"You Mean I Have to Live the Rest of My Life in This Body?" Examining the Slasher Genre Through the Gestural Performance of an Audience
Slashers are undoubtedly genre films, and, as Langford (2000: vii) reminds us, genre remains a critical framework for contending with how films are produced and consumed, as well as their broader relations to culture and society. However, defining the properties, outlines, and dimensions of a genre is often a troubling and—at times—aporic task.
This research shows how genre is assembled through the performance of an audience at the level of gesture: gesture defined here not as a symbolic movement of the body, but as a situated and performative act of perceptual embodiment. In other words, genre is shown to be defined through the gesture of watching; and not exclusively how a film is categorised by salient and recognisable characteristics or structures and apparatuses of production.
This research evidences this claim through the methods of conversational- and discourse analysis. It analyses conversations between participants who watched a total of fifty-six slasher and slasher-adjacent films over three months. What is shown is how an established genre (the slasher) becomes (re)assembled at the level of gesture, and the performance of participating with this genre is demonstrated in the collected conversations. However, these conversations are expanded to the level of discourse, and genre is shown to be encoded not only through statements [énoncé] of what is said and unsaid but through the statements of an embodied subject at the level of gesture.
Genre, ultimately, is shown to be gestural. This expands existing theories that examine genre at the level of content, characteristic, or production, and ultimately concludes that genre is simultaneously recognised and embodied by an audience.
- Darren Gary Berkland (Coventry University, UK)
Slashers are undoubtedly genre films, and, as Langford (2000: vii) reminds us, genre remains a critical framework for contending with how films are produced and consumed, as well as their broader relations to culture and society. However, defining the properties, outlines, and dimensions of a genre is often a troubling and—at times—aporic task.
This research shows how genre is assembled through the performance of an audience at the level of gesture: gesture defined here not as a symbolic movement of the body, but as a situated and performative act of perceptual embodiment. In other words, genre is shown to be defined through the gesture of watching; and not exclusively how a film is categorised by salient and recognisable characteristics or structures and apparatuses of production.
This research evidences this claim through the methods of conversational- and discourse analysis. It analyses conversations between participants who watched a total of fifty-six slasher and slasher-adjacent films over three months. What is shown is how an established genre (the slasher) becomes (re)assembled at the level of gesture, and the performance of participating with this genre is demonstrated in the collected conversations. However, these conversations are expanded to the level of discourse, and genre is shown to be encoded not only through statements [énoncé] of what is said and unsaid but through the statements of an embodied subject at the level of gesture.
Genre, ultimately, is shown to be gestural. This expands existing theories that examine genre at the level of content, characteristic, or production, and ultimately concludes that genre is simultaneously recognised and embodied by an audience.
Here-and-Now in Horror: Happy Death Day (2017) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
This study examines slasher franchise Happy Death Day in a close analysis with Walter Benjamin’s work. These two films are horror’s new additions to the time loop genre which has been discussed previously in relation to sanctity of the moment and in relation to their narrative style akin to computer games. This work is more interested in the themes of “here-and-now” and Frankfurt school’s concept of history. Walter Benjamin’s theses on history such as redemption, capitalism as religion, non-linear time, the truth of the past and revolutions will be used throughout this research. The paper provides an analysis of these two films’ visual style in addition to narrative elements. While the franchise markets itself like a popcorn flick, there is clearly politics of time written in its pages.
- Tugce Kutlu (University College London, UK)
This study examines slasher franchise Happy Death Day in a close analysis with Walter Benjamin’s work. These two films are horror’s new additions to the time loop genre which has been discussed previously in relation to sanctity of the moment and in relation to their narrative style akin to computer games. This work is more interested in the themes of “here-and-now” and Frankfurt school’s concept of history. Walter Benjamin’s theses on history such as redemption, capitalism as religion, non-linear time, the truth of the past and revolutions will be used throughout this research. The paper provides an analysis of these two films’ visual style in addition to narrative elements. While the franchise markets itself like a popcorn flick, there is clearly politics of time written in its pages.