Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Family Reunion?

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D is the most recent installment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. While providing viewers with the typical scenes of a slasher film, it also did a good job at flipping some of its expectations on its head. 

The film follows Heather, who travels through Texas with her friends to collect an inheritance, which unknown to her, includes her cousin Leatherface.

One thing that I actually enjoyed about this film was that there was an absence of typical masculine roles. I especially like the part when Nikki was handed the shotgun instead of Ryan. And even though she had horrible aim, I appreciate the fact that she was immediately, without second thought, handed the shotgun. So instead of being portrayed as a dainty woman running aimlessly, she buckled down and tried to defend herself and Ryan. 

The Ultimate Price of Having Sex 

As soon as Nikki and Ryan started fooling around in the barn, I knew they were going to die in the next 6 minutes or less. As you can see, both characters are equally sexualized in this scene. Ryan is shirtless and Nikki is wearing his shirt, insinuating the fact that they just had sexual intercourse. 

Shortly after, they hear screaming, hop in a car and it flips over. Expectedly, Ryan is killed instantly from the impact of the crash. Seeing this, Nikki screams, gaining the attention of Leatherface, who despite of her efforts to escape, pulls her out and puts her in a freezer. I guess he was planning on saving her for later. 

One thing that set this movie apart from other slasher movies is that this film spent less time gazing at the murder and dead bodies of females. In fact, only two women were seen murdered in this film. Both of those murders were very quick and to the point. The first woman died from a kick to the head and the other died from an accidental gunshot wound to the head. 

In this movie, the camera spent more time lingering on the dead bodies and mutilation of men than it did on the women. While women were simply being put into freezers, men were being sawed in half, put on hooks, beat to death and skinned alive. I also feel as if both the men and the women were equally sexualized in the movie. Especially the character played by Tremaine Neverson, who was hardly seen without his shirt off or about to have sex.

The camera only really lingered on one woman, the final girl, Heather. Towards the end of the film, instead of just sawing Heather in half, Leatherface decides to use his chainsaw to rip open Heather's shirt exposing her breasts. This is an expression of his psychosexual fury. Leatherface clearly enjoys peeling back layers off of people before killing them, whether he is peeling back clothes or someone's skin. This completely unnecessary, yet expected scene plays on the idea that porn and horror films are more alike than we may like to admit because they both include a woman being dominated by a much bigger, stronger man, who finds pleasure in that act. 

The Eminent Vagina Dentata Scene

It took a while for the movie to have a "vagina dentata" scene but but according to Carol Clover's article and just my general knowledge of the "slasher film formula" I knew it was coming eventually. In my opinion, Mayor Burt had one of the worst deaths. His feet and hands were chopped off and he was thrown into a meat grinder, unable to fend for his life. The yonic meat grinder used its huge swirling teeth to chew him up and spit his blood out. Much like any other depiction of the vagina dentata and in this moment, Burt was completely helpless and emasculated.

More on the Final Girl 

Heather, the Final Girl, was actually Leatherface's long lost cousin. So in the end, even though she did have a sudden switch from hyper-feminine to portraying a more masculinized identity, she never had the moment where she killed the monster. Right before Leatherface was going to kill Heather he noticed his family symbol on her chest, out of all places, and spared her life. Later in the movie,  Heather ran away but she returned when she realized that Leatherface's life was in danger and saved his life by stabbing the man in the stomach with a pitchfork. This is the moment that her and Leatherface's roles switched. Leatherface was portraying the more feminine, stereotypical damsel in distress role, while Heather turned into a more stereotypical masculine character and saved the life of her cousin. 

Overall, this movie did a good job at keeping the essence of a typical slasher movie, while switching up some parts of the traditional slasher film formula. 

An Untypical Slasher Film: The Town that Dreaded Sundown

 

                     Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” was your typical yet not so typical slasher film. The movie has all five elements of a slasher horror film: the killer, the terrible place, the victims, the weapon, and the Final girl. However, Gomez-Rejon takes this movie to a new level with modernizing all five of these elements.

