The Four Theories

Relating Halloween to the 4 Theories.

 1. Tzvetan Todorov It is hard to relate this theory of Todorovs because it does not link with this film as well as the other theories does. The reason why his theory doesn’t link to this media text is because the villain is supernatural and the other characters are a human which does not make them in any way balanced. Therefore there is no equilibrium because there is nothing to be disrupted. However the shot at the start of the film where they are driving up to the mental hospital you are shown that there are people in the mental hospital which means even though the villain is supernatural, he must have been human at some stage in his life. On the other hand, there is disequilibrium because there is a disruption which has been caused by a change of events. The chain of events in this situation is the guy who has escaped from the mental hospital murdering the people he does. But then this is turned around again because the guy is shot quite a few times but yet he doesn’t die, he keeps getting up every time.
The Crazies -
Equilibrium - In the crazies this is brought about after the disruption has been made. The equilibrium is the normality of the neighbourhood but this only lasts for a very short period.
Disruption - We see that there is some sort of disruption has happened because the town that we assume the film is set in is on fire. When the films returns back to normal we notice that the editing that has been used in non-linear. Before the film has started we do not see where the plane crash is. The government try to hide the fact that this has happened but when the film starts we notice that a guy who lives near to where the plane has crashed has been infected with the virus that the plane was carrying. After this has happened this repeats itself throughout the film and the infected human beings are killing the normal people. Its now then a fight to survive for those that have no been infected.
Re-equilibrium - There is no reinstating of the equilibrium because at the end of the film we see the pair that we think are getting away from it all then it switches to the satellite and then we see that the same is about to happen to the town that they are walking to and then the team finishes after that.  
2. Vladimir Propp You would have thought this would be the one that I would be able to link to any film. But in this film only some of the character and 31 narratives are relevant in this film. In fact there is only one person who can be placed on the list that Propp has devised which is the villain because there is no hero, donor, helper, princess, father, dispatcher or false hero.
Villain - The army are the villains in this film because they just leave the plane in the river and subsequently the water becomes contaminated because of the virus which the plane was carrying.
Hero- The hero in this film is the Sheriff of the town and you know this because of the act of bravery that he completes throughout the film, saving people from infection and also saving his wife and daughter from being killed when the people who are taken are put into quarantine and are nearly killed by a 'crazy'.


Left, Judy(Mother)

Donor/ Helper- In this film it is the Deputy Sheriff Russell Clank. My reasoning behind this is because he sacrifices his own life so that his work partner and his wife can sneak pass the U.S. army and continue their escape from the infected town. He also save the Sheriffs life on 3 occasions.
Princess/ Father -  I think that the princess in this film is Judy because she is trying to save her own life to create a new life somewhere safe. She also qualifies for this roles because she is the most dominant female in this film. I also think that she qualifies for the father role because she is trying hard to keep her daughter alive throughout the fight against the infection and from being taken by the army and being separated from Judy.
Dispatcher - The only character that this role applies to is Rory because his house is the first to get hit by the infection from the plane and this is what sparks the out-break and from here people start to realise that something isn't right.
False Hero - The major is the false hero in this film because when people are notified about the infection hitting the town, the sheriff asks him if he can turn the water supply off, but the major refuses to allow this to happen and therefore the infection spreads, killing more people than it could have, and the spread could have been easily stopped if the major would have let the sheriff turn of the towns water supply.

