Way back, I did a post on the differences between the two often mixed genres, horror and thriller.
To quickly revise, essentially it is about whose story it is. Who is the protagonist? The summarising paragraph sums up my thoughts on defining genre...
The Proposal is about a guy who sets up a hidden camera to record his wedding proposition to his girlfriend. Unknown to them at first, is that the camera isn't the only thing hiding in the house.
And yet we the audience are a character in the room. We are involved in all that goes on before us, as we are introduced to watch it from the start when Mike welcomes us and invites us to watch.
It is this difference, this fly on the wall perspective, which I think makes The Proposal not a horror film, but a thriller. Just as most times throughout a thriller movie, we are at an arms length from all that is taking place. We're not there with close ups on the protagonist to see the fear and the suspense, though both are still present, and there in lies my amendment to the horror vs thriller genre debate. Safety of the audience.
For all that takes place in movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs, for the most part we are distanced from the horrors of the killers. Sure, we see everything, but it's always safely behind a detective or other such person. In a horror movie, we are running along beside them. In The Proposal, we merely watch, safe on the other side of the lens.
Let me know your thoughts on defining genre. Check out The Proposal trailer below and let me know if you think it's a horror or a thriller, if you can from the little teaser it is.
To quickly revise, essentially it is about whose story it is. Who is the protagonist? The summarising paragraph sums up my thoughts on defining genre...
"If The Silence of the Lambs was a horror film, it would be about the young girl Buffalo Bill captures, and we would be down there in the pit with her, rubbing lotion on our skin. Clarice Starling would be a sub plot thrown in there to raise our anxiety of running out of time. Which is essentially Saw, where we are in that bathroom with our hero, deciding whether or not to saw our foot off, and the Detectives are really there to give us some vital or not so vital information, and to up the ante on the time pressure already established."Recently, one of the actors from The Proposal shared a post on the book of faces referring to The Proposal as a thriller. In my mind I was like 'What, I make horror movies!' but then, I do find it odd calling The Proposal a horror myself. It feels like a thriller. It's scary like a horror. And that was when I started thinking about the huge difference of The Proposal to every other film, including my own.
The Proposal is about a guy who sets up a hidden camera to record his wedding proposition to his girlfriend. Unknown to them at first, is that the camera isn't the only thing hiding in the house.
Sure, this makes it a found footage film, just like my previous film Last Ride, however the biggest difference is the camera itself. Almost every found footage film has someone holding the camera, and that character becomes our eyes into the world of the film.
But in The Proposal, the camera never moves. It isn't attached to a helmet on a character, it isn't hand held, it just sits there, on a tripod. For 44 minutes. But how would this affect the genre of the film?
My last post about genre said that the genre is defined by who the protagonist is, but this may need further definition.
In most films, the camera is not an element of the story, and we follow along with the protagonist on their adventure. In found footage films, the cameras are an element of the story, and we are drawn in by this FPS style of film making. Again, this is not the case with The Proposal. Instead, we are propped up in a corner, like a fly on the wall of the goings on in this house. Only at the very beginning and right near the end are we ever even glanced at, which breaks the fourth wall boundaries and safeties of being an audience member, although I don't believe it is enough to change our fly on the wall perspective.
Clearly the film has its protagonists and antagonists, but are we really watching from the protagonists point of view? Obviously not, but we are present in the room, yet unable to interact with what horrors lay before us. There is no character acting on our behalf. We are just forced to watch, like the Robot Chicken, and no matter what happens in front of us, there is nothing we can do to help.
It is this difference, this fly on the wall perspective, which I think makes The Proposal not a horror film, but a thriller. Just as most times throughout a thriller movie, we are at an arms length from all that is taking place. We're not there with close ups on the protagonist to see the fear and the suspense, though both are still present, and there in lies my amendment to the horror vs thriller genre debate. Safety of the audience.
For all that takes place in movies like Se7en and Silence of the Lambs, for the most part we are distanced from the horrors of the killers. Sure, we see everything, but it's always safely behind a detective or other such person. In a horror movie, we are running along beside them. In The Proposal, we merely watch, safe on the other side of the lens.
Let me know your thoughts on defining genre. Check out The Proposal trailer below and let me know if you think it's a horror or a thriller, if you can from the little teaser it is.
0 Yorumlar