                   The plot of the movie is based on the telling of what happened to our main girl, Jami. She relives one horrible event that has happened to her a year ago. In the town of Texarkana, there is a story about a serial killer named the Phantom Killer. He goes off after couples who are “looking for privacy,” and just trying to get laid. When the Phantom Killer finds these sexually frustrated couples, he brutally murders them to the point where they are mutilated beyond recognition. This Phantom Killer has been around for the last 66 years and no one has yet found him or put a stop to him.

                    So what makes this movie different than other slasher films? Easy. All of these elements of the typical slasher movie have been modernized. Not only have the slasher/horror elements been played with, but there are other outside things all have important roles in this movie.

 

                  One of the elements that is talked about in Carol Clover’s article on slasher films is the terrible place. This is the only element that remains fairly typical throughout the entire movie. When the Phantom Killer arrives to the scene, it is usually out in the middle of the woods or in a tall building that has a huge center staircase acting as the tunnel that Clover talks about. The only thing here that isn’t typical is the scene where the Phantom Killer comes to a vigil ceremony held for the three victims that died, while being in costume. That’s a bold move for a serial killer. Besides that, there is nothing significant about these terrible places.

                    The next element that we can’t help but notice is the victims. The Phantom Killer kills couples who are trying to engage in sex. Usually in slasher films, as Clover points out, it is those who are already sexually active that are killed off. However, we have a mix of victims. The first two we see in the film is Corey and Jami. Due to Corey and Jami being extremely nervous when they are in the car, it is safe to assume that they have never done anything sexual before. Corey only gets to feel up Jami’s thighs before she realizes that they have company. It ends up that Corey gets killed off. The next set of couples that we have is a girl named Kendra and her soon to be fiancé. As soon as the soldier returns home, we cannot help but notice how these two lovebirds are all over each other. If it wasn’t frowned upon, they probably would have had sex at the airport… Instead, they get a motel room. Its kind of obvious that these two people have had sex before by how willing they were do it when reaching the motel. Then, we have the two characters who are gay. When they decide to take off into the night, they end up pulling off the side of the road into what seems like a junkyard. While sitting in the car, we learn that neither one of the guys has had sex with a man before; they don’t know how to do it. They start talking about what they can do, and before any of that can get started, the Phantom Killer arrives. So it doesn’t matter whether you are innocent or not, the Phantom Killer will find you if you are considering having sex.

         

                      Another important element that you cannot ignore in the slasher films is the weapon. Traditionally, the slasher will use a weapon that requires being in close contact with a person. Clover lists all of the traditional weapons used in slasher movies. These include knives, hammers, axes, icepicks, hypodermic needles, pokers, pitchforks and other handheld, manual devices. In The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Phantom Killer does use knives, but he also a gun and a bow and arrow, which is very unlikely. Also, the Phantom does something I’ve never seen in any scary movie before: he creates his own weapon. He takes a knife and ties it to a trombone. To kill with it, he blows into the instrument and as he slides the bottom part of the trombone out to play different notes, it stabs the victim. Clover is correct when she states that these weapons act as an extension of the body and are a phallic symbol.

                       The final girl character is the same as in any other slasher film, in the sense that she is beautiful and has a name that is both feminine and masculine. What is untypical about Jami’s character is the fact that she is sexually active. In the first scene with Corey, they talk about sex, but they don’t have it. Needless to say, Corey gets “killed off” while Jami escapes. She easily could have been killed, but because she had a message to spread, Phantom lets her live. Later in the film, Jami gets a new love interest. Even though they have only met up twice they end up having sex. As the night fades, it’s the boy that gets murdered and she lives yet again. Jami’s character is different because of her sexuality, she lives in the end.

                 Lastly is the killer. While Phantom Killer has that violent/sexual messed up character trait, he isn’t all that traditional either. He is psychotic, but there isn’t an explanation of a backstory that we were all hoping for. As stated earlier, Phantom states “This is for Mary…Remember.” There’s not one time in the movie where we learn who Mary is, why she was killed and what her connection to Phantom Killer is. Nothing. Instead, we learn that the reason he kills is so his name will be known to others for generations to come. Also mentioned above, he kills people who are innocent and who aren’t innocent. There are characters, such as Jami’s grandmother, the two gays, and everyone at the gas station who were killed just because they were in the wrong spot at the wrong time. And lastly (SPOILER ALERT), Phantom Killer is two different guys! Corey faked his death and Foster is killing people just so he can kill people. Corey and Foster have absolutely nothing in common besides this “darkness” that connects them. Weird, huh?

