Class notes 24/1/2013

In the 50's and 60's the horror was mainly about monsters. Creature feature (Godzilla). With Hammer Horror which was dominant across the country in the 60's used mature upper class adults. The protagonists used middle and lower class people in films like last house on the left and TCM. Hammer horror used a castle a lot in their movies, they were quiet theatrical where as LHOWL were ultra realistic in their design.
Hammer horror is a very stage however the early slasher movies (72/74) Halloween created a whole series of imitators such as peeping tom which was seen as sick and disgusting so producers wouldn't dare make films like this. The idea of scream queen were refereed to hammer movies - busty blonde's.
Use a communation test when you don't know when the convention is used or where it has to be and would dull the fear factor for the audience. Hitchcock was the first idea of an auteur and doing the music for the shower scene. In general each film is different, the most general for slasher movies are, 15 - 24 year olds, if your movie is BBFC (British board of film classification) rated. Death of a stranger is a TV movie which is very little of the gore and the explicitness and by suggesting a primary target audience is a key factor for example 15 - 24 which is the key stage of a target audience. Core audience is the 15 - 24 age range with the minor intertextual references and 18 - 24 is still classed as youth range. Characters are teens to attract teen audience and the dominant figure such as sheriff or a headteacher which are useless. Halloween became the most profitable movie ever made at the time. An exception for dis equilibrium is maintained in the Halloween movies 1 and 2 which carry on from one another.