Film poster analysis - Shaun of the Dead

Film poster analysis - House of Wax

Film poster analysis - Drag me to hell

Full film analysis - Hot Fuzz

Full film analysis – Hot Fuzz ‘Hot fuzz’ falls under the hybrid-genre comedy horror. It’s written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and directed by Edgar Wright. ‘Hot Fuzz’ is a movie that uses all of the conventions of a typical horror movie, but it’s performed in a way that is seen as quite comical. It’s about two police officers trying to solve crimes in a small English town, Sandford. Nicholas – played by Simon Pegg – is a police officer who gets transferred to live and help fight crime in Sandford. There he meets Danny – played by Nick Frost – and they become a duo. It’s comical because Nicholas is very serious about his job and Danny is extremely laid back and, in all honesty, doesn’t really know much about being a cop. Throughout the film, different events take place such as ‘murders’ and ‘accidents’ that are all solved and displayed in a fashion appropriate for comedy. Tzvetan Todorov suggests that stories start with a state of equilibrium, the state of equilibrium is then disrupted, a lot of things begin to happen and eventually a new state of equilibrium is found and everything’s A-Okay again. ‘Hot Fuzz’ is seen to follow this theory. At the beginning everything’s going pretty swiftly, Nicholas is offered a job and at first Sandford seems like a nice place. Then he meets the residents of the town and wonders how these people could be so naïve and thick. This is when crimes become apparent and he meets the ignorant members of the police force and everything turns upside down. After a very bumpy ride, a new state of equilibrium is met and things eventually go back to near normal. The audience can sympathise with Nicholas for all that he has to go through, yet they tend to warm to Danny most as he’s the most comical and interesting character. The theorist Claude Levi-Strauss looks into binary oppositions within stories. For example, good vs. evil. ‘Hot Fuzz’ definitely represents the sort of good vs. evil with the cops being the so called ‘good guys’ and all of the people who commit crimes being the ‘evil’. For ‘Hot Fuzz’, I would use the contrast of intelligence vs. ignorance. This is because Nicholas has a good eye for crime and he knows what he’s doing. He thinks outside the box to help solve crimes. Whereas, Nick and the rest of the town’s residents are ignorant; they fail to believe anything other than the simple solution of “it must have been an accident.” Vladimir Propp (a Russian critic who examined hundreds of folk tales for shared structures) we can see that ‘Hot Fuzz’ does show relation to his theories. Propp said that each narrative tends to have ‘the villain’, ‘the hero’, ‘the donor’, ‘the helper who aids the hero’, ‘the princess’, ‘the princess’ father’, ‘the dispatcher’ and ‘the false hero’. ‘Hot Fuzz’ has ‘the villain’ which is all of the people who commit crimes and the ‘unknown’ group of people responsible for it. ‘The hero’ would be Nicholas, the main officer. ‘The helper who aids the hero’ would be Danny. Danny is such an ignorant character that his helping hand to Nicholas is humorous at parts. There isn’t really any princess’ and fathers to the story, it’s more about solving surreal deaths and crimes. I would say that the residents that are found out to be part of an evil cult are the ones that fall under Propp’s idea of ‘the false hero’. This is because they appear to want to help and that they are in fact helping, when actually they’re got a sort of alter ego to find out things about how to fool the police force. Roland Barthes is another interesting theorist when it comes to narratives. He basically believed that all texts are polysemic and that it’s up to the reader/audience member how they perceive the text/visual. How they perceive the text/visual depends on their own life experiences and how they take the situation. With ‘Hot Fuzz’ I think this could be applied because if an audience member has experienced being a part of a crime similar to any of the ones in the film, they would be more offended than humoured. This could be because it takes them back and reminds them of what happened to them.

