Scream 2

     The movie Scream 2 follows the story of Sidney Prescott who is now in college. The film brings back a few characters from the first film including: Randy, Gale, and Dewey. Throughout the film they are trying to catch a copycat of the men who tried to kill Sidney in the first of the series. This movie series touches on a lot of the points mentioned in Carol Clover’s writing.

     Carol Clover writes in Her Body, Herself about the difference between men and women's deaths in slasher films. She says that the deaths of women are "filmed at closer range, in more graphic detail, and at greater length." Several scenes from Scream 2 support this claim. First is the scene in the movie theater; the woman, Maureen, is stabbed repeatedly and eventually stumbles in front of the screen covered in blood for the entire audience to see. Next is Cici’s death. The scene begins with her

alone in her sorority house and she eventually is chased upstairs where she is thrown through a window onto the balcony. Once on the balcony, the killer stabs her multiple times then throws her several floors off the balcony. Last is Hallie’s death. The killer stabs her repeatedly with blood going everywhere.  In all three of these scenes the camera shows the knife penetrating the women and the scene is drug out unnecessarily so, especially compared to the men’s deaths.

     Clover writes about men’s deaths in slasher films saying it is “always swift; even if the victim grasps what is happening to him he has no time to react or register terror. He is dispatched and the camera moves on. The death of a male is moreover more likely than the death of a female to be viewed from a distance, or viewed only dimly.” Once again, Scream 2 supports this multiple times. First, again, is at the movie theater. Unlike his girlfriend’s death, Phil is killed alone in the bathroom. His actual death scene only lasts a matter of seconds and you never see the knife enter his body. Second is Randy’s death. In his death scene you

only see the reflection of the killer lifting the knife up after stabbing him, but you never get to see Randy until they later find his dead body. Last are Sidney’s “body guards.” The first guard’s death is very quick; instead of being penetrated with the knife, his throat is slit. The second guard’s, however, is drug out, but the killer doesn’t kill him directly. The killer instead drives the car with the guard on the hood until they crash, sending a pipe into the guard’s head. In contrast to the scenes involving women’s deaths, the men’s scenes are very quick and not as gorey.

      The “terrible places” in Scream 2 are walled-in, womb-like areas that are also occupied by the killer. One instance of the idea of the “terrible place” in the film is the scene in the cop car. Sidney and Hallie are trapped in the back of the cop car while the killer is driving. They are locked in from the outside and the barrier between the front and back seats keeps them confined in the small space. A second “terrible place” in the film is in the scene where Sidney kills Mickey and Billy’s mother. As she enters the stage, walls immediately are placed around her, keeping her from backstage and forcing her to face the killers.

    The key weapon used in the film was a knife, mainly by the killers. The women who are killed are stabbed more than once with the knife, while the men are either never shown being stabbed or only stabbed once. In the scene where the killers are revealed, this is the first time a gun is used. Mickey uses a gun to shoot Derek and later Billy’ mom shoots Mickey. Gale and Sidney also use guns to kill Billy’s mom and Mickey. The knife is used to represent a phallic extension of the killer’s body, while guns are typically used by the victims.

     Sidney represents Clover’s idea of the “final girl” perfectly. Throughout the movie she is 

represented as this strong, not overtly feminine character. Rather than dress and act like the girls in  the sororities, she chooses to stick to her own sense of style and be pretty covered up for most of the movie, never being sexualized. In the scene where she comes face to face with the true killers, she does not back down. Sid switches from the role of the victim to the role of the attacker by fighting back against the killers. She crushes Billy’s mother by dropping the lights on her, then Sid and Gale both shoot Mickey when he comes back to consciousness. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer

 

I know what you did last summer is a movie about four teenagers who, in the beginning, accidentally hit a man with their vehicle while driving late at night. They believe him to be dead; and try to put all thoughts of the moment from their minds. They go their different ways, as all friends do after high school, and try to move on with their lives. However, a year later, the events of that evening come back to haunt them all. Julie, one of the two main female characters, receives an anonymous letter on the day she returns home. No return address, and all the letter says is; “I know what you did last summer.” She immediately goes to find her friend Helen, the other main female character. They discuss the current state of events, and decide to go find one of the boys who had been involved that night, named Barry. He believes he knows who sent the letter, and goes with the girls to see him, leaving the girls outside and then going to threaten the other boy. However, you shortly find out that it was not that boy who was responsible for the letter. The last main character from the beginning, Ray, is not on anyone’s radar. No one knows exactly what happened to him. Shortly thereafter, however, they do find out that he was working in a shipyard since high school graduation.  As the movie plays out, the characters meet rather quick ends at the hands of the murderer, who is using a hook as his weapon. At the end of the movie, only Julie and Ray are left alive; and in one of the last scenes they believe they have killed the villain.

