Heidi Wilhite’s HUM210 uniblog

The movie I chose to view for this module was Alien vs. Predator. The plot is preposterous.  The editing is a hack job, with so much footage cut out of the action sequences that they become murky and nearly incomprehensible.  The scares are non-existent and attempts are more of the false-jump variety than from a building of tension.  The deaths are plentiful but mostly off-camera.  Alien vs. Predator is about the chase, the horror of the situations and the slimy creep factor of the alien species.  Paul W.S. Anderson shows efficiency in his filmmaking style.  As a genre picture, however, Alien vs. Predator doesn’t make the cut.

Genre aids production efficiency by establishing predictability.  The genre provides the narrative image of the film.  Modern American cinema is characterized by four categories of generica production: serials, series, sequals and remakes.  An example of serials are the Indiana Jones trilogy and the Star Wars saga.  Series are still an occasional feature of contemporary cinema.  An example would be the James Bond films.  Movies in a sequal are Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Nightmare on Elm Street & Wes Cravens New Nightmare.  An example of a remake would be Shaft.  This chapter was very informative on the various genres in film.