Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton Classics): Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Updated Edition: 15 (Princeton Classics, 15)

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Surprising herself, then, she reared back and slung the half-full bottle at one of the speaker posts, the bottle shattering hard enough that some of it came back at her. She] argues that most horror films are obsessed with feminism, playing out plots which climax with an image of (masculinized) female power and offering visual pleasures which are organized not around a mastering gaze, but around a more radical "victim-identified' look. Clover takes a detailed look at a select number of films, across the horror genre at the time she was writing.

His linebacker shoulders were even bigger from guiding all that chain, his hair was shorter because he couldn’t risk it getting caught in the chain, his skin was leathery from the sun and the salt and the overtime, and there was a harsh scar coming down across the right side of his face from a single steel thread whipping out from a snapped cable, the equipment that cable was attached to sinking down thousands and thousands of feet—and almost taking him with it. First, Clover highlights the common misreading of Halloween as a film that punished female sexuality. Horror films manage to have a largely male audience identify with a female survivor; the viewer goes with her into the bad place, cheers on her escape and empathises with her suffering.She describes the slasher film a a pre-technological genre because of its attachment to weapons like chainsaws, daggers, and knives, the absence of guns, as well as the consistent failing of technologies like elevators, phones, cars, etc. On the other side of the coin, this is also a bit of an outdated read and far too much time was spent on Freud for comfort. If she is the hero of the story, why do audiences want to watch the killer in the following sequels? Okay, so at the moment, I'm actually halfway through it, but I'm enjoying it immensely, not least because it combines my love of horror movies with my love of analyzing the crap out of everything for its feminist implications.

It was still sitting on its turbine wheels, no rubber, and it was still a rust bucket, but there was no denying that this was the same Camaro from the junkyard. Clover’s book is a vital reminder that there needs to be ongoing engagement with and analysis of the horror genre as it evolves. In this book, Clover defines and explores the role of the surviving female character and labels her the “final girl. and also looking at the reification of the slasher genre into the mainstream assuming indie horror would die (the short answer: the relationship between the audience and the film [i. I wonder if this also includes emotional identification with the killer and/or final girl based on the film’s marketing.Although horror films are broadly discussed, three main threads are examined in detail: slasher films, satanic possession films, and rape-revenge films. They also could’ve already begun identifying with Drew Barrymore’s character as the final girl which could’ve been part of the reasons why this film’s first scene managed to create such a big shock.

Indeed, she commends it as a virtue of the horror approach that it reaches through gender brazenly and, though a point of no little contention, plucks out and holds in bare palms what later “serious” films will only attempt to do with thick gloves. Its an interesting book about how genders are portrayed in horror films, slasher films and rape revenge films.Even though this was written in the 80s and published in 1992, leaving a huge gap between then and the current display of horror films, it is still an important work that for the most part refutes the viewer identification with sadism thesis. Come sunrise, they were going to have to tackle her to get her to stop, and then they’d better get those cuffs on her fast, because she was going to be trying to slip away, pick that sledgehammer up one more time, come at that rusted-out memory like a fucking Valkyrie.