This document discusses how horror films exploit common fears to create fear in audiences. It analyzes how different film techniques like sound, mise-en-scene, camerawork, and editing are used to represent fear. Sound enhances scary noises and uses music to set atmosphere. Mise-en-scene uses costumes, props, and makeup to make characters and settings scary. Camerawork employs shots of faces and chase scenes. Editing uses pacing and cuts to build suspense. Cultural fears have also changed over time, influencing modern horror films. Theories like those of Dyer, Wood, and Neale examine how films threaten normality and play on audience stereotypes and beliefs about different types of antagonists.

1. Representation and
Fear Analysis
by Bethany Jones

2. Most common fears and
phobias.
• Horror films exploit the audiences most common fears, they do this to make it a reality when viewing.
The most common fears include…
• The dark
• Pain
• snakes
• blood
• old isolated places
• silence
• spiders
• dieseases
• Lightning/rain/wind
• Strangers
• isolation

3. Representing the Fear
• The most common convention of horror is
creating the feeling of fear through narrative miss
en scene and media language of the text. I am
going to split film in to four components and
analyse how each represent fear. This will
include, camera, editing, sound and miss en
scene.

4. Fear through Sound.
• In horror films they will use sound to exploits
peoples fear. They do this by enhancing the
sound sometimes during silence. for example if
during a silent scene they will enhance certain
creepy things like the floor boards creeping or
the movement of an object,or the heavy breath
of someone.They enhance these because
during silence these will then become more
apparent to the audience and it becomes
scary. With sound they use incidental music to
always create an atmosphere. They also create
an atmosphere through quick changes in
music. Such as silence through a scene or a
sound bridge through a scene and then it will
instantly change in to a much loader, quick
noise for example like a bang or a scream, this
is called joke scare. It makes the audience
already jumpy without anything really
happening. Sound therefore brings out fear
and enhances the elements in which scares
the audience.

5. Fear through Mise En
Scene.
• The Mise en scene can represent fear through many different
ways. This is through the different components such as costume,
props and the make up. For example during horror film the mise
en scene adds to the atmosphere of the film and this makes it
more realistic for the audience.
• The costume of the character will represent the character itself, for
example if there was a teenager which was represented as a
“tomboy” then they would be shown wearing stereotypical male
clothes such as a hoodie, t shirt, and jeans. Within horror they use
this to their advantage. The Antagonist is normally wearing a black
dull outfit in which shows mystery or something that can easily
hide the persons figure, therefore not representing the gender.
Normally show to scare the audience.
• The props within a film is the main connotations that the audience
will recognise. For example the most common prop within a
horror film is a weapon or a mask, this is used to scare the
audience as the audience most common fears are shown to be not
knowing, mystery and strangers and therefore a mask will scare
the audience more as they don't know who they are.
• The make up within a horror film shows will always represent how
the character is represented. for example the impact of make up
will make a normal face turn in to something that is ab normal and
scarier. The picture on the right shows a normal girl whom has
done her make up for halloween. Here she is subverting the
known normal anodising the stereotyped colours to horror( black
and red ) to enhance the fear in people.

6. Fear through Camera.
• Camera during horror film is used by showing the
audience different angles of what is happening
throughout the film. They create this fear by using
the different type of shots of characters faces,
body expression. The most used shots within
horror films are, close ups, to show the characters
fear through their face. A long shot showing fear
through the camera and showing the mise en
scene within the scene. and a dolly shot which is
almost always used within horror films to show the
protagonist or antagonist running away.

7. Fear through editing.
• Editing is used widely within horror films to represent more fear
to the audience. Films use it to hint to the audience what is
going to to happen or how it is going to happen.The most
common use of editing during a horror film, is the pace of the
camera movements and bodies. For example most commonly
during a horror film they will use a slow movement of the
camera to create suspense during the scene, they will then
fasten the pace as soon as the protagonist is in danger or
something scary is about to happen. They will also use a shot
reverse shot a lot to show the fear through the characters
faces during one scene. or the differences between the
protagonist and antagonist and make it more realistic for the
audience. Leaving them thinking it could happen to them.

8. Cultural fear
• Fear in horror films have developed it
self since the first horror film. we are
now scared my much more developed
scenes and real life fears. By using our
own personal fears, horror films now
exploit our fears and tap in to our
brains. this is how they have become
so much more popular in up and
coming years. By tapping in to
societies cultural fears. when horror
films first started being popular
societies fears included non human
monsters. Whereas as they developed
through society fears they have tapped
in to social media development and
created a fear through social media
and “stanger danger”. Every modern
day fear they have exploited.

9. Theories for fear.
• Richard dyers theory: This theory is the representation in
horror films, which are reinforced by stereotypes that people
already have of certain places or people. An example of this
is how people are thought to have a representation of the
known normal. if they are anything different from this
representation then they are an outcast in society, this would
mean because they are not the known normal people scared
of them. Within horror films to produce fear more they use
this representation for the antagonist and this increases the
fear factor. They would use conventions such as an isolated
place in which this is only represented as outsiders living not
around other people. An example of this being used is in the
film halloween, the killer is a people whom has a background
of being lonely and quiet living in a highly people area.
• Another Theory would be the Wood theory, this states that
normality is threatened by the monster in all horror films.This
is believed that in most horror films the life of a protagonist
are constantly at risk. An example of this is in Texas
chainsaw massacre where their lives were constantly in
danger. All of the characters were threatened and then being
killed.
• The theory of Neale, This theory states that the different
horror sub genres have different antagonists, this is the
reason that the audience gets scared as they believe in the
fact there are different types of monsters or spirits. the threes
types are the external, internal and man made monsters.