 

One of the main topics in horror films that was focused on in the Carol Clover article that we discussed in class was the weapon. The common theme among these weapons is that they all require close contact between the murderer and the victim. It is no different in this film. The weapon of choice is a fishing hook. The irony of this weapon choice is that at the beginning of the movie, the four main characters are on the beach, talking about a horror story told around those parts, and while none of them can agree on all of the details, they do all agree that the weapon in this horror story is a fishing hook. We discussed in class how the weapon is often a phallic representative, and Julie actually states this when they are telling the story. She says that is why the weapon is always the same, no matter what the background of the story is. It is supposed to be a story to scare girls out of having premarital sex, and so the hook is a phallic symbol to somehow get this point across.

A second topic from the Clover article that is discussed is the murderer himself(or herself). In this film, the murderer turns out to be the man that they believed they had killed the year before. However, you don’t find this out until the end of the movie when he says to Julie that when you believe you have left someone for dead you need to make sure he is actually dead. The article focuses on the murderer being a “psychosexual” killer. In this movie, I’m not so sure that is the case. For most of the movie, the characters believe that the man they hit was someone named David Egan. The year before the accident, Egan was in an accident with his fiancée; she died, he survived. Their accident happened on the same day of the accident with the four teenagers. So they believe that maybe Egan was down there feeling guilty and mourning his dead fiancée. They contemplate that maybe he went down there, and was waiting for someone to hit him. That maybe he went down there to die. We later find out that the killer was in fact Egan’s fiancée’s father, who they soon begin to believe killed Egan because he blamed him for the crash that killed his daughter. So the “psychosexual killer” theory seems to not fit in with this scenario, because the whole thing seems to have started off as revenge for his daughter’s death, and then revenge against the four teenagers who thought they had killed him and so left him for dead.

The “terrible place” is another concept of the Clover article. In most horror films it is somewhere dark and gloomy, often very quiet, believed by some to be representative of a woman’s womb. The “terrible places” in this film all fit in nicely with that description. First there is the dock, then the gym where Barry is attacked that is dark and deserted of everyone but him and the man working at the desk. There are all of the alleys that the characters travel and run through. The department store in which Helen works; where she ends up late one night after running from the killer, after her sister has turned off all of the lights, and covered up the mannequins. A last place is the boat where Julie and Ray are fighting for their lives against the killer. All of these places are deserted; and while during the daylight hours they may all be very safe and comfortable places to be; at night when they are closed and deserted and dark, they are far scarier than one might expect.

A final concept from the Clover article is that of the “last girl.” in the article, she talks about how traditionally there is one girl left, and she often finds the strength to fight back against the killer. Clover discusses how the “last girl” is often masculinized, because the audience begins to view her as being stronger and able to fight back, which is a concept that most people do not associate with femininity which often depicts someone(girls) as being too weak to take care of themselves. In this particular movie, the last girl is Julie. However, she is not alone. Ray has also survived to the end, and he ends up helping her on the boat to defeat the murderer. I don’t know if you could say that she needs Ray to come recue her, because he gets thrown off the boat, and she seems to do okay by herself while he is in the water, but towards the end of the scene she does seem to need his help because the killer is advancing on her and she just sort of freezes. So it almost appears that what the writer of the script is trying to get across with this is that girls can be strong for a while, but in the end they need a male to help bring about an actual end to a problem.

I think that when taking this film “under the microscope” so to speak, to compare it with what is talked about in the Clover article, most of everything that occurs in this film seems to fit into the stereotypical pattern of a horror film. The small differences which, once examined a little more closely, appear to not be all that small, only serve to make the movie different from every other horror film of its time. They make it stand out. And when taking into consideration the fact that this movie came out in the late 90s’, the differences fit in with the changed that were beginning to occur in society at this time with women and the things they were believed to be capable of. All in all, I truly enjoyed this movie and the ideas that it represented.

Scream 1

Scream takes place in a small town called Woodsboro. The movie starts out with a young blonde who is home alone and answers the phone to a obviously male voice who says he doesn't know who he is trying to reach so she hangs up.  The man calls back again and again taunting her and getting more menacing the more she keeps hanging up on him.  He lets it slip that he can see her and tells her to look out the back and he has her bloodied boyfriend Steve tied to a chair.  

He eventually tells her if she hangs up again he will kill her and that he wants to play a game of horror trivia and if she gets the questions right he will let her and her boyfriend Steve live if she gets it wrong they die.  She gets the first one wrong and he cuts Steve from groin to sternum letting his guts spill out so Casey can see. The last question that the killer asks is if she knows what door hes at and then he attacks throwing a patio chair through the glass doors. Eventually he catches her and stabs her in the chest then hangs her from a tree in their yard and guts her where her parents can find her. 

