Unravelling the family-based haunted house film patterns in Malaysian and American haunted house films
In this article, we attempt to unravel the family-based haunted house film patterns in both Malaysia and America. Certain types of tropes and attributes have been used by horror filmmakers over the years to define the family motif-pattern of haunted houses in the media. Some of these elements have...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2017
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12863/1/20403-65586-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | In this article, we attempt to unravel the family-based haunted house film patterns in both Malaysia and
America. Certain types of tropes and attributes have been used by horror filmmakers over the years to define
the family motif-pattern of haunted houses in the media. Some of these elements have undergone change over
time but most of them still adhere to the rules that constitute the family-based haunted house film patterns based
on two Malay films and two American films. These rules were compared and contrasted by applying a
combination of two theories which were formulated by Propp and Bailey. Application of these formulas has
resulted in the findings of twelve plot functions as examined in this article. Upon analysis of the corpus, it has
also been found that there are 10 existing attributes of a haunted house. The findings suggest that the haunted
house film pattern is not merely a motif but it is also able to exhibit a number of themes which are considered
prominent in haunted house films such as the Manichean clash between good and evil. The convergence and
divergence between the Malaysian and American horror flicks show that cultural and religious practices govern
the ways in which good and evil are expressed. |
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