Horror

Horror

1. Iconography

   • supernatural entities, such as ghosts or deamons
     • monsters, such as werewolves, vampires and zombies
       • masked killers
         • gothic settings such as old castles
           • graveyards
             • sinister and isolated rural locations, such as farmhouses and abandoned manor houses
               • screaming victims
                 • weapons such as knives axes...

2. Setting

   • An exaggerated gothic past 18th or 19th century
     • seemingly sleepy American small-towns or suburbs which hide dark secrets
       • places were young adults congregate eg high school
         • isolated rural locations

3. Narrative

   • A number of narrative concepts and tropes recur throughout the genre
     • in slasher films, disparate group of characters, are stalked and killed on by one, by an unstoppable and sometimes literally supernatural killer
       • In zombie films, the dead return to life as shambling monsters with a hunger for human flesh and the surviving characters must battle to survive this threat. civilisation may collapse
         • In ghost stories, such as poltergeist (1982) or the haunting (1963), characters are menaced or threatened by a supernatural forces
           • In body horror, disease or biological change drives the narrative. Eg) cabin fever (2002) or the bay (2013)
             • In revenge horror films such as the birds (1963), nature itself seems to rebel against humanity with hitherto benign or non-threatening creatures attacking people.

4. Style

   • Because they aim to generate suspense and unease, horror films often use extremely expressionistic film language techniques.
     • Low key lighting is used for effect to create stark shadows
     • Mise-en-scene
       • Locations generate terror, the location itself can offer an obvious source of terror. Or other seemingly normal locations become frightening by being resented in a new context.
   • Dominant camera techniques: smooth gliding tracking shots may be used to suggest the unseen movement of malign forces. POV shots might also be used to suggest unseen monsters or give us an unsettiling 'killers eye view' handheld.
   • music and diegetic sound effects are used to unnerve the audience. Musical scores may use musical motifs to reinforce a sense of terror, eg the skreching violins in psycho (1960).
     • Other films (the shining (1980)) use atonal music to generate a sense of profound unease. sudden unexpected sounds might erupt to create tension. Diegetic sounds can be amplified to further generate terror.

5. Characters

   • Mad scientists
     • Manic killers
       • doomed victims
         • heroic saviours left alone to battle the films main threat
           • disbelieving authority figures

6. Themes

   • everyday realty hiding some kind of sinister threat?
     • Can we play God without paying some ghastly consequences?
       • Is there life beyond us?
         • How would society respond if faced with sudden upheaval of natures laws

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