Post modernism in Scream Essay
Post modernism in horror films refers to
a film style that in a way involves the audience or makes it harder for the
audience to believe that it is not real. Post modern has been described in many
different ways, one way in which it has been described is in simple terms,
which is “ Post-modern theory and practice emphasises ‘borrowing’ from previous works and mixing them into future works”. So in horror when they include a well
known horror villain, and expect their audience to be knowledged enough to
understand it.
One horror film which used Post modernism very well is Wes
Craven’s 1996 film “Scream”. When the director was filming Scream, he made is
so the film relies on the audience’s knowledge of horror films and their
conventions, and then he used this, and referred to other horror films when
making Scream. For example; on the opening scene when the Villain calls Casey (Stereotypical
‘flirty blonde’) and they talk about their favourite scary movies, and how
other films plots go. This is a key example of checking the audience’s
knowledge of horror films because, if someone is watching that film without the
background knowledge, then post modernism is no good to them.
Another example of Post Modernism in scream is when the
head
teacher hears a bang outside his office and shouts,
and then the man looks at
him, the head teacher’s replies “sorry janitor Fred”. Anyone who doesn't have
the background knowledge of horror films wouldn't see anything interesting in
this scene, but because this man is designed to look like Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, and the
janitor is called Fred gives us the clue that the director is testing the
audience’s knowledge of other Horror films. A key point about having him in
this film is because, Scream is a slasher and has a serial killer on the loose,
the point they are trying to add in is this look alike janitor looks like Freddy
Krueger and he was the serial killer in Nightmare on Elm street. This is one of
the best uses of post modernism within Scream. The film expects you to have Watched
other films and know this well know character.
A final example of Post Modernism in Scream is when all the
teenagers are gathered around the television and one of the boys talk about the
rules of surviving in a Horror film. The rules are “Never have sex, Never drink
or do drugs, and Never say “I’ll be right back”. These are key because the
director already expects the audience to know these, and for the audience to
know what is going to happen next. Because when they are saying this Cindy is
upstairs having sex at this time, the audience will know that see is now in
line to die. Only people who watch Horror films will know this, also the audience
may have seen other Horror films which show these rules been used.
In conclusion, the 1996 film Scream is a
perfect example of post-modernism They are the 3 main ones, because Scream
relies on the audience so much to have background knowledge, it encourages them
to watch it and it entertains the Horror audience more.
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