A2 Media | Bethany Mann | 9125 | 20311: September 2015

Rick Altman's Theory

Rick Altman's theory is that we need to consider genre in two ways.

Semantic

This is the conventions of a film that communicate with the audience. This would be things such as the characters, locations used, props, music/soundtrack, shooting style and more.

Scream is a slasher horror film set in the fictional town of Woodsboro, California. One of the semantic elements of this film would be that the main character, Sidney, is a young female highschool student. This would make a connection with the audience as the majority of the audience would be the same age or roughly the same age as Sidney so they would be able to relate more to her than they would an older or younger character. She is dressed as a regular high school student throughout the film which would also make her more relatable to the female audience because they would probably have dressed the same or similar when the film was released. Usually within horror films the main character is female as females are seen as weak and more vulnerable than men, which is shown within Scream with the use of having a female protagonist.

Usually in horror/slasher films the protagonist (or villain) is unknown because it adds more of a mystery to the film. In Scream this is shown because nobody knows who the murderer is right up until the end of the film, which is what happens quite often within these types of films.

Another semantic element of Scream is the location, as usually within horror films the location is either somewhere very isolated, usually this type of film only features a small amount of people, or it's set in a small town where everybody knows each other. Scream is set within a small town which means that there wouldn't be many people so they would still be quite isolated and might not be able to receive help.

Weapons are a common feature within horror films as this is what are used to murder the characters. Within Scream there are many weapons used and at the end of the film we see Sidney shoot somebody. This communicates to the audience that Sidney isn't innocent as she may be made out to be at the start of the film.

Syntactic

Syntactic elements are the relations between elements and the structure of the narrative with the genre.

In a typical slasher horror film you would expect there to be a group of young people, usually high school or college students, and a female protagonist. Then someone would be injured or murdered and everybody else would start to panic because they know that someone or something is trying to get them. Eventually it would be that everyone is murdered and somehow the protagonist will usually live.

Scream sticks to this because they have a young group of people and a female protagonist, however they way they introduce the killer is quite unique as he is introduced through a phone call rather than someone just being killed and left to be found. However then Scream seems to fit back in with the stereotypical plot of most people getting murdered and the protagonist saving the day, as Sidney lives and kills the bad guys.