"One of television's great contributions is that it brought murder back into the home, where it belongs". - Alfred Hitchcock, National Observer, 15th August 1966
In this Critical review, I will be looking at the latest miniseries installment to the popular TV show American Horror Story. Based loosely on the missing colony of Roanoke Island in 1590, the show creator Ryan Murphy explores his tale of uncovering the mystery through horror and exaggerated themes in unusual ways that keep the show fresh and popular.
The clear genre of the show is Horror as suggested by the title but it's clear by the codes and conventions used throughout the series. The use of violence is used heavily with the use of props including knives, chainsaws and impalement on sharp objects like spikes. Gore is used in many types of horror to implement the realism of the terrifying situation but also to create shock and excitement which Ryan has clearly tried to exceed. The show also contains many monsters and supernatural happenings to the protagonists to create fear and cover the sub-genres of slasher as well as supernatural in Horror. He has done this to appeal to a wider audience playing on at least one fear of a viewer. The location is set in an abandoned house which looks a bit like Norman Bates house. It is a purpose built set for the program in an isolated location. This allows the audience to relate to the fact the characters are on their own with limited help often used in many other horrors like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. We as an audience can tell it's a set due to the hyper-realism that Murphy portrays in a cinematic viewing approach. Everything Murphy does is exaggerated on a grand scale and this is reflected in this series with close relations to The Shining.
Bates House
Roanoke House
Interestingly half way through on episode 6, the show changes from a telling of a reenactment to a real life, found footage, documentary style horror approach like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. We can tell this by the way the program has adopted documentary conventions and technical changes like the switch to handheld camera’s and camera settings displayed around the border of the screen, occasionally blurred and out of focus shots, talking to the camera, a confession booth, off-centered camera angles and the use of night vision. Being distinctly opposite to what we have seen in previous episodes of beautifully lit scenes and panning shots, we recognize as viewers that things have changed and using the conventions, it's easy to see we are meant to be viewing a documentary. Ryan has done this to create realism to what we were previously watching and to add to the question if what we are watching is real or fake.
The characters costume change throughout the series as it time-hops through different eras. Making it easier to understand we see that when it goes back in time the outfits look like they are from a Georgian period and display wealth rather than modern day clothes and abandonment. They also emulate western and Asian archetypes of Good and Evil. With the innocent wearing white and the evil wearing black for western but also when it's referencing to Asian horror films, with the Asian possessed family, the ghosts wear white to show paranormal and the protagonist at the time wears black to show heroic status.
There is many uses of sound used both diegetic and non-diegetic. With diegetic, the uses of dialogue are used to tell the narrative and ambient sounds like footsteps, car noises, and birdsong to create realism. With non-diegetic, there is a clear soundtrack to create tension and build up.
Overall it's clear that the show takes on many challenges emulating classic horror to modern horror. "I think it's only natural to be influenced by filmmakers and things that you gravitate to when your younger" - Ryan Murphy. It is clear the show has been made to satisfy all horror fans and adopt many conventions that different horrors follow.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roanoke-colony-deserted
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0614682/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes
http://wikimapia.org/176431/House-from-movie-Psycho
No comments:
Post a Comment