Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

xli
Instead of focusing on the behind-the-scenes element of slasher films, Scream draws
attention to the narrative formula of the genre, and certain characters manage to
survive attacks through a familiarity of specific films and generic conventions, while
explicating these conventions as their motivations. The success of Scream resulted
in a sequel released the following year. Scream 2 (1997; dir. Craven) furthered the
postmodernist tendency, first, by focusing the intertextual narrative focus on slasher
sequels and their generic functions, and secondly by using the narrative to reference
itself specifically. In the film, Gayle, the journalist from Scream, has written a book
about the events of the previous film, resulting in a film adaptation which is a
significant reference point for both the narrative as well as an added point of selfreferentiality.
In the wake of Scream, two other slasher film series began, both significant
for different reasons, in that they both represent key trends within this period: one
continues in the postmodern slasher vein of Scream, and the other demonstrates a
return to traditional slasher formulas. A direct relative to Scream was 1998’s Urban
Legend (dir. Blanks), which centres on a stalker who kills people according to
popular urban legends. While Urban Legend does not approach the level of selfreferentiality
of Scream and Scream 2, it still utilises the concept of stories, elements
of which are assumed to be general knowledge as the modus operandi of a killer, and
familiarity with these stories increases a person’s chance of survival. Later entries in
this series respond more closely to trends contemporary to their releases. The year
before that, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997; dir. Gillespie) was released,
which signalled a return to the slasher formula of the early 1980s. The story contains
similarities to Terror Train and The Burning, in which the eventual killer, in the early
sequences, is directly harmed by the protagonists, and his killing spree is acting as