The primary target for this thesis is to examine what characterizes Nordic slasher films. When the subgenre became successful in North America in the beginning of the 1980’s, the genre was almost nonexistent in the Nordic countries. When a boom of horror films emerged in the beginning of the new millennium almost every Nordic country within a couple of years had produced at least one slasher film each. To outline the purpose of this essay three research questions have been formed: (1) how do gender roles differ? (2) what narrative and stylistic features are used in the films? (3) how is gender specific violence represented? Since the essay aims at defining Nordic slasher films and not a specific country, at least one film from every Nordic country has been employed as a case study. Sweden is represented by Camp Slaughter (Martin Munthe, 2004) and The Drowning Ghost (Strandvaskaren, Mikael Håfström, 2004), Iceland by Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre (Júlíus Kemp, 2009), which is the country´s very first horror film, Denmark by Room 205 (Kollegiet, Martin Barnewitz), Norway, where most of the horror films from this period were produced, by Cold Prey (Fritt vilt, Roar Uthaug, 2006), Cold Prey 2 (Fritt vilt II, Mats Stenberg, 2008) and Manhunt (Rovdyr, Patrik Syversen, 2008) while Finland is represented by Lake Bodom (Bodom, Taneli Mustonen, 2016). The analysis is based on research about the slasher films produced in North America, where the authors have pointed out two particular cycles: the classical, which extends from 1974 to 1996, and the postmodern which began with Scream in 1996. The Nordic slasher films are produced in the postmodern cycle, but, based on comments and the few surveys that have been done, the films are highly influenced by the classical genre cycle. My study shows that the Nordic slasher films employ conventions and features from both the North American cycles, but differ for various other reasons. First, the killer is not per se the main antagonist per se, he is just an extension of Nordic nature which is the real threat. Moreover, the last surviving character, the one who famously has been called the “final girl” (Clover), is represented in a more progressive manner, not being punished for having sex, drinking alcohol and doing drugs. And, finally, my thesis shows that there is no gender bias with regards to violence against individuals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-104226 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Nordgren, Kenny |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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