                Along with all of these elements, there are other things that happen that make this film different from other slasher films. Did I mention that there is a homosexual, interracial couple? Props to Gomez-Rejon for realizing that there doesn’t need to just straight couples. It’s also interesting that Kendra’s boyfriend was killed off, considering he is a part of the military. Strange to kill off someone with such a respectable title.

                  In the beginning of the film, one cool thing we get to experience as viewers is the I-camera Clover talks about. When the scene opens at the drive-ins, you can hear heavy breathing in the background while the camera is in the killer’s perspective. The camera moves around to show everyone at the scene as if he/you are looking for your next victims. Pretty sweet!

                For representation of gender, its interesting to look at Kendra and Jami’s characters. Both are the screaming, arm flailing kind of girls who just want to get laid. However, both start earning a masculine sense of character during their sex scenes. We get to see Kendra in her full glory, but Jami remains “protected” while having sex. In other words, we don’t get to see Jami’s goods, besides her naked back. What really matters here is that during sex both women are on top, taking the man’s role. It doesn’t make the men look too manly in these scenes.

               The most interesting thing I’ve picked up on in the movie is this sense of violence versus sex versus religion. Religion and the face of the church, (well, the Reverend’s face) keep appearing throughout the movie. The Church is in the first scene at the drive in, they appear where the gays are playing in the band at an event, and the Reverend’s face is plastered on a billboard, right in front of the gay couple in the woods. While the Phantom Killer kills with the intentions of “having sex is wrong, you’re sinners,” its extra alarming when the gay, interracial couple is off the side of the road. It makes it seem that what they are doing is extremely sinful.

             In conclusion, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, is not your typical slasher film. While it does contain many of the same elements, it has a modern spin on it.

My Bloody Valentine Not So Loving

My Bloody Valentine, directed by Patrick Lussier in 2009, takes us back ten years ago, where an inexperienced coal miner named Tom Hanniger, played by Jensen Ackles, caused an accident that killed five men and put a sixth, Harry Warden, into a coma. A year later, on Valentine's Day, Harry wakes up and murders 22 people with a pickaxe before dying. Now, Tom has returned home after his father dies and is given the mine, still haunted by the past. Something, too,  is back in the tiny town of Harmony. A pickaxe killer in a miner's mask, who may be the ghost of Harry, come to finish the job on Tom and his friends.

Now, after reviewing the Carol Clover article, I started to focus on the way different genders are treated, how they are represented, and the common characteristics present in the film that are in your typical slasher film. Truthfully, it was surprising to me how one of my favorite movies used these basic methods such as the use of phallic weapons, the punished sexual female, and the terrible place.

The first topic to be discussed in the use of phallic weapons. These are weapons that represent the male anatomy, or bluntly a penis. These weapons tend to masculine, for obvious reasons, and they penetrate their victims. In the film, a most notable scene would have to be the one where the killer puts his ax through a man's head, ejecting his eyeball out of its socket. The AXE goes through a HOLE in the head, a most clear symbolic gesture of masculinity coming from the killer. To top it off, there is blood and aqueous humour (clear eyeball fluid) coming from the area that was penetrated with the phallic weapon. This could represent not only the killers dominance over the victim but could also parallel the events of when a man takes a woman's virginity. There may be blood and other forms of ejaculation coming from both individuals. * Please view clip from 0:01 to 0:49 for this example.

 

 

My next topic is the characteristic of the punished sexual female. As the audience gets more introduced to the killer, we witness a scene where a woman and her partner were having sex. The male she was with basically brushes her off and gives her money as to saying she was a cheap lay. Angry, and naked I might add, she storms off after him as he leaves the cheap hotel they were at. "Shocker", the killer is there and killed the man quickly. The audience doesn't get a huge ordeal as we do when its her turn to die. So, still naked and exposed, he follows her back into the hotel room where she goes to die. We witness her under the bed and then the killer finding her. Instead of ending her life, he seems to tease her and the audience gets a good glimpse at her heavy breathing and her chest/breasts bobbing up and down. We get a close up of her face, her plump lips quivering, and her begging for her life. This is a way for the audience to see her as a weak female in need of being saved as well as being punished for her sexuality. The whole entire time she was naked and vulnerable. We didn't witness the male with his penis flying out begging and crying for his life. We didn't witness his hairy chest bobbing up and down. Yes, as gross as they may be, it makes one wonder and just brings to light how females are depicted as those who should be pure and clean. And those who are not...well...get axed.