The same night as the murders is where you meet Sidney Prescott at her house in her bedroom, You also meet her father Niel and her boyfriend Billy Loomis.  Billy sneaks into Sidney's room through the window and scares her and she screams.  Her dad comes to her room asking if she was alright and tells her hes going to bed because he has his flight in the morning. You learn he will be out of town for the weekend. In this scene you also learn that it is almost the one year anniversary of Sidney's mother's brutal rape and murder. The next day at school is when Sidney and her friends Tatum, Randy, Stu, and Billy all find out about the horrible deaths of their classmates and the police are at the school interviewing the student body. Sidney, Billy, Tatum, Stu and Randy are all sitting around the fountain at school eating lunch when the guys start joking about the murder and Stu makes a comment that there is no way a woman could be the killer.  Randy is a big horror movie fan and says that maybe Stu is the killer.

Later that night Sidney is packing a bag to go stay at Tatum's house since her dad is out of town. She falls asleep on the couch waiting for Tatum to pick her up and is woken up by the phone. First it is Tatum telling her she is on her way that practice ran late.  Then the phone rings again and it is the same voice that was haunting Casey over the phone. He starts taunting Sidney but she thinks it is her friend Randy playing a joke on her. He begins to ask her if she likes scary movies like he asked Casey.

The killer tells her it isn't Randy and Sidney realizes that it is probably Casey and Steve's killer.  He brings up her mother and tells her he is on her porch.  She says hes lying and goes outside.  The killer sneaks past her to hide in the closet and Sidney closes and locks the door as the killer comes out and tries to attack her.  Sidney gets away and gets to her room and contacts the police.  Billy comes in through her window saying he heard screams and the door was locked.  As she hugs him a cell phone falls out of his pocket to the floor and Sidney flips out thinking it may have been Billy.  She runs down stairs and when she opens the front door and deputy Dewey is standing there.  Dewey is also Tatum's older brother. 

Tatum and Dewey try to take Sidney back to their house but are stopped outside the police department by the same news reporter that covered her mother's murder last year and decided to write a book about it.  Sidney is very sore with her and ends up punching her in the face.  Later at Tatum's house Sidney gets a phone call and starts to cry as soon as she hears it is the killer telling her she fingered the wrong guy again. You later find out that Billy was released from jail that night so Sidney still has it in her head that Billy could be the killer.  The next morning at school everyone is picking on Sidney thinking she made the entire thing up.  She is in the bathroom alone and gets attacked again by the killer.  Since she was attacked on school grounds the principal decided to suspend school until the killer is caught.  Later when the school is empty the killer attacks and kills the principal but the students don't find out until later that night at Stu's house.

Dewey takes the girls to the store to get some food to take to Stu's house for a party he is having.  While the girls are shopping Dewey is talking to his superior and he tells Dewey the dad is now the main suspect because the calls were registered as coming from his cell phone.  Dewey drops the girls off at Stu's and asks the reporter Gail to go for a walk and they end up stumbling upon Niel's car abandoned in some trees at Stu's house. While this is going on everyone is watching a scary movie in the living room and Stu asks Tatum to go get more beers out of the garage and when shes out there the killer traps her in the garage and when she tries to escape through the pet door on the garage he opens the door and she gets crushed.

Mean while the students find out the principal was killed and they get excited and all of them leave.  As they are leaving Billy shows up to talk to Sidney.  They go up to Stu's parents room and Sidney caves to the pressure she was putting on herself and the peer pressure and has sex with Billy.  When they are getting dressed Sidney asks who he called with his one phone call and he says his dad but she knows the sheriff called his dad and he says he didn't get an answer when he called.  He gets bad and asks what he has to do to get her to believe he wasn't the killer.  Right then the killer comes through the door and stabs Billy and tries to get to Sidney.  She runs and ends up crawling out of a window upstairs and falls on top of a boat in the drive way and that is when she sees Tatum hanging from the garage door. When the killer comes down stairs he was going to kill Randy until he heard Sidney outside yelling for help.  She runs to the news van where the camera man is watching the camera that Gail hid in the house but he forgot there was a delay so when they were seeing that he was about to kill Randy the camera guy tries to get out of the van and sees the house door open and the killer slits his throat. Sidney shuts the door before he can get to her and crawls out the back as hes trying to get the door open.

The killer goes back in the house looking for Sidney and when she comes up to the house Dewey comes out with a knife in the back and collapses on the front porch.  The killer steps out and chases Sidney to Dewey's jeep when she realizes the killer has the keys and can unlock the doors to get to her. She gets away again and runs to the house and grabs Dewey's gun.  Randy comes running up behind her then Stu and her and Randy run inside and close the door and Billy comes down stairs and takes the gun from her. Randy is freaking out and Billy tells him that we all go a little mad sometimes and shoots him.  Then Billy licks the blood off his hands and says its corn syrup. Sidney runs to Stu who pulls out a white box that he talked to and it was the voice of the killer. They take her to the kitchen and start explaining. Billy wants to kill her because he killed her mother and framed the guy in jail because her mom cheated with his dad so his mother left and he blames Sidney as well as her mother. 

