That Film - Paranormal
9:30 AM
Genres,
A widely used classification system to determine the overall theme of movies. To guide the filmmakers on which direction should they make their films. Film genres have its own trends, some are newly invented and some have declined over time. The reason I wrote this is for the Film Studies (UJMB2083) assignment.
The Movie,
Paranorman is a stop-motion and claymation movie made using 3D printing technology on the character's facial expressions. The story about a boy Norman who sees ghosts, he always got bullied because he is weird. One day, he meets his Uncle Prenderghast which has the witch's curse and also sees ghosts. His uncle warned him that the curse can only be stopped by Norman because his uncle is going to pass away. Together with his friends and sister Courtney, they began an adventure to save the town from the invasion of the undead. Paranorman is based on several genres including road film, horror, and comedy.
Horror
Horror is a genre that has been overused in the film industry, this genre typically is to terrify and make the audience anxious. It is an unpleasant genre and a noticeable amount of people still prefer to watch movies in this genre. The film Paranorman consists of an amount of horror scenes but because of the fact that Norman is friendly to ghosts and this is a Claymation, the effects of terrifying the audience is limited, they are more likely to enjoy it than get scared. An example of horror scene can be found when the witch because huge green clouds. People would enjoy watching the colorful effect of the cloud than getting scared.
Comedy
Comedy is a genre that cheer up the audience, to make them laugh or giggle. There are many scenes that people would laugh at, for example when Neil’s older brother Mitch was so terrified, he screamed like a girl and he kicked the undead’s head with his leg towards the woods. Also, when his truck landed on a parking spot, the truck suddenly breaks and dropped down into pieces. When I was in my Film Studies class watching the following scenes, the course mates all laughed at these scenes. There is a huge implementation of comedy in this movie.
Action
Action movies have many scenes that the character running away from a place or something, or the character fights with another character. Violence, pursuits and close combat are involved in films in this genre. To state some example, Norman and Alvin was surrounded by a bunch of undead, they try to run away from them. Another example is when Norman and his friends we chased by the police at the same time an undead attacking them from the truck roof.
Melodrama
Melodrama is a genre that films strongly appeals to emotions of the viewers. Characters were often stereotyped for an easier understanding of the viewers. For example, Alvin the school bully, the character consists of bully characteristics which are ugly, big-sized and having piercings. This is how the society normally stereotypes bullies, and the character has successfully demonstrated it.
Conclusion
Genres played an important part in filmmaking, regardless of how people see it, it is a guideline for how filmmakers make movies and for the general public to expect. The movie Paranorman has cleverly mixed with several genres to surprise the audience with just using stop-motion.
"Paranorman is smart on playing with Comedy and Horror."
(571 words)
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