 

My third topic of discussion is the terrible place. For a film this good the terrible place was painfully obvious but still had viewers jumping out of their seats. The mine that Tom inherited from his father is the place where all the events of murder occurred and still continued. The mine is cold, dark, enclosed, and much of the unknown has a possibility of lurking anywhere and everywhere. The female anatomy, the vagina, is similar. It's dark and enclosed. If you remember from previous lectures in class, we had read an article in the beginning of the semester called "Medusa's Head: The Vagina Dentata and Freudian Theory" by Creed. Creed explained that throughout history and society, males found the vagina as evil and had the fear of being castrated if entered into this unknown hole. The same goes with this idea of the terrible place. The unsuspecting victims enter into this area with the thought of the unknown and the obvious expectance of danger from the audience. The terrible place is arguably feminine where the masculine killer enters with his phallic objects to murder. Now, for even more of a twist, the phallic symbols could also be seen as the sharp "teeth of the vagina" just waiting to feast upon the blood of its next victim. As you could see in the picture above, the killer is standing at the entrance of the mine (vagina) with his ax (teeth/phallic symbol), waiting for his attack on the next victim. In addition, the gate by him could be seen as the lips of the vagina.

Finally, my overall take on the film and the typical slasher film characteristics used in My Bloody Valentine is that is it followed the outline of gender representation well. It made the masculine and feminine characteristics obvious enough for each place or weapon. Such as the ax being phallic and the mine being that feminine terrible place. It had the usual sexually female character that gets punished for her actions but still gets a lot of screen time. The camera still focuses on her death which is not only gruesome but erotic at the same time. One can't help but look at her bouncing goods as she runs away from the killer who represents this strong male figure. The scene where he kills her, as described above, has much sexual tension, especially the moment his body is only separated from hers with a metal bed frame. Granted, we did have a strong female character, Sarah, who escaped that damsel in distress portrayal and fought of the evil killer when she had to so she can survive. One can depict her as the final girl who really didn't need the strong male hero to protect her most of the time. Take for example where she and her coworker are attacked in the grocery store. Sarah fights and escapes unlike the first female character we encountered who hid under a bed a cried. Overall, this film did a fine job of character representation and staying true to the typical slasher film.





"I Know What You Did Last Summer......" The Classic Slasher Film

I chose to watch the classic teen slasher movie I Know What You Did Last Summer. This movie is about four teenage friends, Julie James, Helen Shivers, Bary Cox, and Ray Bronson who are partying on July 4th in their hometown. On their way back from the beach, Ray was driving because Barry was drunk. Because of Bary's drunk distractions, the group ends up hitting a fisherman with their car and they believe he's dead. To avoid getting in trouble, they decide to dump his body in the ocean. They make a pack to never talk about this night again. One year later, these friends decided to go their separate ways, each haunted by what happened that past summer. However, they come together again when they believe that someone is trying to kill them because of their hit and run. As the movie plays out, the man that they killed did not in fact die and he murders Helen and Bary, and attempts to murder Julie and Ray but in the end does not succeed. The story ends with Julie back at school about to take a shower and in the steam written on the glass are the words "I STILL KNOW" and then something jumps out at her.


Although this movie premiered in 1997, it portrays very old-fashioned gender representations. Throughout the entire movie, the males in the story are desperate to protect the females. The females are portrayed as weak, and not being able to really handle themselves until the very end of the movie. For example, in the beginning of the movie Helen Shivers is in a beauty queen contest within her town, and she is already objectified in a revealing bathing suit. Her two friends, Bary and Ray, have a discussion in front of Julie about how big her breasts look in her suit. Later that night, when they hit the man with the car, Julie and Helen become hysterical while Bary screams at them, telling them they're stupid, and to let him handle it. Again male dominance is shown within this movie.