They abducted Sidney's dad and cloned his phone so that it looked like the calls were coming from him. They were going to stab each other, kill Sidney, and shoot her father in the head so it looked like he tried to kill them and they lived and killed his daughter then himself. Billy stabs Stu first then a few little times and then Stu stabs billy. Stu left the gun on the kitchen counter though and Gail came in and got it without them noticing while they were stabbing each other and tried to shoot Billy but the safety was on. Billy knocks her out and leaves her outside on top of Dewey's body. While Stu was watching Billy hit Gail Sidney took her father and they hid. When Stu notices shes gone and tells Billy he gets mad and starts looking for them when the phone rings.  Its Sidney with the voice changer saying she just called the police.  Stu is bleeding out and Billy starts looking for Sidney when he hears a noise in the closet and when he opens the door she jumps out stabbing him twice with an umbrella wearing the ghost face mask. She takes the mask off Stu comes running at her and tries to kill her so she pushes a big tube tv on him killing him. She goes and picks the mask up and gets down on the floor and Randy sets up and scares her and she says she thought he was dead.  He says he never thought he would be so happy to be a virgin and Billy attacks her again. Just before he can stab her Gail shoots him in the chest. He is laying on the floor and Randy says be careful this is where the killer always comes back for one last scare and Billy sets up and Sidney shoots him in the head.

Scream 1 actually had 2 killers Billy and Stu.  Billy is who I believe is the mastermind of all of this because he is the one that has issues with his mother.  His mom left after Sidney's mother slept with his father making her want to leave so him and Stu killed her and framed Cotton and claimed it was really easy. This movie doesn't exactly have a terrible place that the killer takes them to.  If I had to pick if this had to have a terrible place I would say it is the house because he tries to keep them boxed in the house.  Their weapon of choice with the exception of the garage door was always a knife making the kills more primitive. The victims they chose are mostly people who betrayed them and mostly women. Casey broke up with Stu to date Steve so he killed Steve out of spite, and Casey for leaving him.  Sidney was targeted because of her mother. Tatum was dating Stu at the time of the murders. Of course the final girl is Sidney who beat the odds and killed both killers. She fits Clover's explanation of the last girl that shes usually the one that is more down to Earth, smart, cunning, and cleaver taking the responsibility of killing the killers in her own hands because it was kill or be killed. 

Scream: A Twisting of Classical Horror

In Wes Craven's film Scream (1996) the classic horror scenario takes an interesting and almost comical reversal from the typical horror/slasher films. In the town of Woodsboro multiple horrifying murders have been taking place spooking the whole town and reminding them of the horrible murder that took place a year before. The main character Sidney's mother was murdered the previous year and now the killer is back and is after her and her friends. Throughout the film the slasher film is mocked in a way that the characters are even aware what to do and not to do in this slasher film reality that they are a part of. Throughout the film elements as Carol Clover discusses in her article are present either traditionally or with a reversal, such as the Victim, the Terrible Place, the Killer, the Weapon, and the Final Girl.

Movie within a Movie
First it is important to note on the mockery of the slasher film that is present throughout Scream. The victims of Casey and Sidney are called by the killer with his coined phrase "What's your favorite scary movie". Casey plays into this game, whereas Sidney does not. She replies with "I don't like scary movies, they are all the same with some big boob blond bimbo that's always running up the stairs instead of outside. Its insulting". This comment shows how the typical slasher film is insulting to women and that Sidney is aware of that. Ironically enough she is about to be in her own scary movie where those stereotypes are reversed with her as a character.

The rules are discussed by the character of Randy who claims there is a "simple formula to horror": One, never have sex, because you will die; Two, you cannot drink or do drugs; and Three, never say "I'll be right back", because you won't be back. During the party we see how the film plays off of the "horror rules". The teenagers are watching the classic slasher film Halloween and Randy comments on how Jamie Lee Curtis, the main female, never dies because she stays a virgin in the film. During the party scene the audience is given clips of the movie Halloween and flipping back and forth between reality at the party and the movie. As Randy is discussing the virgin of the movie the camera goes to Sidney and Billy in the bedroom where they are about to have their first sexual encounter together. Of course right after this sexual encounter Billy supposedly dies and Sidney is left running away. However, as the traditional slasher film viewer would not expect Billy is only faking his death, reversing the death after sex scenario. Sidney also does not die, which reverses the expected again showing the the female does not need to be punished for having sex as other films have shown.

