Horror films traditionally employ certain conventions including visual styles like red colors signifying danger, props like weapons identifying villains, and iconic monsters. Camera techniques like close-ups build suspense, while settings provide isolation. Narratives usually feature a hero battling an undefeatable villain, with stereotypical characters dying in order of weakness. However, modern horrors subvert conventions by omitting villains, having unpredictable outcomes, and featuring unconventional characters and themes.

1. Horror Film Conventions
By Matthew Thacker

2. Iconography
• Visual styles such as colours (e.g. red and black) signify danger
and or evil which is significant to a horror.
• Props can also be significant to the genre such things as;
costumes, firearms weapons can all be significant to a villain
and such stereotypical can be applied to other characters.
• Iconography can also apply to monsters to the horror
characters such as vampires, werewolves, zombies however
recent years and modern times have brought out new horror
genres of horror such as psychological horrors.
• Low key lighting can be vital to a horror bringing a sense of
unknowing in horror but however daylight can make horrors
unpredictable.

3. Visual Style
• Camera angles can be key to playing out a horror with
suspense being created from emotion capturing extreme
close ups to introducing a villain or mystery in a long shot.
• Hand held camera’s can bring a sense of realism as if we’re
actually part of the action.
• Low key lighting can bring suspense to the narrative and
introduce some scary elements key to the narrative.
• Certain colours can stereotypically bring the horror to a
storyline, also a black and white colour to video can bring a
fearful atmosphere.

4. Setting
• Ghost towns, abandoned areas, buildings, communities give a
sense of isolation and being alone.
• Often places with low key lighting or history give a ghostly or
horror based atmosphere.
• Urban area’s can also be a great base to modern or
psychological horrors or thriller as a sub-genre of horrors.
• Country area’s are a great base for the stereotypical slasher or
for a thriller horror as the characters are away from help and
give the sense of isolation.

5. Narrative
• There is always a hero and a villain to a stereotypical horror
narrative, one who survives and defeats the villain.
• However modern horror’s subvert the stereotype by maybe
the villain being undefeatable or maybe the horror not even
having villain and the main character being the main point of
the horror as they battle with themselves or an unknown
enemy.
• Usually characters die in strength in horrors, the most scared
and weak dying first and the strong hero being last to survive.
However, modern horrors may not even have any characters
die as there may not even be a villain.

6. Characteristics
• Stereotypically a movie has a hero usually strong minded (typically
male but in modern times females have subverted the gender
stereotype) and a villain usually a monster or a slasher or serial
killer. Also they consist of extra’s or sub-characters which will
usually be killed by the villain. However in modern horrors this can
be subverted by there not even being a villain or a death in the
narrative.
• Characters can also vary, with some stereotypically good characters
turning bad, which gives the story a twist and unexpectedness. Such
as a policeman turning against the main character.
• Also the main character may not be strong which could be down to
the narrative of the film, as they might be fighting with themselves
which creates a more thriller-horror.

7. Themes
• Good versus evil (hero vs. villain)
• Revenge / Grudge
• Nightmares / hallucinations / Visions / insanity
• Feelings from characters (such as depression, lust, hate, fear)
• Religion / belief
• Self-consciousness
• Supernatural
• Suicide / spiritual horror