Blog 4

In the 2017 film get out, starring Jordan Peele, is a very horrifying yet very upbeat film. The film is about duplicates that have no soul and try to take over the world. However these duplicate people cannot form words but they make very loud screeching noises to communicate. Base of this movie involves Rod, and his family. When his wife was young she walked into a mirror maze and released her duplicate. Her duplicate than went back down into the dungeon and they all formed a plan to release themselves. While in the dungeon they would mimic what their body with a soul was doing on earth. Jordan Peele is known for his comedy skits, when I saw he was releasing a horror film I knew he was going to make a great movie with a lot of twists to it. He used Cravens idea of making the movie to have breaks to give the audience a rest from all of the scares. I noticed in this film when Jordan Peele would have multiple jump scares, but following the scare would be some cruel joke about death that was really funny. He would also put lines in the movie that would show that the characters were involved in a scary movie.

This movie was made in the middle of all of the conflicts revolving around black lives matter. In this film, Peele does a great job of calling people out on racism. For example, at the end of the movie, there is a white family that gets murdered by their duplicates. However, the duplicates try to murder Rod and his family, but they do not kill them. This ending scene shows how black people do have power in a white dominate society. This film does a phenomenal job of showing how people in this world can work together with all races and ethnicities to overcome anything.

Blog 3

Blog 3

Wes Craven is known for creating two of the most infamous monsters in horror history, Ghostfcae from Scream and Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street.

When Craven received the script and went over it, for Scream, he knew he had to start working on it immediately. He did not want this idea to be taken by anyone else. He was able to find a crew and actors, very quickly that wanted to be in this film. When talking about the film he describes how he uses other horror movie references in his horror films. He did this in Scream because he knows that kids tend to get scared of horror films in general. So he uses that to help scare the characters in Scream. He then relates to the actual audience, by saying when they see horror movies they do not want to be scared, they already are scared. Scream became a notorious horror comedy film, unknowingly. Craven already knew the audience would be scared, so he gave them the classic horror murder scenes. However, while doing this, he gave the audience's brain a “break” by putting in scenes that would lighten the tone.

A New York Times article talks about how Craven never had never seen a horror movie. When he first started making horror films he said we would just make things up along the way. Most of his movies were similar, there was an extreme killer who murdered young kids. While his movies were gruesome, he allowed the audience a break from his nasty killing scenes, by giving them a laugh. This ultimately is the reason and beginning of horror comedy films.

The shift in his career was in 1984, when the first Nightmare on Elm Street was released. This was a hit because of how this new image of a serial killer was portrayed. Freddy Krueger would appear in your dreams and murder you. However, this crazy killer had a good sense of humor.  This movie gain tons of popularity because it was a new twist, a goofy, yet intense movie about a serial killer that created a new type of slasher film.

 Wes Cravens film Scream was evaluated by Roger Ebert and he explains that this movie is unique because the characters in the movie, all love scary movies. Now that they are actually experiencing it, they are acting like they know what to do so they could survive. Although the movie is violent, the irony sets a balance. To some of the people that have watched it, they do not find the blood to to horrific, but believe the movie is indeed pretty funny.

Overall I believe Wes Craven is a genius. I feel he understands what the audience wants out of a horror film. He understands if the movie is too gloomy or scary people will not want to see it, or not enjoy it. However, he understood how to give the audience a mental break from the scares by putting in hilarious scenes. He created his own type of horror and it took off.

Blog 2

After watching the original Scream movie, directed by Wes Craven, it gave me the impression that Horror-Comedy may be the best type of horror film. This movie gave me many laughs along with a few scares. The movie was comedy dominant, meaning there was more humor than scares. The plot of the movie was very interesting it is about a killer that is murdering many people from a high school. He does this by calling them and forcing them to play a game. The game is usually some questions he makes the victim answer over the phone. However, these questions are funny, he makes them guess where he is, and if the guess is wrong he tells them in a funny manner.