Regarding Carol Clover's article, there are many gender stereotypes. One specifically was the focusing on the female victim being killed. For example, When Bary Cox was killed, it was short and sweet and the camera did not focus on it for very long. However, when Helen Shivers was killed, it was a long, drawn out scene where she fought until the very end, where the camera focuses on her getting stabbed with the hook repeatedly. In today's society, there is a fascination with female death that is not necessarily there with male death.

Another idea brought up by Carol Clover is the idea of the last girl. In this case, the last girl would be Julie James, who is the last one left with the killer. Even though Ray is still alive, he is knocked unconscious. She fights him till the very end, and finally shows her courage that was so weakly portrayed throughout the film. Although Ray wakes up to help at the end, Julie and the killer battle for a while, hence how most horror movies tend to have the last victim, or person to stop the killer, be a girl.

There are many different gender stereotypes demonstrated throughout this film, and it was easy to pick out the old-fashioned vibe this film gave off. It will almost be twenty years old soon, and the change in gender stereotype has made big strides, but has not done it's full job yet. Horror films should make girls just as strong willed as the men, and not make them out to be helpless creatures as they are usually portrayed as.

Scream II, The Perfect Slasher Film

The entire Scream series, created by Wes Craven, has a plethora of classic slasher film elements, all while acknowledging those cliches and neatly following every one of them. Scream 2, as well as nearly every other sequel, features a mystery caller(s) who quickly turns out to be serial killer, dressed in the classic ghost costume called "Ghostface" from the first movie (pictured above). In the end, (spoiler alert!) the killer ends up being someone within the friend group of the main character, and typically has a partner.

 Scream 2 begins with the same main character/surviving "last girl" from its prequel, Sidney Prescott. Sidney is the typical slasher film girl: attractive student with a solid group of friends, and an attractive boyfriend to boot. Throughout the beginning of the film, "Sid," as her friends call her, we see her trying to start her life over at a college in a new town to try and escape the horrors of what happened in her hometown of Woodsboro. (More spoilers! For those of you who don't know, Sidney's boyfriend was the Ghostface killer in the first film.) As I read in the Clover article, Sidney definitely fits the trope of the final girl like a glove. To start, while "Sidney" is typically a name for a woman, she is referred to as "Sid" throughout the film by her close friends, giving her an gender-neutral name that both men and women can identify with. This is and important characteristic in the final girl--the writers of slasher films usually want all of their viewers to be able to relate to the main character as they are the one who moves the narrative through the story, therein making the viewer feel more involved in the film. Another plot line that Sid follows is that she is sexually unavailable. The final girl is typically a virgin, someone who avoids promiscuity, partying, etc. This genre tends to put more scandalous characters in a bad light, for example, one of the firsts deaths in the film is of sorority girl Cici. This is an important point because sororities within films are seen as the epitome of parting, drinking, and hooking up. While her sorority is out at a party, Cici was left with the job of sober sister, essentially taking care of the other girls when they stumble home. During her night in alone, she receives a phone call from who we think is a boy named Ted who regularly calls her for a hookup, and she usually decides to sleep with him. This night however, she expresses her feelings and decides to decline the offer, thereafter finding out that the caller is in fact the Ghostface killer. She then dies very shortly after we find out about her sexual activity. This ties into the idea of sex = death in slasher films.

Obviously she didn't read the Clover article...

Cici's death scene

While Sid is not a virgin, she is not a character who is available as a sexual partner to men (or women, who knows) and is not seen as a frivolous party-goer. She is a well-adjusted young adult trying to focus on her studies, and in turn, not seen as someone who makes bad choices. This ties into the purity aspect that the sole survivor typically has, but also is a change in the typical innocent virgin stereotype that is normally given to the main girl. The last example of the "final girl trope" that I found to be extremely apparent was in Sid's shift in behavior from the beginning to the end of the film.

