Introduction To Sub-Genre

The sub-genre I will be exploring and using to create a movie trailer, magazine and poster is the “slasher” genre. The slasher sub genre is very distinctive in its style as it tends to produce a lot of graphic violence and gore which interests a large percentage of horror movie lovers. The slasher movies involve a psychopathic killer stalking, and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner often with a distinctive weapon. There are hundreds of slasher movies out there that have been very successful through implementing the correct conventions of the slasher genre such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Hills Have Eyes.” The target audience are predominantly male and sometimes female that has an interest in watching graphic murders as plots are constructed around giving the audience the experience of watching the killers’ murders take place. The deaths’ are therefore violent and graphic, which is an effective technique in “slasher” movies to hold the audiences’ interest.

It’s not only males that can relate to these “slasher” movies though because of the graphic violence, women also can show great interest because of the characters used. In slasher movies there is often a innocent, good looking female character which interests members of the female target audience as it intrigues them to what will happen to her and therefore you have a large number of the female target audience who can relate to these slasher movies. However you are obviously going to interest the male members of the target audience if there is a young, female, good looking character being used as a victim as it provides a sexual element for the male target audience.