Another instance where the back and forth of the movie and reality are shown is when Randy is sitting on the couch watching the movie and is yelling "look behind you" while at the same time the real killer is behind him. At the same time the camera man in the van outside is watching the party being filmed and sees the real killer and is yelling "look behind you" to Randy making it a comical movie within a movie within a movie scene. One of the last scenes that is shown playing on the TV is when Jamie Lee Curtis is hiding in the closest and the killer is looking for her. At the party Sidney is hiding in the closest while Billy is trying to find her. These horror movie scenarios add an interesting and almost comical addition to the film and allows the film to show the audience that this particular slasher film is not like the traditional. I also couldn't help but notice the janitor wearing the Freddy Kruger sweater and hat and the movie Frankenstein playing in the video store adding a nice touch to the movie.

The Typical Beginning

The film starts out with elements one would expect in the classic slasher film. There is a mysterious person calling and terrorizing the blond girl (Casey) that is home alone only to reveal that she is about to die. As Clover points out in her article, in the beginning of the film the camera pays more attention to the slashing of the female victim more than the male character. The blond's boyfriend is the first to die and we see him tied up in a chair the lights go off and then he is sitting there dead with blood and guts coming out of him. The death of the female however is much longer and much more focused on. The audience sees the knife going into her multiple times, the blood coming out, and finally the killer hanging her from a tree in the yard.

Victims
Unlike the beginning of the film, the rest of the films takes a twist away from the classical slasher films. The victims is one example of how this occurs. Typically audiences would see many female characters dying and less males, and the focus would be more on the female victims. Throughout the film however only two female deaths occur and six or more male deaths occur. And unlike typical slasher films, the camera in this film spends just as much time on the female victims as the male victims (mainly on those of Billy and Stu). As a way of mocking the traditional horror film I think, the two female characters chosen to be killed were both blonde pretty girls as is usually seen in the horror films. Both of these characters are Casey in the beginning and Tatum. Unlike the traditional films however, even though these women fail they fight back, Casey kicking the killer in the gentiles for example, and use better judgment at trying to escape. In stead of running up the stairs or hiding somewhere, both females attempt to escape outside in a open area giving them more of a chance to get away from the killer. More mockery is shown towards the classical slasher film when Tatum is being attacked and she asks the killer if "he wants to play psycho-killer" and if she can be the "helpless victim". Tatum is playing off of what audiences would expect the female victim to act like, mocking the stereotypical girl in slasher films. Even though she does die, Tatum importantly portrays and mocks the expected female victim.

Terrible Place
Clover's article describes the "terrible place" as a womb-like often dark and damp or enclosed place where the victims are most commonly attacked. These places are meant to represent the feminine gentiles where there is entrapment and no escape. The film does play off of this typical situation in that most of the attacks are in a room/ house, closet,garage or vehicle, all of which are enclosed places  where it is difficult for the victim to escape. Although the film does portray the attacks in this womb-like entrapment, I feel it is to mock the typical slasher film rather than play into the feminized portrayal of a entrapment.

Killer/ Weapons

At the end of the film it is revealed that Billy and Stu are in fact the murders that have been terrorizing the town. Stu is somewhat just a follower of Billy for the killing sprees, but Billy's character plays off of the traditional slasher film. Clover suggest that the killer is often filled with psycho-sexual fury and has a problematic childhood. Billy's reasoning for killing Sidney's mother is because she was having an affair with his father causing his mother to leave. This shows the attachment to the mother that the child has and because of it has turned into a killer. He also comments that he has a "lack of sex" which is another reason he is enraged and wants to kill everyone and makes sense for his weapon of choice being a phallic symbol of a knife using it to compensate for his lack of sex.

The film reverses the typical scary killer and makes the ending of the killers somewhat comical. Billy and Stu stab each other in order to try and frame Sidney's father. They are distracted and Sidney gets away and then calls the killers with the same scary voice. The killers masculinity is taken away by the female victim during this scene. Sidney reveals that she has called the cops calling Billy a "mamas boy" and leaves Stu crying claiming that "his mom and dad are going to be really mad at him". Both Billy and Stu are freaking out that Sidney got away and called the cops making their scary male killer character into a worried feminized killer. Sidney takes over the role as killer by putting the costume on coming of the the closest, stabbing Billy with an umbrella, which is a pointed object much bigger than Billy's, making her the more masculine character.