For the majority of the duration of the film, Sid fits the role of a "damsel in distress." She seems nearly helpless as she sees her friends being killed off slowly one by one, and is often seen running from not only the killer but also her friends, her boyfriend, and the press who are constantly pestering her. She hides behind two body guards and her brother, who used to be a police officer. There is a dramatic shift towards the end when Sid is confronted by the killer. She stands her ground and takes on this super bad-ass persona and fights back fiercely, and ends up killing the murderer as well as his partner as I mentioned before that is typically in this film series. This power shift is something that empowers women, but also is something that men can identify with as their gender-neutrally named hero is now acting in a stereotypically masculine way, and they want to attribute themselves to those characteristics. By that I mean the physical strength that Sid demonstrates during the altercation between herself and the two Ghostfaces, her bravery in being able to confront the killers face to face, and her intelligence and strategy in fighting back and not showing weakness.

In the Clover article, it talks about the differences between men and women in their death scenes. I found this to be extremely prevalent in Scream 2. Beginning with the opening scene, a young couple goes to the movies. This scene sets up the return of the killer from the first movie, just to set the scene for you. The boyfriend goes off to the bathroom, and is killed almost immediately with one stab. This is an extreme contrast of his girlfriend's death in which she runs around the movie theater for about 3 minutes, being stabbed repeatedly and ends up dying right in front of the movie screen in front of everyone in the theater. It is so long, drawn out, and extreme that I've included the video below so you can see just how ridiculous it is.

 

Nearly all deaths in Scream 2 are set up this way, the women are almost always pursued for longer,  and their deaths are more torturous and drawn out. Most men die with little to no pursuit, and die from far less wounds. Going off of that, the deaths are almost always caused by a knife or some form of hand held weapon. The killer's trademark weapon in this film is a long dagger, which in the article is described as an extension of self due to the need for close proximity and quite literally looking like an extension of the body. This movie bends the weapons aspect a bit in the end when Sid shoots the new killer, (so many spoilers...) Billy's mother, who ended up coming back for revenge.

There are a few examples within the movie of the strange place that Clover described, however there is no overarching space that encompasses the whole movie. There is one scene in particular, however, that really stood out to me and instantly related to the strange place scenario. In this scene, Sid and her friend get into the back of a cop car to be escorted to a safe place for the night. This ends up turning into the strange place when the Ghostface killer murders their driver and climbs into the drivers seat instead. The car gets into an accident, leaving everyone unconscious, including the killer. Since this car was a cop car, Sid and her friend are

locked in the back with no way out other than to

climb through a bit of broken wire in the car and to climb over the killer who is unconscious in the front. This creates the strange place because it is in extremely close proximity with the killer, and they seem to be trapped with little to no way out. It is also dark, and extremely suspenseful because in this scene, it is unclear whether or not the killer is dead, unconscious, or just pretending to be passed out. This scene created an uncomfortable place for viewers and characters alike, filled with tension, uncertainty, and a few jump scares for good measure.

I think Scream 2 was an excellent choice for this project, not only is it one of my favorite scary movie series, but it was really overflowing with great examples of typical characteristics of slasher films, and related very well to the Carol Clover article that we discussed in class. I think Michael Scott can wrap this up nicely for me...

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a suspenseful, yet promiscuous movie about a girl named Mandy Lane whom all of the boys admire. They practically throw themselves at her, and yet all they want to do is have bragging rights to say they were able to seal the deal with her. Mandy, knowing how boys feel about her, plays innocent and does not fall for their immaturity. It gets to a point where everyone who gets involved with her gets hurt. She becomes the center of attention in every scene without even knowing it. Both boys and girls cannot stop looking at her because she is beautiful, almost like she has no flaws at all. But when Mandy and a group of friends go to a ranch house and start getting picked off one by one, that is when events take a turn for the worst, which leads to an unbelievable plot twist!

In Carol Clover's article, she mentions a lot of themes such as how the victim is portrayed, a terrible place, weaponry, sexual transgressors, and the final girl aspect. These components stood out to me the most in this especially, but they are also common themes throughout a variety of slasher films. Obviously, the victim in this case would be Mandy Lane. In her article, Clover describes the victim as being beautiful and a sexually active woman. I feel as though that is a gender stereotype because when the audience sees a female as a victim, especially f she is beautiful, they assume that she is sexually active. Which in this case is false; Mandy Lane was a virgin and knew how to carry herself as a young lady. In this movie, I felt like they portrayed the male characters perfectly. They were your typical high school boys being jerks and taking advantage of the girls. There was one scene where a girl named Marlin performed oral sex on Jake, both friends of Mandy, and Jake just got what he wanted out of Marlin and did not reciprocate the act, making Marlin feel dumb and ashamed for what she had just done. She was a victim in this case too, even though she kind of brought it upon herself.

