Examples

Seminal/Archetypal: Halloween (1978, dir. Carpenter) & Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, dir. Craven)

Non-Hollywood: Ringu (1998, dir. Nakata)

Recent: Scary Movie (2000, dir. Wayans)

Analysis of a Corpus

The Corpus→ The Repertoire of Elements↓	Film 1: Halloween	Film 2: Nightmare on Elm Street	Film 3: Scream
Typical Locations	Swamps, rural towns, forests, dark alleyways, isolated locations.
Characters / Groups	Naïve, carefree teenagers. Reluctant police officers who don’t initially believe protagonists, but often end up saving them. Seemingly unconquerable, supernatural antagonist.
Conflicts & Themes	Protagonist v. Antagonist, Bravery v. Fear
Filmic Technique	Montage, parallel editing.
Iconography /  Mise-en-Scene	Knives, claws, blood, torn clothes, old cars, police sirens, night, thunder, lightning, rain, masks.
Shape of the story	Beginning Young group goes out on an adventure, sticking it to the world.	Middle Monster/Killer strikes. Mystery ensues. Characters begin to die.	End Typically one character remains, they find  a way to defeat the monster/killer.

Trailers

Relevance to Comparative Essay

Personally, I wouldn’t further investigate the horror genre for a comparative piece due to my own tastes, but I think the slasher genre specifically is one of the most pertinent examples of Rick Altman’s theory of genre cycles. Thanks to the initial boom of slashers during the 1980’s, as well as their immediately recognisable iconography, generic conventions, and narrative tropes, the genre was parodied mercilessly after their period of relevancy faded, with films like Scary Movie and Scream satirising the formula. However, in our modern context of reboots and remakes, revivals of classic slasher franchises like Halloween are beginning to make a resurgence, with more sincere horror narratives coming to the forefront of cinema again, at least before the pandemic. It would be interesting to investigate an authentic film originating from the start of the slasher genre cycle and compare and contrast it to a film separated by time later in the cycle to to observe what conventions became outdated.

Study of Generic Superheroes:

Study of the Superhero Film Genre:

The Corpus → The Repertoire of Elements↓	Film1: Superman (1978) Donner	Film 2: Spider-man (2002) Raimi	Film 3: Wonder Woman (2017) Jenkins
Typical Locations	New York, mythical places, big cities, urban location, usually America… or space.
Characters / Groups	Typical hero with ‘powers’, group of heroes in conflict, dead family members, orphans, extremists, antagonist, sidekick – tech guys, love interest – the damsel in distress
Conflicts & Themes	Good overcoming evil, overcoming adversity, origin story, internal conflict,
Filmic Technique	Kaboom, CGI, big action sequences, cars chase, flashbacks, training montage, explosions, special effects, aerial shots, voiceovers, the costume reveal
Iconography /  Mise-en-Scene	Cityscape, primary coloured superhero suits, vehicles, specific weapons, power prop, superpower,
Shape of the story	Opening action setting – origin story explained – characters introduced	Superhero is put in challenging situations – their arch nemesis tries to destroy the world. Achilles heel is tested	Superhero wins / saves the world – and the girl

 

How Does Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ Conform to the Superhero Genre?

• The use of special weaponry and vehicles by the protagonist that are designed around a central theme or image – Batarangs, the Batmobile and the Batsuit.
• The hero has a ‘secret lair’ or hidden base of operations – The Batcave.
• Lucius Fox serves as the archetypal support character, assisting the hero through the use of technology from another location.
• The murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents motivating him to root out all evil in Gotham ties into the conventions of generic superhero stories.
• The Joker is a great example of the archetypal supervillain, or arch-nemesis, as his role as an agent of chaos is the antithesis of Batman’s crusade for justice and order.
• The setting of Gotham is a stereotypical American city, like many others in the corpus of the superhero genre.

How Does It Subvert the Genre?

• Despite Robin appearing prominently in the original Batman comics, there is no archetypal sidekick in ‘The Dark Knight’.
• Bruce Wayne has no superpowers, nor is the world of the film home to any supernatural elements.
• The dark, gritty tone of the film differs significantly to the more light-hearted tone of generic superhero movies.
• The hero’s love interest, Rachael Dawes, not only chooses another man, but dies in the film, not able to be saved by Batman. Usually, the superhero always gets the girl.
• Batman as a hero is not necessarily a force for good. He is willing to walk the line between darkness and the light to make Gotham a better place, and doesn’t live up to other generic protagonists as a paragon of virtue and righteousness.

My partner and I created a poster that reflects the Rom-Com (Romance Comedy) genre.

When trying to think through the genre’s repertoire of elements, we immediately thought of events that occurred frequently across the films we’d seen: the first being showcased in the top left, a scene where one of the protagonists is going to catch a plane to move away and their love interest runs into the airport to stop them and confess their true feelings; and the second being showcased in the bottom left, where the two lovers share either a kiss or a date in the rain.

Another one of the generic conventions of Rom-Com’s is a plot based around a wedding, so we drew that in the centre. Clowns and hearts were added to convey the comedic and the romantic elements respectively, and the beach at sunset came up as a generic setting for a lot of romantic scenes, so we included that.

Additionally, when we began to discuss generic characters in the genre, we found that a common trope was having a female’s initial love interest be stereotypically attractive yet lacking any emotional depth, while her male ‘best friend’ character, while being physically inferior to this initial love interest, actually loved her for who she was all along, and was, in the eyes of the film, the right person for her all along. This is depicted in the drawing on the centre-right of our poster.

Finally, a common situation that we thought characters found themselves in was having an unexpected pregnancy, so you can see a woman in the top right with both an unborn baby and a very surprised facial expression.