2. What is the point?
The horror genre is a special type of genre that can use other genres, like
sci-fi without losing itself. The reason why it is enjoyed is because gives
the audience a different feeling, it causes the audience to fear the villain
along with the victims, while still being enjoyable and not traumatising.
A film can be successful at becoming a horror by following the right
paradigms such as:
† Iconography
† Setting/location
† Characters/villains
† Props/weapons
† Themes and structures
3. Setting/Location
A horror film is nothing without a good
setting, this is essential as it adds to the fear
created within the minds of the audience. It is
also vital that the setting is relevant and
significant to the plot, it would be really weird
to find a killer in a setting like a newly built
modern office.
The ideal settings for a horror film are places
such as warehouses (saw), the woods or
schools (Jennifer's body which uses both).
Remote areas are also good because the idea
of the victims screaming at the top of their
lungs in hope of being heard, is scary for the
audience as they empathise and imagine
themselves in the same position. They are lost
and alone.
The lighting of the setting can also be vital to a
horror, bringing a sense of unknown
terror, but however daylight brings forth the
unexpected.
4. Characters/Villains
There are many types of characters, they fall perfectly under
Propp’s character that can be recycled for other movies and
genres. The characters can range in ages but the most
conventional ones are usually teenagers - these are the most
hostile but the most vulnerable age group
These characters involve:
† The victims/hero- who can be a weak male character
that beats all odds and grow in strength not only
physically but mentally, or the pure virgin in white that
survives
† The False hero- a strong male character/boyfriend to the
virgin girl (usually popular or plays a highly physical
sport).
† The helper- the person who is by the victim’s side until
they die for the victim’s sake
† The popular girl- conventionally a cheerleader who dies
because she is not a virgin, or has sex onset then dies
† The villains- is the antagonist of horror, either masked
or unmasked, in dark clothing and is well in the mix of
everything that happens throughout the film. The villain
can be a stereotypical killer with a knife, a supernatural
being or a monster. They are usually darkness that over
shadows the light which is the victim/hero.
5. Props
The main props used in a horror films are
weapons, these are not only to kill a victim or
villain but it shows the character of the person
holding and the sub genre. For instance, a knife
shows that the killer is a type of person that like
to see up close the expression and pain of the
victim, and therefore will make the film
classified as a slasher horror. Usually a victim
picks a weapon at random during a film, a
majority of the time it is a good weapon
considering they do no know the weakness of
the villain. At the same time it shows that the
victim is desperate to try anything in order to
survive, the use of trial and error is a ‘perk’ that
the victim use, during a chase scene the stumble
across and fall and throw/use weapons that
don’t affect the villain until they see the villain
bleed (in supernatural horrors, disappear).
Sometimes this is not the case, in saw the
victims do not come directly in contact with the
villain but they use trial and error to escape the
villain’s weapon, the roles reverse. This is the
take on post structuralism and modernism as it
challenges the structure of how we perceived
horror films, likewise the weapons, we are used
to knifes and weapons with a sharp edges, but
now we are faced with guns and other
armament, like in 28 days later.
