Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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Visually, the sequence preceding the girl counsellor’s death is similar to that
of the deaths of the boy counsellor and Steve. All of these sequences are shot using
the eye/camera. The boy counsellor and Steve are both stabbed below the frame, but
it is implied that these are fatal blows. Although Marcie is not seen as the fatal blow
is struck, the editing and sound create an understandable rendering of the violent act
even before the viewer sees Marcie with the hatchet buried in her face. The
compared quotes between Chion and Belton here become important to the reading of
these sequences. Though on-screen bodily mutilation is not seen in the case of the
boy counsellor and Steve, their faces are shown as it occurs. They both lurch
forward as a sound effect and an orchestral sting indicate aurally the bodily
penetration. Although, as Belton would claim, the motion of the characters is the
visual element to which the sound is tied, creating complete meaning, the sound
establishes a more complete sense of the action happening offscreen, and designed to
cause a visceral response in the viewer. Chion’s argument that the inability to see
the source of the sound creates a tension in the viewer, who is predisposed to desire a
visualization of what is heard 6 , is applicable to the experience of viewing these
sequences. Generic expectation allows the viewer to anticipate the forthcoming
deaths, a knowledge shared by the killer whose eye/camera is seen as the boy
counsellor and Steve are each killed. The visual is not necessary in eye/camera
because the perspective of the aggressor is apparent, and this shared knowledge of
the event occurring offscreen solidifies the aggressor perspective. The fact that the
events are shown in single shots with no edits echoes the steady gaze of the attacker.
6 Chion’s argument specifically applies to the acousmêtre, and supports his claim of the importance of
the voice in cinema. However, in the case of horror films, death becomes the central generic focus,
and the sound of someone being physically penetrated, as the cause of death, achieves an importance
close to, if not equal to, that of the voice, due to the spectator’s relationship to generic expectation.