Jellehavermans:practiceessay1

Essay practice #1 Alien perspective on the ‘slasher film and the final girl’

Humans watch films. A film is a faked twodimensional story that is watched by humans on a big screen, often with many other human beings in a dark room. Some humans in particular like to watch films in which their emotions of fear and terror are triggered. This is interesting because in general life, humans avoid these feelings at all cost. This film type is divided into subcategories, and in this text I’ll write about one of these categories, which is called ‘Slasher film’.

In almost every slasher film, the story is centred on a group of 5 – 10 young human beings that go on a recreational trip. They often go to a secluded or isolated place, like a campsite or a cabin in the woods. The group of young humans is always evenly divided into females and males. The protagonist is the main character that is written for the humans to be the most relatable. In many slasher films, this protagonist is a young female character that is perceived as attractive by other humans (especially by male humans) and has little to none mating experience. In most films, she has a very specific appearance. She always has a light brown or pinkish skin tone, long hair, and a low fat percentage, but relatively big breasts. She has a rare body type for female humans so it seems that de humans therefore think she is an attractive two-dimensional female human. In the first bit of the film, the protagonist is participating in recreational activities with the other humans in her group, like swimming or drinking alcoholic beverages. In most slasher films, it is strongly applied that the female protagonist is not willing to engage in sexual or illegal activities; such as smoking illegal substances or engaging in intercourse with one of the male humans beings in the group. Still, the other human do engage a lot in these activities. Also, many male humans seem to want to engage in intercourse with the protagonist, although she clearly tries to stop this from happening. For some reason, the human audience seem to like the protagonist female for not engaging in intercourse or illegal activities.

Around 1/3 of the film, a big unidentified male comes to the secluded spot in order to kill the group of humans in the film, although he kills other humans as well. In some cases, the male is not unidentified but already mentioned in a story, told by one of the humans around a campfire earlier in the film. The big male looks dishevelled in comparison to the other human beings and often carries a sharp or blunt tool. He hides in spots where he can’t be seen by humans, and then kills them off one by one using his tool, or sometimes his hands. A human can be killed in many ways; the big male seems to think that killing by disrupting the flesh with a sharp tool is most effective, but he has no consequent or preferred method. The human audience watching this film often seem to show the emotion of horror but also excitement by the fact that the two-dimensional humans die. The big male often makes use of the fact that one or two humans move away from the group, so he can kill them without being seen by the other humans. After he kills a human, the film shows that the protagonist and the other young humans often have no clue of what is going on. At some point in the film, most of the humans are killed by the big male and the protagonist is aware that all or most of her fellow young humans are deceased. She shows the emotions of panic and fear at that moment and then runs from the big male in order to not get killed. She also screams a lot in a high pitched voice. After the protagonist thinks she has lost the big male, he finds her again. Then she runs again and hides from the big male, in many cases under a bed. In many films, she picks up a sharp or blunt tool and hurts the big male with it, sometimes even killing him. Because the protagonist is always a young female and survives at the end of the slasher film, humans call her ‘the final girl’. In the end of the film, she is seen being taken away by an ambulance, and experiencing the emotional state humans call ‘shock’.