The terrible place they are at is a ranch house for a weekend getaway. It's typical that this house is literally in the middle of nowhere. There are no neighbors and practically no civilization around them. So basically it is the perfect place to kill people. When it gets dark out. that is when it is the perfect time to seize the opportunity. After Jake leaves Marlin in the barn, she's all alone, it is dark, she is begging for him to come back so she can leave because she cannot see a thing. So what happens next? The killer sees this as the perfect opportunity because he catches her all alone.

Although Clover suggests that guns are not used in slasher films, there was a small amount of time where guns came into play. I think that knives are a common weapon in these types of movies. The gun used in the movie killed three person, Jake was shot two or three times and Marlin pretty much just got her face bashed in my the gun. And Red, one of Mandy's good friends was shot in the back. Their friend Bird was slashed in the eyes with a knife and Chloe was stabbed in the stomach. A gun is definitely a more masculine weapon and a knife would be considered a more feminine weapon. I feel like a gun gets the job done, but a knife takes a lot longer and prolongs the suffering process.

There was sexual tension in almost every scene of the movie, which leads to Clover's point on sexual transgressors. This is when a couple is trying to find a place where no one will be so that they can have sex. This happens in the barn as I described above, right after performing oral sex on Jake, Marlin is killed. Same thing happens again with Red and Chloe. They think they are safe and that they got away from the killer so they share an intimate kiss with one another. I'd say about four seconds into the kiss, Red is shot by the killer. The sexual tension just leads to trouble in this movie.

The final girl aspect is when the victim is a female and she is able to escape, she comes out alive.This where the plot twist comes in because Mandy Lane is the final girl, but she is not as innocent as she has been portraying herself to be. She was the brains of the whole operation and she knew she could manipulate Emmet, the killer, because he was in love with her. Usually, the female is taking orders from the male. But, a lot of the time in this movie, the males were the victims. She schemed and had all of her friends killed; and had Emmet do the dirty work. In her article, Clover states that the final girl is usually boyish, and describes the killer as not being fully masculine, which is true because Emmet had been taking orders from Mandy this whole time.

Clover's description describes Mandy perfectly: smart, competent, sexual reluctance, etc. And she is able to get away in the end, she played off of every guy's emotion and appealed to them. She manipulated the men because she knew she had power over them, and in the end outsmarted each and every one of them.

One, Two, Freddy's Coming For You (Again)

  Nightmare on Elm Street is the chilling tale of a group of young teenagers who are being hunted and horrifically murdered in their dreams by psycho-killer, Fred Kruger who sexually abused them as children. The movie was originally written and directed in 1984 by Wes Craven and later remastered in 2010 by Micheal Bay. The remake ultimately stayed faithful to the initial themes of the first movie and was generally well accepted by the horror film community. Although the two films follow a similar story line, the influence of current horror flick motifs are clearly seen in the newer version of Nightmare on Elm Street. The "slasher film" category follows a specific formula, of which Nightmare on Elm Street is no exception.  The film includes several components of this horror formula as in explained in Carol Clovers article Her Body: Himself.  The film includes all the crucial elements which breed box office success: a weapon, the terrible place, the final girl and a psycho killer acting out of suppressed sexuality. Along with these factors, the film also includes gender representations which abide and disrupt the norm. The reproduction of Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) film delves even further into the ambiguity of the unconscious mind while including just enough gore and "jump factor" to earn its' place as a slasher movie classic. 

What makes Nightmare on Elm Street so disturbing is the characters inability to escape Freddy within their dreams. Whenever any character falls asleep they are taken to the terrible place. Freddy exists in what appears to be a boiler or factory room of some kind, where the teenagers consistently meet their death. As discussed in class, it is clear that this place is a physical reflection of a womb. Warm, wet and only one way out. Later in the film, after Freddy's back story is revealed to the viewer, it is easy to connect the Terrible Place to the same secret place where Freddy would sexually abuse the children. Only now, he murders them in this new terrible place instead. 