Full film analysis - The Shining

Full film analysis – The Shining ‘The Shining’ (1980) is a Horror/Mystery film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel written by Stephen King. It’s about a family that move to a deserted hotel to look after it during the winter. The father of the family (Jack) decides it is a good idea because he can then focus on writing his novel. However, the hotel is haunted by an evil presence that ends up driving Jack into violence. His violence progresses slowly as the film goes on until it reaches a point where he starts to lash out. Alongside this, the little boy (Danny) starts seeing things and going places he shouldn’t go. He has a voice within him that he says is ‘Tony’ which he voices through the use of his finger. Turns out that Tony is actually a special ‘power’ that Danny has which tells him things that others do not know. Towards the end of the movie, Danny starts shouting “REDRUM” in a croaky voice. Supposedly, this is meant to be the voice of ‘Tony’ his sort of unknown conscious. This confuses the audience and builds an odd suspicion. It’s not till the end of the movie after Jack’s attempts to kill both members of his family, that we realise ‘REDRUM’ is actually ‘MURDER’ backwards. Tzvetan Todorov’s narrative structure theory starting with a state of equilibrium, a disruption leading to a chain of events, the events being solved and a new state of equilibrium formed appears within ‘The Shining’. Jack gets offered the job looking after the abandoned hotel and his family seem quite pleased to be getting away and enjoying the mass of space. Everyone is happy and this is the films state of equilibrium. The disruption is when Danny’s unknown conscious starts showing and telling him things that are paranormal. This then leads to hallucinations throughout the hotel that we as an audience can witness. Finally, this leads to Jack feeling isolated and agitated. At the beginning of the film, Jack was warned of this happening and he laughed it off saying he wouldn’t ever get that way. This is the audiences’ cue of the ‘calm before the storm’. The ending of ‘The Shining’ is really confusing yet interesting. My take is that Jack’s soul belongs to the hotel and the whole idea of Wendy and Danny staying in the hotel with their husband/daddy is all just an illusion. I guess the new state of equilibrium could be the fact that the film reaches a full circle and it’s as though the whole story is about to start again, starting with a state of equilibrium. Moving onto Vladimir Propp (a Russian critic who examined hundreds of folk tales for shared structures). Propp said that each narrative tends to have ‘the villain’, ‘the hero’, ‘the donor’, ‘the helper who aids the hero’, ‘the princess’, ‘the princess’ father’, ‘the dispatcher’ and ‘the false hero’. In ‘The Shining’ there isn’t really clear evidence of this structure. There isn’t really an on-going situation that’s developing between a sort of ‘villain’ and ‘hero’ figures. This film is a more secluded film involving three main characters; a family. So, in my eyes, Propp’s theory isn’t really relevant/present. Next, we move on to the theories of Claude Levi-Strauss. Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. They’re sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. Good vs. evil for example. I think this is present in a more psychological way. The Shining deals with how dangerous our minds are. The way that too much isolation and time by yourself can turn you mad, in this case, into a murderer. I would list this as; good vs. evil, mind vs. thought and isolation vs. nurture. I think this because he starts off as a good human being who, over time, turns evil. This is where the nurture vs. isolation comes into play. He was nurtured by his family and loved by many people but after rejecting them time and time again, he started feeling alone and going mad. This is where the mind vs. thought is present. His mind is starting to be controlled and is taking over his thoughts. Roland Barthes is another interesting theorist when it comes to narratives. He said that all texts are polysemic and that it’s up to the reader/audience member how they perceive the text/visual. How they perceive the text/visual depends on their own life experiences and how they take the situation. If someone has experienced a weird happening in a hotel before, they could start to panic that this was on the verge of happening, thus making this movie a lot scarier to them than it may be to other people. A general fear of hotels abandoned or not, could influence the reading of this movie. But I think the main factor of perceiving this movie at its true horror potential would be if someone had a genuine fear of being alone, of having everything and then nothing to the point of psychological damage. I like this theory as it allows the text/visual to feed the audience with background horror and then lets the audience member develop their own ideas/concepts from then onwards.

