In this essay I will be looking at the differences and similarities of two horror films, Pet cemetery which was made in 1989 and The Ring 2 which was made in 2005. By doing this I will explore how the horror genre has developed other the past few years in terms of technology, characters and storyline. This analysis will become useful for me because I intend to produce a horror film so looking at the aspects of the genre which have remained the same or changed other the years is important.
To begin with both films were an adaptation of novels. The Ring
was a Japanese novel written by Koji Suzuki while Pet cemetery was a novel
written by Stephen King.
Special effects are used effectively in The Ring to enhance
the idea of the supernatural and how powerful it is. For example the scene where
the water from the bathtub is floating upwards and swaying to the sound of the non
diegetic sound effects giving off the impression that the ghost is controlling
the water. On the other hand, in the film Pet cemetery, the power of the
supernatural is shown through the storyline and the idea that a specific cemetery
has the power of bringing back to life those who are buried there. However both
films look at the negative consequences of meddling with the unknown, in the
ring the main character has her son possessed after releasing the evil spirit
from the well and videotape, and in the pet cemetery the little child is
brought back to life but begins to kill people.
In The Ring 2, like the first film, technology plays a big
role, not only on the production but to the storyline as well. This is because
the film is about a girl that comes out of the TV to kill people, and they are
informed that they will die through the phone, two popular technologies which
are part of many people’s everyday life. This film takes advantage of the role these
two technologies play on today’s society making it successful at inflicting
fear on its audience. However it also challenges modern technology by ignoring
other ways a film can be saved or spread, such as internet downloading and DVDs
and instead uses an older technology, a videotape. Despite this the film
company DreamWorks has recently announced that they would be making The Ring
3D, something that the Japanese film company have already put into practise.
This shows that the film is keeping up-to-date with the recent trend of films being
released both in 2D and 3D.It also shows that the film producers have
recognised the potential the film’s concept has of becoming even more frightening
with the addition of 3D, since it complements the idea of the girl coming out
of the TV and out of the screen as well.
Both films explore the idea of children being the threat. They
both challenge the image children have of being innocent and in need of
protection by making them the killers in both movies. In The Ring the ghost who
kills people is a young girl that was killed by her adopted mother while in the
pet cemetery the killer is a little boy who died but was brought back to life. However
the difference lies on how these children were portrayed. Gage at the start of
the film was a normal little boy who unfortunately died, he became a killer involuntary
and had no objective, and he just killed because he was evil, while Samara had
always been a strange young girl who had a strange effect on animals and was possibly
possessed by an evil spirit since birth, she was killed by her adopted mother and
killed others for revenge and the desire to have a mother. The fear of children
was a trend which began in the 1970s. The reason for this was suggested in
David J skal’s novel ‘The monster show’ where he said that this fear of
children was a result of the introduction of the contraception pill.
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