The most easily recognized factor from Nightmare on Elm Street of Carol Clover's horror movie formula is the the final girl. The final girl assigns any female character as the one who will ultimately have to face the killer by the end of the film. The first female introduced in the film is Kris. She is visibly sexy and beautiful, which are characteristics that usually point towards the final girl. Kris is the first character to begin questioning the relationship between the group of teenagers, which leads the viewer to believe she would be the focal point of the movie. The first time the viewer sees the "terrible place" is within Kris' dreams. Freddy chases and tortures her there, but Kris wakes up before he can kill her.  I believed Kris to be the final girl, but I was proved wrong when Freddy sliced her open in her bedroom later in the film. Kris' death mirrors Tina's from the original movie almost perfectly. Kris body is shown rolling around and writhing in pain before she floats up into the air and her mid section is penetrated by Freddy's knives. Kris' death is drawn out for a horrific amount of time as she is thrown against the ceiling and surrounding walls.  The whole scene is layered thick with sexual overtones and innuendos which all relate back to Carol Clovers formula.

The final girl is actually Nancy, a mysteriously dark and plain looking girl who is introduced in the same scene as Kris, but she is overshadowed by Kris' presence. Nancy is a distant character, often shown sketching dark images or spending time by herself. After Kris dies, Nancy takes over as the official Final Girl for the entirety of the film. We begin to see Freddy visiting Nancy in her dreams more frequently after Kris' death. Later in the film it is revealed that Nancy was Freddy's favorite and that he preferred her to all the other children in the preschool. This explains why Nancy is chosen as Freddy's Final Girl, even after his death he still obsesses over her.  In the end, Nancy successfully pulls Freddy from her dreams and into reality where she cuts off his bladed hand and slits his throat fulfilling the prophecy of the final girl.

Fred Kruger's image is certainly unforgettable. Between his mutilated face and striped sweater it is no wonder why he has served as a Halloween icon for so long. But what makes Freddy the most terrifying is his choice of weapon, the bladed leather glove. Freddy's weapon could not be anymore phallic in a sense, used for the penetration and the killing of the kids. The scene which really made my skin crawl was the famous bathtub scene, where the sexuality and brutality of the weapon is most clearly demonstrated. The scene shows the Nancy with her legs splayed in the tub as Freddy's hand reaches up from the water between her thighs. This scene is also the first real demonstration of Freddy's disturbing sexuality.
   The final piece to the slasher film puzzle is the Psycho Killer and their suppressed sexual urges. Freddy fits this description perfectly. As a known child abuser, we can see that Freddy gets off on abusing or killing the kids, especially the girls. When Freddy visits the boys, he kills them fast and brutally. However he stalks the girls multiple times before he decides to kill them in the most sexual way possible. When Freddy has Nancy trapped in her dream he ties her to a bed in a young girls nightgown. This infantilization of Nancy shows just how obsessed Kruger is with Nancy. Kruger is a twisted sex offender who preys on the innocent. He attacks the children when they are unable to escape him, either when they were too young to fight back, or within their dreams.

Carol Clover solidifies the blueprint that most slasher films tend to follow and the themes they include in her article Her Body: Himself. Nightmare on Elm Street is a prime example of Clover's theory. The final girl, the terrible place, the weapon and the psycho-killer himself are all tropes that are clearly identifiable in both the original and remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. The gender roles in this film are not strictly conventional nor completely overturned. From what I observed, the gender expectations varied by character. Kris fits well into the female role, displaying femininity through her appearance and when she is visibly screaming in hysteria. Jesse is shown cowering and begging before his death which separates him from the masculine character traits we usually associate male characters with. Quentin however fits fairly well into the male lead position, he faces Freddy bravely and looks after Nancy. Nancy is the character that most disrupts gender expectations, she is hardly ever shown shrieking or lost in hysteria. She also succeeds in killing Freddy just after delivering my favorite line in the movie, "It hurts doesn't it? It's cause you're in my world now, bitch!"

All in all, I enjoyed the remake of the film. It had much more substance in comparison with the first movie, which provided more material for analysis (for which I was thankful for). After reading Clover's article the movie was easy to dissect and recognize the slasher film formula.