Narrative Structure in relation to Halloween (1978) and The Crazies (2010)

The term Classical Hollywood Narrative means a structured beginning, middle and the end of a film; this is Todorov’s equilibrium theory.  The theory entails the start of the film being the initial equilibrium which then becomes the disequilibrium when the plot is disturbed, the film would then create a new equilibrium when the equilibrium is restored and a happy ending would follow.  This theory is very important when understanding media texts as most genres of films follow the theory, however horror as a genre typically doesn’t follow the theory as the ending is most likely not to be happy.  Halloween and The Crazies do not follow the CHN as the equilibrium is never in place to be broken; the starting scene in Halloween is a murder scene therefore the theory does not exist within the movie while the start of The Crazies shows the town on fire as the opening scene.  Both also end badly with Michael Myers getting away in Halloween and the government following David and Judy in The Crazies. 

Vladimir Propp’s character theory included 8 character types; they were decided after Propp examined 100’d of folk tales to compare structures.  He concluded that the character structures included the villain(s), the hero, the donor, the helper, the princess, her father, the dispatcher and the false hero.  The theory helps us to understand media texts very well but frequently one or two characters may not be present in films. When the film features a ‘hero’ this automatically means there will be a villain and a princess so it helps to give context to films inadvertently to viewers.  In Halloween character types used is the villain, the hero, the princess and the helper, by only featuring 4 of the 8 character types this shows that horror movies may not adhere to Propp’s theory as The Crazies also doesn’t follow the theory.

Binary opposition are sets of opposite values, a deeper arrangement of themes. Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory was that all films had binary oppositions such as good vs. evil.  I think binary oppositions are important for understanding media texts as they outline the genre and expectations of the film.  In Halloween binary oppositions include good vs. evil, innocent vs. guilty, alert vs. distraction, past vs. present and sane vs. insane.

Bordwell and Thompson defined narrative as “A chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space” this means that the narrative’s events cause effects throughout the time and space of the film.  The theory is very useful as the majority of films will have effects of consequences throughout the film.  In Halloween Laurie approached the Myers house and put the key under the door mat, she is seen by Michael Myers and he begins to follow her.  Another event which causes a chain of events is Michael seeing his sister and her boyfriend engage in sexual activities, he then murders her and starts a chain of murders.  The first event which we know happened throughout the film but do not see is the psychiatrist studying Michael for a large number of years, then coming to a conclusion he is inherently evil. The second event could be the escape of prisoners or how they escaped.