2. Horror Definition
Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional
reaction from viewers by playing on the audiences primal fears.
They often feature scenes that startle the viewer, and the macabre
and the supernatural are frequent themes.
3. Horror movies have evolved over the decades, adapting to each
new generation and preying on (or catering to) their fears. The
launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik resulted in a lot of movies
about alien invasions. The birth of nuclear power lead to a rash of
films about mutated animals, insects and people.
And so it goes today. While the fixtures of the genre -
ghosts, monsters, madmen and demons - remain
unchanged, they are now presented in new, innovative ways.
Vengeful spirits emerge from computers and zombies are created
by viruses in biotechnology labs, reflecting our current fears, and
yet whatever the origin, the result is always the same -
carnage, insanity and death. Some things have changed in horror
movies, but some things never will.
Horror Evolution
4. The Basics
There are three essentials parts that make a Horror film; the
iconography, themes and the structure. The paradigm for the most
successful horror films are the
setting/location, characters, sound, the villains and the weapons/
props.
5. Setting/location
A good horror movie has an unidentified location. The location tells the
audience exactly where they are going to find a serial killer or ghost.
Once you see a movie that captures a location well, the audience will fear to
going any location that may resemble it. If the location doesn’t relate to the
genre of the movie, then it doesn’t scare the audience and therefor hasn’t
fulfilled its true purpose. With Horror films the settings/ location are always
similar, as they tend to be in big dark empty houses, woods, attic/basement and
big buildings, this is because they elicit a feeling of isolation and therefor fear
within the audience.
AnightmareonElm
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Fridaythe13th
Vertigo
6. Characters
In horror films there are always the stereotypical characters; The female; she is
the person that will last through the whole movie because she is a virgin. She is
probably the first character introduced in the movie. The wise guy; also known
as "the smart guy" .The wise guy is usually either the most likeable or most
annoying character in the movie. He's either the first or last to die. The jock; this
guy is simply there to be killed. He contributes nothing in the way of comic relief
or suspense. The cheerleader; the cheerleader is more likely to be killed as she
might sleep with a lot of boys making her sinful. The killer; the supernatural
killer who keeps coming back and who really doesn't have a pertinent
connection to any of the other characters.
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Thejock
Thekiller
7. Sound
To have a successful horror film it is necessary to use the right
sound effects. Traditional horror films have fairly predictable
soundtracks which can be used by the audience to identify the
genre. It is easy to predict when the frightening parts are about to
take place, based on the foreboding tunes played immediately
beforehand. There is another technique that directors like to
use, which is playing the music immediately before the scary
part, then ending it suddenly (providing the audience a false
sense of relief) and then resuming it immediately, just as the next
“shock” appears on screen. Truly scary films are excellent at
creating a mood that isn't too obvious. For instance, in the movie
2003 “Thriller”, high tensions, the director limits the use of sound
so the killers footsteps creaking against the floor are literally
magnified and enhanced throughout.
8. Villains
There's a certain fear that the audience will feel when they’re up against the
unknown. It frightens the viewer to see a murderer behind a generic mask, by
playing up on the idea of the unknown. It makes the villain seem inhumane
because the audience has no idea who or what's under the mask. For a good
horror movie its best to have something unnatural about the killer or ghost. If
there’s nothing unnatural about these killers/villains then the audience will start
to associate them as being just an ordinary person, whom there is nothing to be
frightened of.
9. Weapons/ props
The weapons that serial killers use in films has a really big impact on the
audience. The kind of weapons that the villains use to kill is directly related to
their persona, for example a thoughtful villain who would do a lot of planning
before murder would use something precise like a sharp knife. A villain who is
more spontaneous wouldn’t be so precise or caring and would use something
far more gruesome such as a chainsaw as in “The Texas chainsaw massacre”.
The directors want the audience to feel a certain way about the gore they are
seeing on screen. The most common weapons that are used in horror films are;
the butcher knife, hooks, the chainsaw, the Axe and ropes.