3. Claude Levi-Strauss This theory that Strauss made is based upon binary opposites and in the film Halloween this theory is the strongest and the one which I can relate the most to because the binary oppositions are very clear and easy to identify. The one that is the most obvious is the classic one which is relevant in every horror, and this is good vs evil. The humans are clearly the good and the supernatural villain is the evil. In a way the binary opposites, past and present are visible in this film because of the kids past and how he killed his sister at such a young age and now he is doing the same in the present time during this film. We know this because there is a short clip at the start of the film of Halloween when the boy is a child and the footage is through the boy’s eyes. At the end of the film we realise that the villain is supernatural almost because he has been shot more than once and he has survived every time, even though we know that he should have died the first time, having been show that he is a human being. This links well with the binary opposition of humans vs aliens.
Sanity/Insanity - The sane people in this movie are obviously the human beings and the insane beings are the infected people in the films.
Healthy/ Unhealthy - The health of the normal people decreases because food supplies begin to run low and they cannot drink water because of the infection and then the unhealthy people in the film are clearly the people who have been infected and are deteriorating rapidly.
Day/Night - Night is dominantly the most dangerous time in this films because there are much more shadows and the darkness makes us feel worried and scared watching it because of how the characters react to this time period.
Light/Dark - This implies the same thing as the Day and Night binary opposites and this can reduce the rate of survival when darkness appears.
Dead/Alive - The sane people are being killed off by the insane people who outnumber them by quite a considerable amount.
Military/Civilian - The army you could say that they are the villains in this film and are intimidating the innocent, sane civilians in the film and are turning against the rest of society, just like the insane people already have done by this stage.
Monster/Human - Both the insane people and the army are seen as the monsters in this film because they are the ones who are attempting to destroy everything, and they cannot control themselves. The army are being told that if they are to take their masks off then they would die. The humans are the only thing is this film that are trying to survive and live a normal life and just want to get as far away from this outbreak as possible.
Known/ Unknown - The unknown in this film is clear to us at the start of the film because we immediately start asking questions about this virus which has hit the town. Questions like 'where has it come from?' 'why has it been allowed to spread? and why hasn't anything been put in to try and prevent the spread going to other towns in the surrounding area.
Fear/ Courage - The courage and the fear are with the same characters, the sane people are being courageous and fearing for their lives at the same time.

4. Boardwell and Thompson This is the theory which relates to the film Halloween the strongest. The fact that the film is set in a normal town in America and that the people are all like people we live our lives around makes it seem and feel as if this could actually happen in our lives. We can make some sort of connection to pretty much the whole film because the link with this film is so strong to the real world and the lives we all live. This theory complies from the start where Jason escapes from his mental hospital and attacks the nurse in the car and steals it. After this, you then get an idea of why Jason’s Doctor is so scared and worried about him being on his own. The chain starts here and from here there is an effect which affects the whole town that Jason has gone to. Once he had murdered one girl, this then makes the audience think ‘what is he going to do next’ which then has us all on the edge of our seats and from then on in with what has happened this keeps us on our toes.
During this film we are cut to a satellite which is watching the town and this is a good and clear example of this theory being implemented.
Be foe the Film Starts -

• A plane crashes in a nearby river.
• Government have created a virus.
• The virus reaches the first house which is the closest house to the river.

During the Film -

• At the baseball game, Rory decides to invade the pitch and provoke the game and is shot by the sheriff because he attempts to kill him.
• We see a shot of a babies room and we then assume that Judy is pregnant.
• More residents of the town begin to show signs of the virus.
• A farmer burns down the house of the Deputy.
• Then we discover the plane which is the source of the infection.
• Town becomes a ghost town, because everyone is quarantined in the local high school.
• Everyone escapes and starts to rebel against the armed forces.
• Judy is separated from David and this is because she is believed to have the fever that the army are trying to kill off.
• David and Russell come in to save the day by killing the insane man with a folk who is about to kill Judy and her daughter Rebbecca.
• The main characters then have to hideout once they have escaped from the high school.
• Rebbecca see's her boyfriend violently shot down at his house after trying to go and rescue his mother from the army, but they shot them both.
• Rebbecca is then killed in a car wash after a cable in the car wash suddenly goes around her neck and immediately kills her.
• An attack helecopter then tries to kill the remainding few characters left in the film.
• Russell becomes infected by the virus.
• Russell sacrafices his life so that his partner and his wife could pass through the border control with ease and without being killed.
• David and Judy trek across the fields to the next town.
• Satelitte tracks the pair and says something through the satelitte which basically says that the virus will hit the next town because one of them is infected too.

Sadly we cannot relate this films to our lives that we live because nothing like this has ever happened, but know one can say that it will never happen. But each time something happens us as an audience think of some many questions and this happens throughout the film because a series of things repeat themselves and even though we have seen this happen before in the film we do exactly the same thing.