Full film analysis - Sinister

Full film analysis – ‘Sinister’ ‘Sinister’ (2012) is a Horror/Mystery film directed by Scott Derrickson. It’s about a man with a wild imagination. He’s intrigued and curious about everything to do with surreal and undiscovered events. He moves his family into a different house in another town so he can start writing what he believes will be a top selling novel. The twist is that the house they move into is the house of a crime scene. A family was murdered in the backyard of the house by being hung from an iconic tree we see in the garden time after time. Ellison (the curious writer and main character) is aware of this and it excites him. However, his wife and kids, even after questioning him, are told that this house is completely safe and it’s most definitely nothing to do with a crime. As he begins investigating the horrifying events strange things slowly begin to happen and develop. As the movie progresses the strange things become more serious and intense leaving the audience engaged and filled with tension. Starting with Tzvetan Todorov’s theory on the structure of a story, he suggested that stories start with an equilibrium or status quo where everything seems to be balanced. This is then disrupted by an event causing a chain of events. The problems are then solved and restored to a sense of normality. Basically saying that the equilibrium is effected and then resolved to form a new equilibrium. ‘Sinister’ follows this structure in the sense that, at the beginning of the movie there appears to be no sense of unease or worry. We see the family that have just moved house living comfortably and happy within their new home. This is the state of equilibrium within the movie. The disruption to the equilibrium comes when the paranormal events begin to take place; when Ellison feels uncomfortable at his discovering’s and the weird noises within the house. The audience also recognise this to be unusual and this is where the film really kicks off. More and more paranormal activity begins to happen and this is where we see the development in the ‘chain of events’. This is the main sector of the film and also the scariest part. Sinister goes against Todorov’s theory in the sense that it stops there. There is no resolution. A new state of equilibrium is not reached; it ends badly. In ‘Sinister’ the ending to the movie results in his own little girl murdering the whole family and this freaky ‘monster’ taking her to his own world. That pretty much summaries the ending. There’s no newly found equilibrium, it ends at the end of the manic events. Moving onto Vladimir Propp (a Russian critic who examined hundreds of folk tales for shared structures) we can see that ‘Sinister’ does show relation to his theories. Propp said that each narrative tends to have ‘the villain’, ‘the hero’, ‘the donor’, ‘the helper who aids the hero’, ‘the princess’, ‘the princess’ father’, ‘the dispatcher’ and ‘the false hero’. Judging from those character roles, I can already see the ‘Sinister’ does not include all of these. I think this is because it’s a horror movie and horror movies generally don’t include characters most found in romance and comedy. However, ‘Sinister’ develops ‘the villain’ about a quarter the way into the film. The villain in this film is the weird creature that appears in most of Ellison’s findings. He’s the one that started this horrible chain of events and Ellison, acting at ‘the hero’ tries to find him and sort the situation. There’s a policeman that helps Ellison throughout the movie and aids him in his study. This policeman could be seen as ‘the donor’ giving information and advice to Ellison, our ‘hero’. In some ways, the policeman could also be labelled as ‘the helper’ as he helps Ellison throughout the movie. I don’t think there’s necessarily a ‘princess’ figure in this movie, however, there is the fact that the weird creature wants a child of each murdered family. This could still be seen as a desire and an object of the villain’s scheme, just in a slightly twisted way. The other three characters aren’t really apparent in ‘Sinister’. Next, we move on to the theories developed by Claude Levi-Strauss. Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. They’re sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. Good vs. evil for example. He wasn’t really bothered about the structure of a story; he was more interested in the arrangements of themes. In ‘Sinister’ we do have the ‘Good vs. Evil’ with the evil creature and paranormal events against the normal family and innocent Ellison simply trying to write a book. We also have a ‘past vs. present’ effect which is shown through the fact that the murders happened in the past and currently, in present times, they’re trying to be solved. We have the idea of the ‘known vs. unknown’ as we know parts of what has happened in the murder, yet we do not know exactly how it happened and who was fully responsible. Roland Barthes is another interesting theorist when it comes to narratives. He basically believed that all texts are polysemic and that it’s up to the reader/audience member how they perceive the text/visual. How they perceive the text/visual depends on their own life experiences and how they take the situation. With ‘Sinister’ I think this theory can be true. Some audience members will be more scared of the film than others. This could be due to certain people’s ideologies of the situations shown in the film happening, to be a lot stronger than others. It could be down to other factors such as people actually experiencing some events that happen in the film, or experiencing something similar. I think this theory puts it all down to people’s own perceptions and their own individual ideologies. After analysing the narrative structure of ‘Sinister’ I can see that it does follow the majority of the theories from these famous theorists. Overall, I think it’s a brilliant film, really engaging and the plot has meaning without veering off to meaningless events.