R&P: Genre quotes that influenced my decision making of Sakkaku

John Hartley- “the same text can belong to different genres in different countries or times”

-          Connotes that text often exhibits convention of more than one genre

1. -          Psychological horror: characters inner struggle
2. -          Scientific horror: patient room, experiment, doctor

       Elements of the psychological horror genre may be seen differently and status as a scientific horror in other countries, for example, in a lot of psychological and scientific genres, often the focus is on the character's inner struggle dealing with technological forces, health etc. but in another country, it may be only seen to fit the scientific genre as there is a lot of elements of ‘technological forces’, or alien invasion, experiments etc. ignoring the ‘character’s inner struggle’ or ‘health’ which supports the psychological genre key focus is the abnormal psychological states of its characters. It may fit the psychological genre in our society but may not universally. 

Steve Neale- “genres are instances of repetition and differences”

“difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre”

Repetition allows the audience to identify the conventions and stop and think, this is an ‘x genre’. You could also repeat genres but use them in a different way. However, he also states ‘difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre’ which I also agree with having the same old story line or convention can bore the audience as they will feel they have seen this type of film before, or the ending is so predictable why to bother watching. But without having this repetition or similarities it would not meet the audience expectations of a horror film as seeing the key conventions come up in the horror genre may classify to the audience that this is what a horror film should be like at this is what makes a good horror film.

Roland Barthes- Hermeneutic code- refers to any element of the narrative that is not fully explained and becomes a mystery to the view/reader.

The purpose of this to typically keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma code until the final scene, when all is revealed and all the loose ends are tied off and closure is achieved. This is also played out in my short film as the protagonist and antagonist is face to face, and the protagonist ends up stabbing the antagonist however, this is where the plot twist is revealed when the antagonist smiles sinisterly to the protagonist looking down at the protagonist body as the antagonist is still held up, drawing the protagonists attention to look at his body. It ends up that the protagonist stabbed himself and the antagonist disappears connoting all this time the protagonist was being played tricks on by his mind as it was all an illusion, supporting the tagline “there is no end to an illusion… except you” and the title of the film ‘Sakkaku’ meaning illusion in Japanese. This is the audience closure after all the events that they had to add up.

John McNaughton- “horror films traditionally incorporate fantasy, which gives you a space to accept that this is not real, and you are protected”

-          Psychological-  realistic- enigma code 

-          Scientific- how it is real only to an extent –relief