The movie starts out with the killer, infamously, known as scream, who has tied up the boyfriend of Casey in the backyard. He then calls Casey and asks her questions about other horror films such as Friday the 13th, she answers the questions wrong and it leads to getting her boyfriend brutally killed. Then Scream just randomly appears in the house and starts chasing Casey around like a Tom and Jerry scene, this was in my opinion one of the funniest scenes in the movie. He finally catches her and murders her then hangs her from a tree. The movie then fast forwards to the next day at school and everyone is talking about the murders and it is the hottest topic because the town has never seen anything like this before. After this day Sydney gets the same phone call Casey received and she begins to freak out because in the past her mother was raped and murdered. Scream attacks her and she gets away. The next day at school reporters are there to talk to Sydney but she does not want to talk to anyone. For the rest of the movie Scream is trying to kill Sydney. He pops up at random times during school, and he keeps giving her funny phone calls to try to kill her.

There are a couple reasons this falls into a comedy dominant movie. The first reason is the lighting in the film. Everything is bright. There are zero times throughout the film I had chills when the characters were being chased because it was not dark and gloomy. Another reason is the script itself. For example, at the school, after Sydney claims she was almost killed, she gets into this argument with a reporter, and they go back and forth insulting each other, then the scene ends in a slap to the face.  

After reviewing an original review of the movie I came to the understanding that this movie was so funny because the character knew they were in a plot. The main Characters knew they were being targeted but didn’t know why. The reaction of the characters knowing they are going to be killed was funny in many ways. However, the movie had a lot of murders and blood which made it fairly scary. According to scholar Dhain Ambarwati, there were idiomatic expressions in the English language that become real in the movie. For example, in the movie they use the phrase killing two birds with one stone. That means getting two things done at one time. In the Scream movie, he literally kills two people at the same time. People who understand these expressions, tend to get a laugh out when the expression comes to life.

Horror comedy is very overlooked when it comes to all genres of movies. People usually do not think that horror films and comedy films go well together. However, these types of movies are great because they can give people a break from screaming from scares and they can work the other way by making funny movies more serious. There are many directors that do this well. They have unique styles that add a different balance of horror and comedy. Horror-Comedy overall can be broken up into three different parts horror dominant, comedy dominant, and balanced (TVTropes).

Tvtropes identifies horror dominant as a movie where the characters will crack jokes, or act very calm in order to give the audience a break from all of the scares that have been happening. Another common way that comedy is used is with irony, and the most common line we hear in movies that describes this is "I'm going to die now." This is used as a joke by the character but then they usually end up dying.

Comedy dominant is seen often in "black comedies" Here the characters often make the mood feel good during scary times. Comedy dominant is also seen when people make parodies of true horror films (tvtroops).

Finally balanced is when a movie has equal amounts of scares and laughs. It is very difficult to make these types of movies due to "Mood whiplash" which happens when there are too many changes in the mood. This can have an end result of a bad movie (tvtroops).

In recent years, there have been some amazing horror-comedy films. Esquire, has created a list of the top horror-comedy movies in recent years and why they are so great. Number one is Zombieland. This movie is a classic zombie apocalypse that brings many scares, while the main characters are college students who are trying to get home to see if their family is alive. This movie is known for its punchlines and some iconic scenes of zombies being blown up.

Another movie on the list is This is the End, with a stacked lineup of comedians with Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, there is also an appearance made by Rihanna. This movie is very comedy dominant because of the chosen actors (It's hard to see those two men serious). However, it has frequent jump scares that keep the audience on its toes.

One last example is Happy death day, this is a perfect movie to describe as a balance. The main character is going crazy trying to find out who this creepy masked killer is. The killer is very scary and gets the audience to jump along with scaring the protagonist. However, the protagonist does many dumb and funny things to keep finding herself face to face with the killer.

Finding stand-out horror-comedy directors is very hard. There are many standouts, like recently, Jordan Peele, who has directed many black comedies that are very scary. But, according to JHU.org James Whale, director of the Bride of Frankenstein, was one of the first directors to really make horror-comedy stand out. He did this by filming pranks he set up while the actors were performing their acts. This gave all of the people making the movie a good laugh and it brought a laugh to the audience when the movies were released.