journal 3

For your journal this week, please answer one of the following two questions. Your journal should be at least 400-words in length. This journal is due, Friday, September 11th, at midnight.

1. In the "General Introduction" to his book, Horror: the Film Reader, Mark Jancovich critiques the idea of creating a "history" of the horror film. Look at  the video "A Short History of the Horror Film," and apply Jancovich's critique to it. How does Jancovich's brief history compare to the One Hundred Years of Cinema history? Do they both fall into the pitfalls Jancovich notes in the section "re-examining" horror genre history?

2. In his introduction, Jancovich refers to film scholar Robin Wood's distinctions between films that are  "conservative" (which support the status quo; i.e. tell us that what we believe and value is correct and will solve our problems) and "progressive" (which challenge the status quo; i.e. point out the failings of what we believe and value making us unable to solve our problems). Generally speaking, Westerns are assumed to be conservative and horror films are assumed to be progressive.  Using the Westerns we have watched and Night of the Living Dead as your examples, argue for or against this assumption.