I, Monster: The First-Person POV in Horror Cinema | Little White Lies

LWLies Presents

I, Mon­ster: The First-Per­son POV in Hor­ror Cinema

31 Oct 2018

Words by Leigh Singer

Eye with the word "MONSTER" superimposed in large red text.
Eye with the word "MONSTER" superimposed in large red text.
Video essay­ist Leigh Singer explores the use of the first-per­son per­spec­tive in hor­ror cinema.

In the lead up to Hal­loween we’ve been think­ing about some of our favourite hor­ror movies and the effect they have on us – specif­i­cal­ly, the psy­chol­o­gy of voyeurism and what hap­pens when film­mak­ers ask us to relate not with the vic­tim but the aggressor.

In this chill­ing new video essay, Leigh Singer explores the evo­lu­tion of the first-per­son POV shot in hor­ror cin­e­ma, begin­ning with Michael Powell’s 1960 thriller Peep­ing Tom before sur­vey­ing such genre touch­stones as Jaws, Hal­loween and The Evil Dead.

He con­sid­ers the dif­fer­ent styl­is­tic tech­niques direc­tors and cin­e­matog­ra­phers use in bring­ing us clos­er to the action, some­times even putting us in the killer’s shoes. Ulti­mate­ly, Singer asks the ques­tion: why do we watch?

Check out the full video below and share your thoughts with us @LWLies

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