The genre of the movie changes throughout the years and that change is what makes the genre to become much more popular and much more successful, and that ' the process is the treatment of the genre' as Rick Altman has mentioned, and this therefore shows that the change of the genre throughout the years is what improves the genre and attracts more audiences, and therefore producers and directors use the same genre and try to find other new conventions.
Taking into consideration the two texts Psycho 1960 and Texas chainsaw massacre 1974, there has been a huge change within the two texts, the first change to recognise immediately between the two texts is the colour of the movies, as the first text psycho is in Black and white which is due to the reason that this movie was made during the 60's where the colour effect was there but wasn't that popular and that is the reason that the director Alfred Hitchcock has used that effect, to keep the originality of the style of the movies at that time and to not create that much suspense within the movie, however comparing with Texas chainsaw massacre which was made a decade later but had new effects such as the use of the colours which therefore creates more suspense such as seeing the colour of the blood, which is not really shown clearly in the first movie and therefore there isn't that much suspense created into the audiences even if we see the scene, but in the 2nd movie that scene of the blood really creates suspense and that what makes more people watch it, and this therefore shows that this convention is able to change the slasher genre.
These two movies can also be compared in political and social issues, these issues have also contributed to the change of the genre conventions, the issue which is about women representation and how did it change over the years, in psycho the women is represented as weak and unable to survive the male, this therefore promotes patriarchal ideology that males are the ones who dominate society and that females are represented as weak and that they should only be represented as housewives or sex objects which is shown when she dies when taking a shower, that scene might be there to attract male audiences, however even if this is also shown in Texas chainsaw massacre, by the way that females are wearing some really showy clothing, but there is a change as in this text there is the inclusion of the final girl which is not shown in psycho, this shows again how there is a change in the slasher genre.
This inclusion of the final girl shows the change of the genre and the way that she is able to survive the psychopaths shows how the roles of the women have changed and that the women is now represented as strong and powerful and not only males that are able to dominate the society, even females now have dominant roles and are able to have higher jobs and are able to deal with harder situations, this change is therefore making the males look weak because females are able to beat them, this can create kind of conflict between males and females and might make males feel humiliated.
This convention shows clearly how the genre changed within the two movies, as females were represented as weak, however years later they are represented as strong, this change that has occurred within the genre might have occurred due to Feminism which has really focused on giving the right to women to be able to work and have more independence and making females represented in reasonable ways not only as sex objects or housewives, this helped females to get better roles and higher jobs,and this changing that occurred within the genre has made it look better and get more wider audiences.
This change is also shown when in the psycho also known as 'the grandaddy of the slasher genre', which only concentrates on one character which is the protagonist and that the whole movie is mainly based on the death of that character, which therefore doesn't create enigma and makes the movie quiet boring and when that women dies we know that there isn't a final girl, however Texas chainsaw massacre of 1974, shows many teenagers having fun, but then one by one they get killed this therefore creates more suspense and the audience are facing that emotion of being shocked and scared throughout the whole movie, but not only at one point of the movie. so this convention that is used shows how the genre has improved and how it became popular, and the inclusion of teenagers which are now being seen commonly in slasher movies, such as in Friday 13th (1980) which has also included this convention of having teenagers and being killed one after the other seem to create suspense in the movie and make the audience being interested more in the movie and make them wanting to know what will happen next.
This use of teenagers in slasher genre movies has been successful throughout the years and has been commonly used, this use has therefore attracted a wider audience mainly among teenagers and younger people as they are able to identify with them, so this try of having teenagers in movies made producers and directors to include it more and more.
To sum up, the change in the conventions of the genre in general has made the success of the genre movie, and that the progress or the change in the genre is crucial in order to make it successful, taking the example of the Hollywood industry and that it took quiet a lot of time to recognise the slasher movie as being actually a genre, as it thought that it won't be a success, so this might be a reason why producers and directors of finding a change which will make this genre popular and recognised.
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