Every
horror film has the same narrative theories. The theories are the Todorov,
Propp, Levi-Strauss, and the Barthes. We use these narrative theories in the
horror trailer.
The
todorov theory explains how in every horror film there is equilibrium at the
beginning (balance, happy part) then disequilibrium (something bad happens,
e.g. killer appears) and a resolution (e.g. the antagonist gets killed, problem
solved). In our horror trailer, the equilibrium is when the characters are in
the costume shop and they are trying on the costumes laughing and talking. The
disequilibrium is when the hand of the zombie appears and the zombie bites the
character, so this is where it all goes wrong and more zombies start to appear
after this. We don’t have a resolution, because in trailers they don’t show the
ending otherwise you would know what happens and the point of a trailer is to
get an idea of what the film is about to get people to watch and see what
happens to the characters so that is why we have decided to end the trailer as
a cliff-hanger where one of the characters from the beginning turns into a
zombie and one of the other characters has a weapon to suggest that there will
be a fight.
Propp
believes that in every story there are characters that have different roles in
the film. These characters are the hero, the villain, the princess, donor,
helper, dispatcher and false hero. I think that in the horror trailer, some of
the characters fit into these roles. The villains are the zombies, the princess
is the girl who falls on the floor, the helper is the expert character that
knows what he is doing, and the false hero is the boy who gets bitten by the
zombie but doesn’t tell his friends.
The
Levi-Strauss theory is the binary opposites. In the genre of horror, the binary
opposites are protagonist vs antagonist, empowered vs victim and strong vs
weak. The binary opposite that we have is human’s vs zombies.
The
Barthes theory is five codes. These are Hermeneutic, Proairetic, Semantic,
Symbolic and Cultural. The Hermeneutic Code is where there are clues dropped
but it is not clear what the answers are so this creates mystery and this makes
the audience want to know more. The Proairetic code is the action scenes and
this adds suspense. The Semantic code is where something has another meaning behind
it. The Symbolic code is where the
meaning is shown through opposites together as a contrast. The cultural code is
the audience’s scientific, historic and cultural knowledge. I think that the
horror trailer shows some of these codes. The Proairetic code is used in the
scene where the girl falls down and the zombies crowd around her and kill her.
There is another action scene where the characters knock on the door to get
away from the zombies and it feels like a long time for the shop owner to open
the door for them as the zombies get closer and closer to them. The hermeneutic
code is used at the beginning when we show the litter, and someone turning into
a zombie after eating a burger. The Semantic code could be used because the
zombies represent lack of independence by travelling in a group and gangs from
the way they look the same and there is violence with them.
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