Genre Essay

Genres divide films into categories for example, comedy, horror, sci-fi, romance and action. They are split up into genres because it can make it easier for the audience to know what film they would enjoy to watch because they might have a favourite genre or a genre that they watch more than other genres. Furthermore, films can be split up into genres by the typical conventions that are usually in those genres. These could be someone fighting in an action film or a woman and a man being in love in a romance film. Most films now have more than one genre and these are called hybrids. So usually there are rom-coms and action films that have romance and comedy as well. Horror films are then split up into sub-genres and these are splatter, zombie, vampire/werewolves, psychological/supernatural, slasher, j-horror, thriller and monster etc.  

Theorists have ideas of what genres include. Burton’s theory is that genres have recognisable conventions that are included. So there are always protagonists, stock characters, stock situations (car chases), icons (jaws music, scream movie mask, same actors in film series), and themes (love, revenge, betrayal e.g.) In horror films they usually have a final girl and this is the survivor of a horror film and it is usually a girl who is a virgin and who hasn’t done drugs. In the zombie film, “Dawn of the Dead”, the protagonist is Ana, and the stock characters are the characters who are trying to keep safe in the shopping centre. Ana is the final girl and the film she is a nurse and she looks after the people who get bitten, so this makes her innocent and a good person. The final girl however usually has a unisex name like the character Sidney in the scream franchise. The theorist, Neale, thinks that if there are too many genre conventions in a film it can get very predictable and repetitive so some films try to change it and challenge what we have seen before to surprise us and so it is not boring. Neale says, “Much of the pleasure of popular cinema lies in the process of difference in repetition”. In Dawn of the Dead, it shows a little girl but the morning where the zombies are there, the first zombie to appear is the little girl and I think that this made the film different as you normally see adult zombies and it surprises the audience as you don’t expect her to be the zombie. In the trailer, when the first person was bitten, the editing was quick so this made the audience to continue watching. Altman’s theory is the fact that genre offers audiences different pleasures. One pleasure is the visceral pleasure where there are jump scares, gore and quick editing in the trailer so the audience enjoy being scared and it is like the feeling you get from a roller coaster ride. Another pleasure is emotional where you feel different emotions when watching the film. The third is intellectual puzzles where it makes the audience want to unravel a mystery figure out the “who dunnit” of which character killed the victim. Chandler thinks that there are genres because it helps the audience to identify which film is what genre with the typical conventions that each genre has. Metz has a theory that genre has four stages, and these are classical, experimental, parody and deconstruction. Classical is the stage where the film uses the original conventions and scenes for example Psycho is a film that uses the classical stage with the shower scene as this can be very repetitive in horror films as the female victim is exposed. The experimental stage is where the film experiments with different scenarios. The Parody stage is films that have a comedy side and they have scenes of other horror films but the film is more funny than scary. Examples of these films are Shawn of the Dead, and the Scary Movie. The deconstruction stage is where the horror films are now hybrids and these hybrids are usually thriller/sci-fi and horror/thriller.

In Dawn of the Dead, there is equilibrium where you see the little girl as a human but the morning after it all changes. The sound of the ticking noise builds up tension and the door slowly creaking to reveal the little girl as a zombie shows how the equilibrium has changed. Genres put films into groups so that it is easier for the audience to identify which film is what from the conventions each film genre has.