Narrative Theory in Relation to Halloween

The ‘Classical Hollywood’ narrative structure (CHN) is based on Todorov’s ideas, where an equilibrium is set up which is then disturbed, causing disequilibrium which is resolved into a new equilibrium by the end of the film. Both ‘Halloween’ and ‘The Crazies’ do not follow the CHN. This is expected of horror films as ‘happy endings’ are rare in films of this genre. Also, in the case of the films a stocking opening scene has been used and already not followed the classical Hollywood narrative as there is no starting equilibrium.

Vladimir Propp is a Russian critic who examined hundreds of folk tales to see if they share any structures. From these folk tales, Propp identified eight character roles. These eight character roles are the villain(s), the hero (protagonist), the donor, the helper, the princess, her father, the dispatcher and the false hero. Looking at these character roles is very important for understanding media text, so you know what to expect from each character and so you can label all the character’s base on their roles. In ‘Halloween’, the villain is killer, ‘Michael Myers’. The hero in the film is Dr Loomis, he is not present for the majority of the film, however, stops Michael from killing Laurie at the end of the film. The helper is the Sheriff as he sticks by the hero for the whole film helping him find the killer. The princess is Laurie as she is a female character in the film and spends a lot of it in need of help.

Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary opposites are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media text. An example of this would be good and evil. Evil characters in Horror films do horrific things which make the good characters seem even better than they’d seem without the evil characters present. In Halloween an example of binary opposites would be evil and innocents with Mike being the evil killer and Laurie being an innocent virgin. Another binary opposite present in the film is day and night. There is only one scene in the film where the characters are completely safe and this was shot in day light. At night time, you never know what could be hiding in the dark.

Evil 

Innocence 

Theorists ‘Bordwell and Thompson’ defined narrative as ‘a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space’. They noticed that when watching films people try and connect the events to make sense of what is happening and to see a line of cause and effect. This is a natural reaction because making connections is how people make sense of the world around them. In Halloween, the event that caused other events to spur is the instant killing of Mikes sister at the beginning of the film. This is when Mike becomes a ‘killer’ and the event that leads to him killing some of Laurie’s friends.