Final Girl
Clover describes that the "final girl" in the slasher films as a woman who has a unisex name, is pure, has a self rescue, and goes from the screaming victim to the furious attacker. The film also plays of this tradition by giving Sidney a unisex name and making herself her own rescuer. However, the film changes it making it more of a mocking of the slasher film. As mentioned Sidney does have sex, but again the film shows that shouldn't be a punishment for the female and as a result does not die from it. Also, Sidney was never really the girl running and screaming, every time she was attacked she fought back and in the end was also the attacker. Even though she was the victim throughout most of the film, she was never really seen as a feminized character. She constantly had smart come back and was always outsmarting her attacker which is not what is always expected. She kills Stu by pushing the TV on him which is ironically playing the horror movie that he and Billy are attempting to mimic. Unlike the classical slasher film she was not the only final girl, Gale Weathers the reporter was also alive and aided Sidney in killing Billy and giving Sidney the gun to finish off Billy. Randy is also left alive, even though he was clearing shot in the chest where he should of died, but the film mocks the slasher movies once again by giving Randy the line of "I am alive. I never thought I would be so happy to be a virgin". The female victim of Sidney officially takes over when Randy comments that the killer usually comes back for one final scare and Billy then moves when Sidney shoots him stating "not in my movie".

The film Scream, goes far from the traditional slasher film especially when it comes to portraying the female characters. While the film does play to some of the typical slasher female victim stereotypes, it does it in a way that is mocking the classical slasher film making audiences see that the female characters should have a lot more power. Scream continuously reverses the roles of the female throughout the film making it an slasher film like no other.

The Killer and the Final Girl: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003)

The 2003 version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre opens with a group of five young adults. They have just come back from buying pot in Mexico, and are now headed to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. As the friends reach the home stretch of their trip Erin, the motherly figure and as we later learn, final girl, of the movie makes her boyfriend, Kemper, stop their VW van to help the distressed hitchhiker. Erin gets her into the van and they look for a nearby hospital, but before they find one the hitchhiking girl pulls out a hand gun, places it between her lips, and blows her brains out. Here is how all of the trouble begins. Obviously frightened and panicked, the five friends go find the nearest phone to call a sheriff. As it turns out, they stopped at the wrong little eatery. The woman, Luda Mae, sends them to the mill to find the sheriff. They arrive at the mill and find no sheriff in sight, however, they do find a grungy little boy name Jedidiah.  This little boy leads them to find Leatherface’s home in the woods where the sheriff live. Erin and Kemper talk to the amputee, and these are how the killings begin. The friends are picked off one by one through countless chase and torture scenes, leaving only Erin, who escapes Leatherface’s chainsaw and the rest of his alliances, better called, family.

Let’s start with the most important character in the movie, Leatherface. 

This cruel killer fulfills many, if not all of Clover’s description of the killer. Leatherface was diagnosed with a skin disease during his childhood which allowed him to be stuck in his childhood even as he aged. His family took pity on the child, and his mother felt no one cared about the family besides themselves. Isolated after a childhood full of bullying, the killer had no emotional development as well as no sexual development, but found this in killing strangers that were passing through. The joy he felt as he slowly penetrating the limbs of his victims with his chainsaw was all the sexual desire this child-like killer needed as he was propelled by psychosexual fury.  During the murders of the characters the audience saw satisfaction from the killer, like an orgasm.

Maybe we can blame this partly on Leatherface’s mother, and not just his skin disease. The two appear to have had a rocky relationship in Leatherface’s earlier years, but when the other kids picked on him, who was there for protection but his mother. At some points in the movie, it seemed like the two had a sort of sexual tension, or special relationship as she even helped him finish off some of his victims and lure them closer into danger. The entire family treats him as a spoiled child, and helps him get everything that he wants or desires; human torture.

Once the killings started the audience saw an array of weapons and methods of torture. The main weapon of pleasure for Leatherface was his chainsaw. His chainsaw is indestructible just as he seems to be. The killer penetrates not only through limbs, but through roofs of cars, doors, locks, etc. You name it; Leatherface penetrated his saw right through it. Along with his chainsaw, Leatherface like any good killer had his very own “terrible place” located in the basement of the family’s home. The terrible place was dark, wet, dripping with blood, and full of torture. His torture chamber is exactly that of a vagina, womb, or vagina dentata. All of this and more about the killer illustrate everything Clover’s article has laid out for us a description for a killer in a slasher film.

Enough about Leatherface, let’s get to why everyone watches the movie; to see the final girl prevail at the very end! The final girl in Texas Chainsaw was played by the gorgeous, Jessica Biel. Clover’s article told us about the unisex name, and Erin fits directly into this. The opening scene introduces us to the one and only outfit she wars the entire movie: blue, skin-tight bell bottoms, a white wife beater tied up above her navel and her hair down as she lets the wind blow through her locks. She looks very sexy, but pure at the same time.  

From the opening scene we also see Erin fulfilling very feminine roles. She is the “mother” of the group with the strongest sense of morality and responsibility that the audience needs in a final girl. Along with these morals to turn down the joint, and save the distraught young hitchhiker, Erin also illustrates a masculine, fierce fighter and protector once danger comes their way. Erin’s refusal to give up shows this final girl attitude. Toward the end of the movie there are only Morgan and herself left. Morgan has already taken a brutal beating from the demented Sheriff Hoyt, but Erin wraps her arms around him and drags him with her into the woods where they barricade themselves in a shack. Leatherface finds them, kills Morgan, and Erin is forced to run away. This time she hides in a meat locker with a cleaver ready to attack!

