Textual Analysis of Scream 2.. By Adorena

The film  am going to analyse is called Scream 2. This film was rlesed on the 1st May 1998. Scream 2 was directed b Wes Craven and the genre of this film is Horror/Mystery/Thriller/Slasher. I chose to analyse this film because th film I will be crating is a Horror/thriller movie, and so Scream 2 is an appropiate movie to analyse.

Narrative Structure: Todorov's Equilibrium Model

Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.

Todorov's equilibrium model is used in Sceram 2 so that the evnts happening in he film follws a chronological order. The first stage of the film is when a couple is going to the cinema to watch the latest horror movie called Stab. This is the state of normality. The state of normality is disturbed when the man gets killed and the women is left alone until she becomes the killers second victm. There are several distruption throughout the film. However when the man gets killed by the killer in the toilet as shown below, the killer then dresses up in

the man's clothes and comes in the cinema hall and sits next to the woman. The woman is unaware that i is not her boyfriend, she wouldn't kno anyway as he is wearingthe mask. So She offers him some popcorn. This shows thatshe feels comfortable with the person as he is unaware of the danger that she may be facing.

The audience now knows that the woman's life is in danger. The woman does not know that the person sitiing next to her is not her boyfriend as he is wearing a mask and so is most people at the cinema because it was given as a sovenier at the cinema. The film that they are watching is called stab which is about a a killer wearing a mask and killing the people who are not virgins.

He refuses the popcorn and they continue to watch the film. The protagonist in the film stab is about die, the killer stabs her and the woman gts scared and grabs her boyfriend.

But ofcourse he is not her boyfriend and so she sees blood on hr hands after toucing him and she is confused.

This is when the killer stabs her on her stomach. Now there is a direct link to the film that they are watching at the cinema, because as she is getting closer to her death the protagonist in th film is also getting closer to her death. This emphasises their struggle and represents the vunerability of women in society. So lastly the woman gets killed and this is the end of the distruption.

The new equilibrium now strats. This shows that Todoov's equilibrium model is used in the film Scream 2. There are several other new equilibriums throughout the film, and the characters try to restore the state of normality by trying to escape from the killer.

Narrative Structure; Levi- Strauss'  theory of Binary oppsitions

Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. For example light and dark, good and evil and killer vs police. Levi -Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in

the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes.
As well, as Todorov's equilibrium model the film scream 2 also follows the Binary opposition model:

•  The killer wears a mask to hide his identity from victims and police showing he is evil and he is doing the wrong thing. where as the victims do not try to hide their identity showing their inncosence.
• The police follows the law of order and the killer follows the law of disorder in other words to kill inocent people for revenge.

The film Scream 2 follows a chronological order as the events follow for example one murder after the other. It all flows well and make clear sense to the audience. In terms of narrative the film Scream 2 is a closed narraive as we find out who the killer is by the end fo the film and the killer is klled by Sidny (the main protagonist). Scream 2 follows a restricted narative because the audience is left to guess who the killer would be until the end of the movie.

Genre Codes and Conventions

In the film “Scream 2” the characters are typical to the genre because  the main characters are all teenagers/over 20's, and in most horror/slasher movies it is always a group of teenagers who are the main characters and they get killed by the killer. For example the film "my Bloody Vatentine" where teenagers/over 20's are the main charcters.

Behaviour

In Scream 2 the way that the characters behave is typical to the genre and also typical to the way young characters behave in most horror movies. They are not properly matured yet as Sidney the main protagonist and Derek her boyfriend started kissing in the middle of the college corridor and the other friend  "get a room".