Deconstruction - Actors - Louise Hyam

For my deconstruction task I decided to deconstruct actors within slasher horror films which i can compare to the actors that we have picked for our own slasher horror film. I will look at the gender and the age of the characters and actors used within the slasher horror film opening.

Prom Night:
The first film that I looked at the gender of the main characters and the ages of them. Below is a screenshot from the film Prom Night. The main protagonist is shown in this film conforming to the gender of a protagonist usually being a male because they are shown as stronger than the females. In the film Prom Night there is a scene where the main charatcer is the bad one and the female character is the one that is in trouble and this conforms to the gender roles within films as the male is always shown as inferior and the character that has more power over the women. below is a screenshot of Prom Night where the scene is shown of the male one of the main characters as being the bad one within the situation and the female is unable to help herself.

The second film that I looked at and looked at the main characters was the Hatchet. Most films usually have a victim and someone that is vulnerable. In the film the Hatchet the woman plays the role of the victim and this is common in slasher horror films because they are shown to be weak and the victim is usually shown as a female character with a male character that is the main protagonist. In the film Hatchet this is shown and conformed to through the use of a female character being looked at from behind with a male character standing behind her looking like he is going to do something to her.

The third film that I looked at was Nightmare on Elm Street:
Within Nightmare on Elm Street the main protagonist was shown as a man. This is conforming to roles of characters and actors within slasher horror films. The male character of this film is a male character this small character is used to scare people throughout the film which is a slasher horror film. This conforming to most of the other slasher horror films out where the male character is always shown to be the one that is victimising other people within the film and the male character is always shown as the bad protagonist. The male character is also the main character in the film this focuses all of the attention from the film onto the male character from Nightmare on Elm Street and this also helps to emphasise that fact that he is the main character but it also shows the audiences because they see him so much that he is the bad one as they always see what he does. This is also shown from the way he looks throughout the film and the audience can see from the main character who is shown in the below picture that he is abnormal has he has potential blades attached to his fingers which could be used as weapons and his face is different which automatically creates an effect on the audience showing that throughout the film he will be the bad character.