psychological horror

1. The Psychological
Horror Genre

2. Content
- Horror films, historically, are distinguished by their use of iconographic
monsters (like vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.) and dark colours to
engage the audience
- In more modern horror productions, horror films conventionally use
excessive amounts of blood and gore, implementing a tense soundtrack to
create their desired atmosphere
- Psychological horrors however, defy these conventions, and can quite easily
give the guise of a drama, crime or thriller
- Psychological horrors have the capability of possessing no gore or
“monsters” of any kind, and instead can focus on the darkness within the
human condition, using atmospheric soundtracks, lighting and
characterisation to distinguish the product as a horror, but having a
complicated enough storyline, with a large amount of enigma codes to
classify the genre as psychological horror
- Psychological horrors have a very wide spectrum of content to work with,
and can contain all the conventions of a typical horror buy with a more
complex plot

3. Examples
• Silent Hill
• The Shining
• A Field in England
• Cube
• Insidious
• Black Swan
• Autumn
• Enter the Dangerous Mind
• Psycho
• The Ring
• I Can See You
• Open Water

4. Audiences
It is stereotypically accepted that the female gender dislikes the sight
or experience of violence, blood or danger, while men are expected to
be unmoved and, in some cases, entertained, by it.
It is because of these stereotypes that the horror genre has historically
seemed exclusively aimed toward men; with production companies
and distributors designing their horror based media to appeal to the
male gender (implementing Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” theory).
However, audience of psychological horror has recently been
expanded to include women. This is because of the capability of the
genre to pass as other types that do appeal to women (such as crime
and drama), and to completely exclude gore and “monsters” and
implement a more complex storyline that appeals to the “fragile”
female condition.
Due to the sometimes confusing and faced paced storylines of
psychological horrors, the typical target age of the audience is usually
somewhere between 16 and 50, so that the audience can successfully
follow the storyline and stay engaged.

5. Conventions of Psychological
Horror/Horror
- A complex storyline (sometimes syhuzet)
- Can have monsters of human ‘villain’ as antagonist
- Camerawork intended to confuse/distort
- Usually one main character (possibly one or two companions)
- The problem in the film is not always solved by the end
- Fast paced
- Should present many different enigma codes
- Can have gore (not compulsory)
- Not usually a ‘romantic’ affiliation among characters
- Male or female protagonist
- Lots of action
- Usually deaths or disappearances