2. Codes and conventions of a horror:
• Unsettling footage that is designed to cause panic and terror in the
audience.
• They centre around the dark side of life and focus around characters
vulnerabilities and the terror of the unknown.
• They play our humans fear or death
• Clear binary opposites e.g. Good vs. evil
• Horror films tend to build up suspense in the audience this then leads
to a shocking ending therefore entertaining the audience till the end of
the film.
Codes of the horror genre would be things like:
• Dark lighting
• an isolated setting e.g. a forest, a house in the middle of nowhere and a
abandoned hospital.
• Jumpy non - diegetic sound
• Disorientated non-diegetic sound
• High camera angles to make the victims look my scared and more
vulnerable to the audience.
• There are many different sub genre’s to horror this includes Psychological,
True story, Monster horror, Gore and many more .
3. An example of a film that follows the horror
conventions is haunting Connecticut. synopsis:
• Just as the Campbell family life couldn't get any worst with an
alcoholic dad Peter Campbell (Martin Donovan)things go bad to
worst when they find out that there oldest son Matt Campbell( Kyle
Gallner) has terminal cancer, they struggle with life as Sara Campbell
(Virginia Madsen) a very religious mother is frequently taking her
son to St. Michaels hospital Goatswood in Connecticut to get the
treatment he needs. Sara believes its best to move to Connecticut to
get the best possible treatment for her son despite there second
mortgage. Sara then finds an affordable old house that has a lot of
history behind it since it was a funeral home in the past. the family
then move to the house not knowing the past to the house. When
Matt has weird visions and nightmares from the past, he calls
Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas) his best friend who also has cancer
and tells him that an evil entity is trapped in the house and they are
able to see him because they are in the borderline of the worlds of
the living and the dead. Matt has to find away to release these evil
entity to free himself from his living nightmare.
4. Haunting in Connecticut opening scene:
The opening sequence of haunting in Connecticut uses the codes and
conventions of a horror this is by:
• The still images disoriented non- diegetic sound is play throughout it
gives the opening a very creepy and jumpy tone to the opening.
• One factor that brings the emotion of fear in the audience is when
the title sequence says 'Based on the true story' this provokes the
emotion of fear because after the still images of dead people we
already know the film is a horror and now we also know its based on
a true story.
5. • In addition to this the still images are very dark they fade in and then
reverse zooms and fades to another images, the images are all old and most
run along the theme of death, with dead bodies in coffins.
• As well as that props help to get the conventions across in the cutaway the
women is speaking to the camera it tracks over a table where prop
newspaper laying with the titles saying , 'THE REAL HELL HOUSE' ,
'NIGHTMARE IN CONNECTICUT' and 'REIGN OF TERROR' this is one of the
key conventions already with taking about nightmare and terror these
mirror what the horror genre play on this being nightmares and human fear
and terror.
6. • The camera tracks from the newspaper to the women this is an enigma
codes builds question in the audience like how are the women and the
house connected? What was so bad about the house? it also then
connects the house and the women together and the audience knows
there is a bigger story behind it.
• The mid shot of the women shows that she is very much alone. this then
highlights the women's vulnerability. It also shows her facial expression
very well, she has a very blank face, no emotions this then shows the
audience that the memory she is thinking about is serious and gives the
impression she doesn't want to go back to it and remember it.
• The women's dialogue mirrors the good vs. evil. In the opening she say '
why do bad things happen to good people' this then highlights the
struggle of bad things vs. good people and that there is always a fight
between them, its not later on in the film until the audience find out
which will win.
