In fact, horror's system of sympathies transcends and preexists any given example. Patrons of a slasher film or a rage-revenge film know more or less what to expect well before the film rolls ,and at least one horror director(William Friedkin)has suggested that their emotional engagement with the movie begins while they are standing in line--a proposition that acknowledges the profoundly formulaic nature of the enterprise. And as anyone who sees horror at the right venue(designated mall or downtown matinees) can attest, horror audiences can be startlingly "competent" ( in the linguistic sense) and startling public about it.As Andrew Britton describes it:
It became obvious at a very early stage that every spectator knew exactly what hte film was going to at every point, even down to the order in which it would dispose of its various characters, and the screening was accompanied by something in the nature of a running commentary in which each dramatic move was excitedly broadcast some minutes before it was actually made. The film's total predictability did not create boredom or disappointment. On the contrary, the predictability was clearly the main source of pleasure, and the only occasion for disappointment would have been a modulation of the formula, not the repetition fo it. Everyone had parted with his or her four bucks in the complete confidence that Hell Night was a known quantity, and that it would do nothing essentially different from any of its predecessors. Everyone could guess what would happen, and it did happen. In the course of the evening, art had shrunk to its first cause, and I had the congruous sense, on coming out, of having been invited to participate in communion.
"This highly ritualised and formulaic character," he concludes, "is the most striking feature of the contemporary entertainment film."引自 Carrie and the boys
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