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1. Genre Analysis – Horror
Horrors sole purpose, as it has been for a long time, is to scare people. The main reason for
a horror is to creep out or make people jump due to the tension and make people feel
uneasy while they are watching. Directors and writers exploit the concept of fear in the
audience to make their movies fee more engaging and encase the viewers in their own little
world. Horror is a genre of film and literature that features suspense, tension and jump
scare. Its plots usually evolve around an antagonist who is usually not seen either until the
end of the filmor during an attack on a character. A slasher filmis a sub-genre of the horror
film genre usually including a psychopathic killer who chooses a family or person and ends
up killing or capturing either them or people they know leaving them till last. The scenes
need to be slow and able to create suspense. Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the
emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of
death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central
antagonist, whose targets involve a whole range of victims, such as: victimised women, the
mentally ill, people with complex backgrounds and law enforcement officers.
The most common story plots in horror involve kidnapping, murder, serial killers,
psychopaths, revenge, and a lot of the time mind games.
From the 1930’s to the 1970’s, most horror films were considered much poorer quality film
and stories than most other genres. Horror programmes on television were mixed quality
and horror novels were only really considered to be trashy paperbacks. This is because
horror films were made mostly for teens and young adults and were made cheaply with low
budget. This notion is captured brilliantly in the film Matinee (directed by Joe Dante, 1993),
which shows affectionately yet perceptively the cathartic power of horror and also how
horror films were watched almost exclusively by young people and looked down upon by
adults.
Saw, Scream, Misery, Halloween, Creep and Texas chainsaw Massacre are examples of this
genre with these directors/ Writers:
 Tobe Hooper. Director, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
 John Carpenter. Soundtrack, Halloween.
 George A. Romero.
 Dario Argento. Writer, Once Upon a Time in the West.
 Alfred Hitchcock. Director, Psycho.
 Steve Miner. Director, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.
 Tom Holland. Writer, Fright Night.
Typical actors who star in Horror films also include:
 Lon Chaney

2.  Idris Elba
 Elizabeth Olsen
 Donald Sutherland
 Christopher Plummer