Horror films commonly feature certain iconography like weapons and dark costumes. Settings typically include family homes to enhance realism or abandoned places to build suspense. Character archetypes include the villain, a character who dies while solving a problem, and one who survives to defeat the villain. Themes revolve around dark and gruesome atmospheres that scare audiences by showing the consequences of characters' mistakes. Narratives usually follow a pattern of establishing a threat, characters attempting to defeat it through trials, and the threat ultimately being vanquished, though some films subvert this by having the villain win. Stylistically, horror uses ambient sounds and little lighting to unsettle viewers.

1. Genre Analysis
Robson Boyd

2. Iconography
Iconography is a collection of illustrations or props that are frequently used
throughout horror films. Props and costumes are a big symbolic representations of
horror films in the way that they are implied.
The most popular prop to appear in a horror film is a weapon of some form. In the
majority of horror films there is some sort of attack involving a weapon.
Costumes in horror films aren't likely to be colourful, because it just wouldn't fit the
mood of any horror film. Costumes tend to me rather dark and dingy, alike the
actual film itself.

3. Setting
Horror films today tend to be set in the average family home (helps with realism)
making the situation more terrifying for the audience.
However horror films in the past have been set in abandoned buildings or forests
etc... this is to help build the suspense through the feeling of aloneness.

4. Characters
Nearly all horror films star a villain or 'bad guy'. They also tend to consist of the
following characters;
Somebody who is killed whilst close to solving some sort of problem.
Somebody who manages to survive until the end usually killing the villain or solving
the problem.
Somebody who is clumsy and tends to get caught up in the problem.

5. Theme
The themes of the stories are usually dark and gruesome in there nature usually to
scare on unnerve the audience with it's unpleasant atmosphere. The themes are
also based on the mistakes made by the characters and the consequences they
have to deal with afterwards.

6. Narrative
Horror films nearly always follow an order:
A threat is established (usually a villain)
The majority of the film is spent figuring out how to defeat the threat. (quite often
through trial and error resulting in character dying)
The threat is defeated. (usually death of villain)
Some films stray from this order though, and have the antagonist triumph over the
characters, often by killing the entire cast off.

7. Style
The sound used in Horror films is often ambient, background noise often with a
low pitch. The sounds are often unusual and distorted, and therefore unnerving.
Horror films often use little lighting, the settings are often dark as aforementioned.