The media product challenges horror conventions by not including a killer slashing victims or possessions. Instead, it features a silent, vulnerable character who believes they are alone in an abandoned building at night. Unlike typical slasher films, it does not include graphic blood or a definitive death scene, leaving the ending open. While it borrows the common horror setting of an abandoned building at night to signify danger, it aims to make the audience more interactive by not being entirely passive like many films. Some horror conventions like ominous sounds are included, but the goal is to create something original rather than mimic mainstream horror films.

1. Question 2
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. During the initial planning we didn’t want to mimic any mainstream
horror movies such as Friday the 13th or A nightmare on Elm Street
due to high feeling of cliché that is already flowing quite strongly in the
horror genre or in general the movie industry right now.

3. • We didn’t want to drag ideas and conventions out of the larger films
just to have in ours for the sake of having them, we wanted to create
an original project that didn’t have a killer slashing every character
into pieces or a possession corrupting many characters and the aim to
end the ghost/demon.

4. My group created a character juxtaposed to that of a character likely to
be butchered in a horror film, although we had kept some features such
as the feeling of vulnerability and the feeling of dread.

5. • The characters (teenagers in horror films) often have a great deal to
say and most of the time offer comic relief to the scenes such as
insulting each other or laughing at something irrelevant to the plot,
however the character in my group’s project is strictly silent and
brings forth the idea that she is all alone or at least that is what she
believes.

6. • In the horror institution slasher films normally have blood and gore
in bucket loads, however sometimes I believe that it just takes that
sense of realism away and that is not what I want in my project. So
as to contradict the normality of what is considered usual in the
horror genre when it comes to killers my short scene has no actual
death scene as to leave an open ending in the piece and force the
audience to have to interact just that tiny bit as to make my project
not entirely passive which is almost always the case when it comes
to film and a lot of forms of media.

7. • One thing that is borrowed from real media products is that of the
setting, it takes place at a large abandoned building just as night is
about to fall which signifies danger in pretty much all horror films
but specifically in films which contain characters such as the
Wolfman or Dracula, also the large abandoned building is a popular
setting the real horror media to give a sense of aloneness and
abandonment.

8. • The sound effects used in this such as banging and scraping are also
very common in real media as they are the basic senses of an
unfriendly presence in a horror movie and they help signify danger and
just generally another presence.