Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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shot functions to clearly establish genre from the outset: eye/camera, forest, night
and rain are all elements frequently used in horror films, and this visual generic
positioning accompanied by the music familiar to the franchise is designed to
provide generic orientation for the viewer.
The character eye is revealed to be that of young Tommy Jarvis, played by
Corey Feldman reprising his role, Tommy, from The Final Chapter. Young Tommy
walks through the forest and looks from the trees into a clearing where a tombstone
stands, with “Jason Voorhees” written on it. He sees two men dig up the coffin
underneath, and Jason rises from the grave killing the two men and advancing on
young Tommy. As Jason strikes, there is a cut to a young man in the back of a car,
who we discover is Tommy. He sits up swiftly and opens his eyes, indicating that
the previous sequence was a dream. This positioning within Tommy’s dream
initially establishes the perspective as belonging to Tommy. This is verified through
subsequent eye/camera shots belonging to Tommy, as he looks out of the window
from the van, going to the halfway house where most of the film takes place, and
watching from his bedroom window as Joey is killed. Even though the film’s
aesthetics indicate Tommy’s perspective, the mechanical and silent movements of
Tommy coupled with traditional perceptions of the eye/camera inhabiting the
stalker 6 cause the viewer to suspect Tommy of either being or eventually becoming a
killer.
Subsequent eye/camera shots complicate this supposition. The eye/camera
later moves away from Tommy, and is next seen from Pete’s perspective. Pete’s
eye/camera can be seen as he looks around, suspecting someone is behind him, and
6 This has been demonstrated through the popular examples of Halloween and Friday the 13 th .
Chapter 2 includes other examples.