Scream analysis

In this essay I will be writing about what extent is ‘Scream’ is an example of a postmodernism horror by writing postmodernism in film, the horror genre leading up to ‘Scream’ and the need for a postmodernism film, identifying and evaluating how ‘Scream’ is a postmodern and how/what I can use in my own production.

Postmodernity means what we are surrounded by in today’s world, when the individual artist has been replaced by a non-fixed subjects who exists in a world of pluralism and cultural diversity. Intertextuality is one of the seven requirements needed to create a postmodern horror.  Intertextuality includes shaping a texts meaning by other texts, it can represent an author’s borrowing and the transformation of a prior text or to a readers referencing of one text in reading another. It is basically the relationship between texts. The process of knowledge to gain consciousness is called self-reflexivity; it is an act of self-reference where an artwork specifically gets attention to itself. The third requirement is pastiche and parody, pastiche takes different styles, forms, motifs and then combines them together  to form  a new production. A parody is something that intends to mock, comment or poke fun at an original creation such as ‘Shaun of the Dead’ is a parody of ‘Dawn of the dead’. The fourth requirement is the questioning of grand narratives this means that it pluralises the debate, it creates multiple sources of knowledge, diverse histories and offers many ways of analysing of modern society. The fifth requirement is simulacra this is when modern society has replaced all the reality and meanings with symbols and signs; they present the human experience as a simulation of reality rather than reality. The sixth requirement is late capitalism this relates to the general sense that the world has been taken over by the values of capitalism and that alternative choices have become extinct. This fear is backed up by the power of technology which creates the sense of horror that we are always being watched by evil. The final requirement is the breakdown between high and low cultural forms, this means that pop-culture is capable of an evaluation as high art. A postmodern artwork that employs pop and mass produced.

Before Scream horror movies were mostly aimed at teenage boys, as it is more commonly boys who enjoy risk, blood and gore. As they don’t want to show they are afraid of horror instead they want to show they enjoy watching horror. There was also more female nudity, lots of gore and the strongest characters are male, whereas in Scream there was less of this type of thing which will appeal more to the female audience. Also before Scream, everyone expected the same predictable movie for example They also all followed the typical cliché conventions such as running up the stairs, asking ‘who is there?’, get boxed into a corner (upstairs), stumbling, dark shadows, isolated location, female victim and disruption of normality. There was a need for a post-modernism in horror because all the horror film genre were the same and everything had been done, this means the horror genre stopped for a while as they had run out of ideas. But in December 1996 ‘Scream’ flipped horror upside down and changed people perception of horror.

The typical post-modern horror must include the following, the final girl which is Sidney, a frightening place which is a house when the teenager is left home alone which in Scream is in a remote area of America for example near a woods, the ominous mise-en-scene and narratives that move from equilibrium to disturbance and back to a new equilibrium (murder/normal day at school/murder). The stereotypical characters such as the blondes being stupid (first to die), the brunette girls being intelligent (usually final girl), the jockey’s being killed of first and the smarter boys surviving longer are used in the majority horror movie this is used in Scream:-

·         Sidney – the smart brunette, who is the final girl

·         Casey, Tatum – the flirtatious blonde’s who both die, Casey is the second to be killed.

·         Randy – the smart boy, who knows everything about horror movies stays alive.

·         Steve – the jock who is first to be killed.

·         Billy – loves the horror genre and later has to be told to stop stabbing his partner of murdering - Stu.

‘Scream’ has many inside jokes and references to other popular horror movies such as ‘Halloween’, ‘Pyscho’ and ‘Carrie’. The killer has a very good knowledge of the horror movie genre as when ‘Casey’ picks up the phone he makes her answer trivia questions about horror films, to try and save her boyfriend’s life (Steve). The characters are also very familiar with the rules as Randy explains that ‘there are rules for surviving a horror movie’, this includes suspecting everyone, never drinking, having sex, (as the virgin always survives in the 1970’s horror movies) and if you say “I’ll be right back” it is guaranteed  that they will be killed. The murderer tells a victim that “You might as well go outside to investigate a strange noise!”. It is a post-modernism  because it acknowledges that its audience will have watched horror films. It allows the viewer to comment on the predictability of the genre and it also offers the viewer a new, self-conscious, at other times it is funny and it is also frightening.  

In my own production I will be very likely to use the traditional horror characters such as the brunette girl being the final girl and the blonde girl who isn’t a virgin would be killed first. I also liked the idea of not knowing who the murderer is, as it keeps people engaged with the film. So in my production I could also create an illusion to fool the viewer by having the character they least expect to be the murderer or have a big twist.