CINE344
Genre: Horror
Instructor: Aaron Kerner
Office: FA 536
Email: amkerner@sfsu.edu
Website: http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/index.html
Office Hours: TBA
Course Description: The cinematic genre of horror, although berated and frequently overlooked, serves an important social function. Like most other genres of film, horror potentially is a social barometer signaling social anxiety. Horror inherently deals with taboo or disturbing subject matter, and as a consequence might be the most socially revealing.
This course is thematic. The primary concern is not so much the history of horror films, but rather what horror is. What is horror? How do we represent horror? What cultural function does horror serve? And similar to Aristotle's line of questioning in his Poetics, why do we "like" horror? What pleasure do we derive from horror?
Course Requirements:
Attend all class meetings
Readings must be completed by the assigned dates
All written work must be submitted on time
Course Assessment: The course assessment will be based on two quizzes and two papers as well as attendance and participation. I want to make student participation an important part of the learning process. As for the papers, I want to encourage the development of critical thinking and research skills. I will require that you include outside research material to support your argument.
|
First Paper |
30% |
|
First Quiz |
15% |
|
Second Quiz |
15% |
|
Final Paper |
30% |
|
Attendance/Participation |
10% |
Course Reading Material:
NB:
Citation Method: Chicago Manual of Style: For assistance with citations see the online version of Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual.
Introduction:
Basic Concepts
Session 1 August 26 PPT
Introduction to the course
Scary Movie, Keenen Ivory Wayans, 2000
Session 2 September 2 PPT
Night of the Living Dead, George Romero, 1968
Selected clips from Berkeley in the Sixties, Mark Kitchell, 1990
Selected clips from American Cinema: Romantic Comedy / Film Noir, 1994
Selected clips from Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
Selected clips from The Last Man on Earth, Sidney Salkow, 1964
Selected clips from The Day the World Ended, Roger Corman, 1955
Selected clips from Panic in Year Zero, Ray Milland, 1962
Reading:
1. Kevin Heffernan, "Inner-City Exhibition and the Genre Film: Distributing Night of the Living Dead," Cinema Journal vol. 41, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 59 – 77. Available through the Project Muse Database.
2. OPTIONAL: Jerome Shapiro, "Losing Faith in Social Institutions," in Atomic Bomb Cinema: The Apocalyptic Imagination on Film (New York: Routledge, 2002), 141 – 168.
The Monstrous
(Female) Body
Session 3 September 9 PPT
Alien, Ridley Scott, 1979
Selected clip from Alien: Resurrection, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997
Reading:
1. Barbara Creed, "Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection," The Monstrous Feminine (New York: Routledge, 1993), 8 – 15.
2. Creed, "Horror and the Archaic Mother: Alien," 16 – 30.
Session 4 September 16 PPT
The Exorcist, William Friedkin, 1973
Reading:
1. Creed, "Woman as Possessed Monster: The Exorcist," 31 – 42.
Session 5 September 23 PPT
The Brood, David Cronenberg, 1979
Selected clips from Videodrome, David Cronenberg, 1983
Selected clips from Shivers, David Cronenberg, 1975
Selected clips from Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg, 1988
Selectec clips from an interview with Cronenberg
Selected clips from Alien 3, David Fincher, 1992
Selected clips from Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper, 1982
Selected clips from Window, Water, Baby, Moving, Stan Brakhage, 1959
Reading:
1. Creed, "Woman as Monstrous Womb: The Brood," 43 – 58.
Session 6 September 30 PPT
The Hunger, Tony Scott, 1982
Selected clips from The Addiction, Abel Ferrara, 1995
Selected clips from Daughters of Darkness, Harry KŸmel, 1971
Reading:
1. Creed, "Woman as Vampire: The Hunger," 59 – 72.
Session 7 October 7 PPT
Carrie, Brian De Palma, 1976
Selected clips from Frankenstein, James Whale, 1931
Selected clips from Scary Movie, Keenen Ivory Wayans, 2000
Selected clips from CHO Revolution, Lorene Machado, 2004
Reading:
1. Creed, "Woman as Witch: Carrie," 73 – 83.
Session 8 October 14 PPT
First Quiz Sessions 1 - 7
Sisters, Brian De Palma, 1972
Selected clips from I Spit on Your Grave, Meir Zarchi, 1978
Selected clips from Teeth, Mitchell Lichtenstein, 2007
Selected clips from Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Don Edmonds, 1975
Reading:
1. Creed, "Medusa's Head: The Vagina Dentata and Freudian Theory," 105 – 121.
2. Creed, "The Femme Castratrice: I Spit on Your Grave, Sisters," 122 – 138.
The Slasher
Sub-genre
Session 9 October 21 PPT
First Paper Due at the beginning of
class
Friday the 13th, Sean Cunningham, 1980
Selected clips from Bay of Blood (Reazione a catena), Mario Bava, 1971
Selected clips from Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre, Garry S. Grant, 2000
Selected clips from Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
Selected clips from The American Nightmare, Adam Simon, 2000
Reading:
1. Carol Clover, "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film," Representations 20 (Autumn 1987): 187 – 228. Available through the JSTOR Database.
OPTIONAL: Robert Kolker, Òthe Form, Structure, and Influence of Psycho,Ó in Alfred HitchcockÕs Psycho, ed. Robert Kolker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): 205-255. Available via E-res.
Session 10 October 28 PPT
Halloween, John Carpenter, 1978
Selected clips from Elephant, Gus Van Sant, 2003
Selected clips from The American Nightmare, Adam Simon, 2000
Reading:
1. Kenneth Johnson, "The Point of View of the Wandering Camera," Cinema Journal vol. 32, no. 2 (Winter, 1993): 49-56. Available via JSTOR.
2. Telotte, J. P., "Through a Pumpkin's Eye: The Reflexive Nature of Horror," Literature/Film Quarterly vol. 10, no. 3 (1982): 139-149. Download here.
Session 11 November 4 PPT
A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven, 1984
Selected clips from The Directors: The Films of Wes Craven, 1999
Reading:
1. Vera Dika, "The Stalker Film: 1978-81," in Gegory A. Walker ed., American Horrors: Essays on the American Horror Film (Chicago: University of Illinois, Press, 1987): 86 – 101. Available via E-res.
2. Christopher Sharrett, "'Fairy Tales for the Apocalypse': Wes Craven on the Horror Film," Literature/Film Quarterly vol. 13, no. 3 (1985): 139-147. Download here.
November 11 NO CLASS - Veteran's Day
Session 12 November 18 PPT FURLOUGH DAY NO CLASS
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper, 1974
The American Nightmare, Adam Simon, 2000
Reading:
1. Matt Becker, "A Point of Little Hope: Hippie Horror Films and the Politics of Ambivalence," The Velvet Light Trap 57 (Spring 2006): 42-59. Available via Project Muse.
2. Sarah Trencansky, "Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror," Journal of Popular Film and Television vol. 29, no. 2 (2001): 63 - 73. Download here.
November 25 NO CLASS - Fall Recess
Session 13 December 2 PPT
Second Quiz - Sessions 8 - 13
FINAL PAPER DUE
Scream, Wes Craven, 1996
Reading:
1. Valerie Wee, "Resurrecting and Updating the Teen Slasher: The Case of Scream," Journal of Popular Film and Television vol. 34, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 50-61. Download here.
2. Linda Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess," Film Quarterly vol. 44, no. 4 (Summer 1991): 2-13. Available via JSTOR.
Torture Porn (an
evolutionary step in the Slasher Genre?)
Session 14 December 9 PTT FURLOUGH DAY NO CLASS
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Don Edmonds, 1975
The Dybbuk, Michal Waszynski, 1937
The Unborn, David S. Goyer, 2009
Reading:
1. Ira Konigsberg, ÒÔThe Only ÔIÕ in the WorldÕ: Religion, Psychoanalysis, and The Dybbuk,Ó Cinema Journal vol. 36, no. 4 (Summer, 1997): 22-42. Available via JSTOR
2. Mikel J. Koven, ÒÔThe Film You Are About to See Is Based on FactÕ: Italian Nazi Sexploitation Cinema,Ó in Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik, eds. Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945 (New York: Wallflower Press, 2004), 19-31.
Session 15 December 16 PPT FURLOUGH DAY NO CLASS
Saw, James Wan, 2004
Hostel, Eli Roth, 2005
The Descent, Neil Marshall, 2005
Reading:
1. Gabrielle Murray, "Hostel II Representations of the Body in Pain and the Cinema Experience in Torture-Porn," Jump Cut 50 (Spring 2008): no pagination. (click here for article)
Session 16 NO CLASS
FINALS WEEK