Moreover beside genre being reactions and emotions, the process in which films are critiquing or playing with those tropes (or lack of) also defines the genre. In this case, sound plays an immense role of defining the film’s genre as it relates to emotions. What I’ve learned from Sarkhar (1997) research, the use of sound is to evoke irrationality, emotional excess, or subjectivity in crisis. All three sketches prove to have successfully conveyed fear outcomes especially with the assistance of suspense, gruesome sounds, terrorising and uncomfortable soundtracks. The supernatural sketch involve the use of shock tactic through jump scare dialogue and sickening background music in relation to the dark-cold visuals, while the dolly zoom creates that uncomfortable terrorising feeling. Gothic and repulsive soundtrack used in the vampire sketch reflects the origin and blood-sucking predatory nature of the subject matter (vampires) without even showing the fangs. Hanich (2010) pointed out that we cannot identify everything we experience aesthetically due to lack of words. Hence, genres form and serves as a purpose to reflect on the films, compare, weigh and discusses its experiences. As Chion (1994) explained, sound enriches a given image to create the “definite impressions, in the immediate or remembered experience one has of it”. Thus, complementing sound designs and music enhances the definition of genre.
Genre is not just set of rules incorporating the most dominant key tropes but the construction of aesthetics of fear, emotions and reactions through audio-visual motifs whether it is original or authentic across the history and evolution of genre. Vampire films can still be vampire films without showing its fangs, as slasher films can still be thrilling without the presence of sharp weapons. Similarly, the dread and terrorising nature from the aesthetics of supernatural films does not mean that the ghost cannot be cheeky, harmless and perhaps comedic. Overall the theories support these ideas and the sketches successfully challenge the dominance of key tropes within genres, exploding that bubble of limitations across genre theories through hybridity.
References
Chion, M 1994, Audio-vision: Sound on Screen, “Chapter 1: Projections of Sound on Image”, New York, Columbia University Press, pp. 3-25.
Gaiman, N, Ishiguro, K 2015, New Statesman, “Let’s talk about genre”, June 4.
Hanich, J 2010, Cinematic emotion in horror films and thrillers, “Pleasures and Counterbalances”, Routledge, New York, pp. 24-35.
Jackson, K 2013, Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror, “Metahorror and simulation in the Scream series and The Cabin in the Woods”, pp. 11-30.
Sarkhar, B 1997, Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television, “Sound bites: Fragments on cinema, sound and subjectivity”, vol. 17, edn. 2.