Ingredients of a Horror Film.

• Shadows
• Villain
• Weapon
• Music - minor keys, leifmotifs
• Isolated setting
• Mask
• Death
• Point of view shot
• Psycho strings
• Close ups
• Tracking shots
• Squeaky door
• Teenagers
• Final girl
• Murder

Moral Panic.

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to

threaten the social order. Horror films are often at the centre of moral panics. 

"Moral panics then, are those processes whereby members of a society and culture become 'morally sensitized' to the challenges and menaces posed to 'their' accepted values and ways of life, by the activities of groups defined as deviant. The process underscores the importance of the mass media in providing, maintaining and 'policing' the available frameworks and definitions of deviance, which structure both public awareness of, and attitudes towards, social problems" - Key Concepts in Communication (O'Sullivan, Fiske et al 1983)

The horror movie "Child's Play 3" (1991) is notorious for its links to the 1993 murder of three year old Jamie Bulger, in Liverpool, England. The 10 year old killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, supposedly saw the film, and imitated a scene where a victim is splashed with blue paint. There was a lot of mention of the links between the film and the crime in the UK press at the time, and a moral panic ensued. The case against the film, though never really proven, led to new legislation, The Amendment to the Video Recordings Act, contained in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994). 

1.     Occurrence and signification - An event occurs and, because of its nature, the media decide it is worthy of dramatic coverage and the event is signified as a violent, worrying one.

2.    Wider social implications - Connections are made between one event and the wider malaise of society as a whole. After the initial event, the life of the story is extended through the contributions of 'expert' opinionmakers, who establish that this one event is just the tip of the iceberg, and that it is part of an overall pattern which constitutes a major social menace, thus public attention is focused on the issues.

3.    Social Control - Moral panics seek some sort of resolution and this often comes with a change in the law, designed to further penalise those established as the threatening deviants at the source of the panic. This satisfies the public who feel they are empowered politically by the media.

Similarities and Differences between Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Similarities and Differences between Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Similarities

• Both of these movies are 'Slasher' horror movies.
• Both of these movies begin with the time, date and place that the movie is set in, they are both documentary style.
• Both of these movies feature an 'unknown killer' either disguised or masked.
• Both of these movies are set in isolated places.
• Both of these movies are inspired by the real life killer, Ed Gein.

The differences

• The difference in weapons, one features a knife the other a chainsaw.
• In 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the killer has a mask.
• The protagonist of 'Psycho', Norman Bates, is arguably a more realistic and likable character.
• There are multiple killers in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in 'Psycho' there is one.
• The final girl survives in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in 'Psycho' she does not.

Laura Mulvey - Visual pleasure and narrative cinema (1975)

• Women are presented as sexual spectacles and objects of pleasure for the characters and audience.


• Men fetishise women, imbuing them with an overvalued and unrealistic status - 'fetishistic scopophilia'.

Shower scene -Psycho

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Psychoanalytic Theory - Male Gaze

A lot of horror films present women in the 'male gaze', with their femininity and sexuality in particular being focused on by the camerawork. Women are often presented in one of two extremes, either powerless and submissive or seductive and tempting.
The way in which the audience reacts to the female on screen depends on how the male character responds to her, for example, if the male finds the female attractive, the audience is invited to view her from no more than a sexual aspect.