Scream

The Scream films are of the postmodernist style. I have seen all of the Scream films but re-watched the very first one, I watched it in a different way after looking for postmodernist connections.

Horror films in general aim to frighten as well as entertain an audience through sound effects as well as visuals, in some cases it is the sound effects that take over the horror aspect of the film as it is down to the build up of tension. Scream comes under the sub genre of 'slasher' within horror, this is because of the gore special effects.

In the postmodernist view, TV and film aim to 'look like real life' however living in real life, we think that real life 'looks like TV and films'. In Scream, the characters mention multiple times in the script 'if this were a movie' or 'how to survive a horror movie' - this suggests the crews aim was to create real life within a film. The detail of making the film like real life even goes down to the types of characters, they are typical students at college living in domestic homes; and the final bloodbath takes place in a domestic home in America.

This famous quote, featured in the first Scream was originally said by Williamson, 1996: "They're all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big breasted girl who can't act who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door, it's insulting."This also suggests that the film is trying to be real life, as does the quiz near the start of the film, the girl in the scene has to answer questions on previously made films to save the life of her boyfriend - Friday 13th is one of the films mentioned.

Scream has been referred to as a 'parody' many times, however it is not the same as the Scary Movies in any way. Scream is in fact more of a pastiche as it shows respect to previous horror films. For example the surname of the killer in Scream 'Billy Loomis', uses the same surname for 'Dr Loomis' in Halloween.

Overall Scream is postmodern as it is making fun of horror films, but also being a horror film. At the same time that they are telling the audience the 'rules to survive a horror film' they are also breaking the rules e.g. someone says 'be right back' and comes back, another person has sex and survives, and another gets drunk and survives.