 As she runs from the danger we see the sexualized role Biel must fulfill as the final girl. The camera angles are focused mostly from her face to her waist line as she flees. We are shown her sweaty, smoking hot physique, breasts bouncing as she runs, and the visuals are all accompanied by her sounds which are exactly that of an orgasm. Deep heavy breaths, followed by some swear words like “Shit”, “damn”, etc. all lead the audience to easily fell aroused by her chase.  Erin is chased all night long, but never gives up. Fulfilling the last of the final girl roles, she narrowly escapes the murderous family by hot-wiring a car, and managing to take their kid-napped baby along with her. As she leaves, the indestructible Leatherface tries to make one more attempt at killing her but she again escapes and prevails, leaving the all genders able to relate to the fighter.

Both Leatherface and Erin illustrate exactly what a killer and final girl should in a slasher film according to Clover’s article. I still stand on the fact that I am not a scary movie buff, and I was indeed frightened by the human skin-as-mask killer. I did however enjoy looking into the roles of each of the characters, symbolisms, and I will admit it was a decent movie for being a scary one. I do not see many more slasher film watching in my future but if you’re looking for a good classic slasher, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is it!

Nightmare of Elm Street Remake

Nightmare on Elm Street is about a group of teenagers (Nancy, Quentin, Jesse, Kris, and Dean) that are all having nightmares about a man trying to kill them one by one. The thing though is that the man they are all having nightmares about is dead. It's revealed that the man hunting down the teenagers is called Fred Krueger. After three out of the five original teens are killed the last two find out that they all knew Fred Krueger while he was alive, when he worked at the preschool they went to. Nancy and Quentin then find out that out of their entire preschool class, they are the only two still alive, the rest were all killed by Krueger.

Soon after they find out that their parents are the reason why Krueger is dead due to them burning him alive when they found out that he was a rapist and that he had preyed on the kids at the preschool. Nancy and Quentin decide to face Krueger at the preschool were it all started. Once they get there, Nancy goes to sleep hoping to drag Krueger out into the real world where they can face him and put an end to the nightmare. While there Quinten falls asleep from exhaustion but wakes up in time to save Nancy from Krueger. Nancy is able to drag out Krueger and then kills him, burning his body afterwards. When Nancy goes home she then tells her mom thank you for trying to protect her, but then Krueger shows up in the reflection of the mirror behind her mother. The movie ends with Krueger shoving his claws through Nancy's mother's head, killing her, and then dragging her through the mirror behind her.

In the movie I was able to find a few scenes that could qualify as a terrible place. The first would be the dinner in the beginning of the movie. The setting is dark and it gives off and abandoned feeling in the beginning when Dean is having his nightmare. When he wakes up, the dinner is still darkish on the inside of the dinner while outside it's nighttime and it's raining out. This sets the stage for something bad to happen. Ultimately this is where Dean is killed by Krueger, becoming the "first" victim in the movie.

Another would be the room above Kris's garage when she goes looking for some answers. The room is only accessible by an old pull down ladder into a narrow opening. The room has only one source of lighting being the cliché single light bulb in the center of the room swinging from the ceiling. Which goes out right after Kris starts making some connections about hers and Dean's past together when they would be around the age of four or five. So basically preschool age. Once the light goes out, of course Freddy Krueger shows up with his knives for fingers, telling Kris to remember.

The final example of terrible place would be the preschool were the nightmare all began. For starts the preschool was abandoned since the incident with Krueger happened years ago. So the building would also be in disrepair and rundown. The school is also a cover for the hidden cave where Krueger would take the children to abuse them. The cave itself is very dark with no lighting at all while the walls are covered with dark drawings giving off a creepy feeling. It's feels like poetic justice thought that's where Krueger is killed by Nancy.

There's really one main recognizable weapon in Nightmare on Elm Street, and that's Freddy's finger knives. The knives are Freddy's main way of killing off the teenagers. When Freddy he was a gardener at the preschool were all the teenagers went, so the knives would be a replacement for the rake he would use when he was still alive. The finger knives have since been an icon image that's immediately recognizable to Nightmare on Elm Street specifically.

For the victims, the camera would always close in one the face when the character would die, even Krueger. For Dean, the camera focused on when the knife cut into his throat ending his life. While with Jesse when he died, the camera stayed with him when Krueger strung him up and pretty much used him to sharpen his finger knives. When Krueger died the second time the camera mostly focused on where he fell and when the fire really came to life consuming Krueger's body. Nancy's mother's death was a straight on close up with the audience watching as Krueger shoved his finger knives through her skull then dragging her backwards through the mirror.

The last/final girl would have to be the character Nancy. In the beginning she seems very withdrawn and isolated before the killings really start. Once they do start though she starts to put the pieces together, figuring out the connection between Krueger and the other teenagers and why he wants them dead. She then takes charge when she decides to go in and confront Krueger in her dreams to try and drag him back into reality, which she successes in doing. After she manages to drag Krueger into reality, she takes further charge in killing Krueger after she tells him that he's in her world effectively taking away Krueger's power over her.

Nightmare on Elm Street

I was genuinely surprised with how similar the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street was in comparison to the original 1984 version. In fact, I felt that the film suffered because of this. Most movie remakes offer some kind of new twist to the original story, though this one really doesn't bring anything new to the narrative of the original. Because of this, anyone who has watched the original will find this film almost painfully practicable. The story follows Nancy and her group of childhood classmates as they are slowly, but surely, all murdered by Freddie Kruegur, a child rapist from their past that was murdered in a horrific fire. The murders take place in these strange dream-like settings, in which the victims must try to survive until they eventually wake up from their nightmares.  

The most notable and famous weapon of this series is the infamous knife-glove-thing that Freddie uses. This weapon fits exactly into the category that is described in Clover's article. The glove consists of four knives - four weapons that are very phallic and are only effective when used in close proximity to the victim. Especially when the viewer knows that Freddie was a child rapist before his death, it is very easy to make the connection that this glove with knives attached to it is an extension of Freddie's masculinity.


When using this oddly specific weapon, Freddie and his victims are inside these sort of "dream sequences". All of these particular sequences occur in a "terrible place," as Clover calls them. Whether it's the abandoned hallways of the preschool, or the dark spooky basement in which Freddy had originally lived, the characters are almost constantly facing some form of the "terrible place,". All of these places are dark, narrow, and damp, all qualities one would also associate with the womb of a woman. The camera often focuses on dripping water and steam in these scenes, which really emphasizes this warm, damp atmosphere. These spaces are also very small, which not only prevents the victim from running very far, but it also allows an extra sense to intimacy between Freddie and his victims.

Freddie Kruegur himself, fits the description of the "psycho-sexual killer" to perfection. Not only does the movie straight up state that he was in fact a child rapist, but through his actions we can see these tendencies play out frequently. When with Nancy for the first time, he tell her how she was always his "favorite" and he proceeds to lick the side of her face. Then, in the final scene between the two, we see Nancy in Freddie's "favorite dress," a simple white baby-doll. This really infantilizes Nancy, which appeals to the pedophilic tendencies of Freddie. He also places a single knife-finger on her and slowly, but gently trails it up her body and stopping at her chest. When watching this, it's very hard for the viewer to distinguish whether or not this scene is going to end with a murder or a rape. For me personally, I found the sexual imagery from Freddie to be very, very unsettling, far more so than any of the gore this movie had to offer. 

Freddie of course doesn't only kill women in this film. However, the film treats the death of men and women very differently. The male characters have much shorter death scenes in which they are killed shortly after being brought to the "terrible place."  In contrast, the female characters not only have much longer death scenes, but they also have multiple dream sequences. Kris, for example, has multiple encounters with Freddie before her eventual demise. Her death scene is also the most dramatic. Her body is thrown around like a rag doll and she writhes around and screams in a way that could only be described as both sexual and horrifying. We see her lifted in the air when she receives her final blow, a fatal swipe to her chest. Kris's final moment forces the audience to focus on her chest as she bleeds out. She also lets out one final gasp, similar to how one would experience a climax. However, rather than a sexual climax, Kris is experiencing the climax of her life. 

 From the beginning, it is very obvious that Nancy it our "final girl." She belongs in the modern category of "relatable teenager," if not almost overly so. She is edgy and gloomy and she seems to be the black sheep in her school. She is very "relatable" to the teenage audience of this film. Also, as the "final girl," she also is not passive in any way. Although her male friend Quentin doesn't seem to be very willing to investigate what is happening within their group of friends, Nancy is able to convince him to have an interest and the two of them embark on this mystery together (with her being more so the leader of the two). She also fights back against Freddie and her sheer will to survive and stop him makes her continue forward when all hope seems to be lost. Even in the end, she is able to rescue herself without the help of any man. She is also made out to be pure, as she seems to not be very experienced with men (or people in general) as seen with her interactions with Quentin. 

Overall, this movie is insanely similar to the original 1984 movie, and in turn it has many of the "traditional" categories in relation to gender representation that Clover had mentioned in her article. This movie definitely wasn't any sort of masterpiece, in fact it fell quite short in comparison to the original. However, this film does give the viewers a very "traditional" slasher film in a very modern setting.