Burton's theory about elements that make up horror films is tested by analyzing 5 popular horror movies. The elements coded include protagonists, stock characters, stock situations, icons, and setting and themes. The movies analyzed are The Grudge, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, The Shining, and Blair Witch Project. Aspects of the plots for each movie are color coded according to which elements of Burton's theory they relate to.

1. Testing Burtons Theory
To test Burtons theory I am going to analyse the plots of 5
popular Horror films, colour coding the aspects of the plots
that have a direct relation to the elements that make up his
theory, This elements have been stated and coded below:
• protagonists
• stock characters
•stock situations
•Icons
•setting and themes

2. The Grudge
• The normal façade of a modest house in Tokyo belies the hidden terror
within. It is possessed by a violent plague that destroys the lives of
everyone who enters. Known as The Grudge, this curse causes its victims
to die in the grip of a powerful rage. Those who are fatally afflicted by the
curse die and a new curse is born--passed like a virus to all those who
enter the house in an endless, growing chain of horror. Karen is an
exchange student studying social work in Japan who innocently agrees to
cover for a nurse who didn't show up for work. When she enters the
assigned home, she discovers an elderly American woman, Emma, who is
lost in a catatonic state while the rest of the house appears deserted and
dishevelled. As she is tending to the, stricken old woman, Karen hears
scratching sounds from upstairs. When she investigates, she is faced with a
supernatural horror more frightening than she could ever imagine. Within
this house, a chain of terror has been set in motion resulting from a
terrifying evil that was born years before. As more people die, Karen is
pulled into the cycle of horror and learns the secret of the vengeful curse
that has taken root in this house. Now she must stop it before it's too late

3. Nightmare on Elm Street
• In the early 1980's, a psychopath named Freddy Krueger - known as
the Springwood Slasher - murdered several children with a glove
outfitted with straight razor blades attached to the fingers. When a
foolish decision by a judge sets him free, Krueger is burned alive in
the boiler room where he worked by an angry mob of the parents
whose children he terrorized & murdered. Years after his death, the
children whose parents were responsible for Krueger's death -
including Nancy Thompson, daughter of the police officer who
arrested Krueger - are experiencing terrifying nightmares involving a
burned man wearing a glove with razor blades on the fingers. The
ghost of Freddy Krueger is haunting their dreams, and when
Nancy's best friend Tina dies in her sleep violently during a dream
confrontation with Krueger, Nancy realizes she must find a way to
stop the evil psychopath's reign of terror - or never sleep again

4. Scream
• A peaceful town in California turns into a bloodbath when a
masked killer haunts the town. Sidney Prescott, a young
teenage girl, whose mother was killed a year before, becomes
the target of the masked killer. Her boyfriend Billy Loomis
becomes the main suspect along with Sidney's father. Local
Tabloid News Reporter Gail Weathers and Woodsbroro's
Deputy Dwight "Dewey" Riley investigate and try to figure out
who the killer is and if it's the same person who killed Sidney's
mother the year before.

5. The Shining
• A novelist - Jack Torrance takes a job as the winter caretaker of the
isolated, old, huge and beautiful Overlook Hotel, Jack is told by the
manager himself, that the previous caretaker - Grady, chopped his
family and later killed himself with a shotgun. Ignoring the story,
Jack brings his wife - Wendy and his son Danny. It happens that
Danny, has a mysterious power known as "The Shining" that shows
him things from the past and future. Some of the visions come from
Tony - "the little boy who lives in Danny's mouth". Danny meets
Hallorann - the hotel cook in their first day arriving at the Overlook,
who also has this "Shining" and he warns him about the hotel and
the sinister Room 237. As the days go by, Danny has visions of
previous guests and employees who died at the hotel years before,
meanwhile Jack starts driving into insanity, turning more and more
aggressive, at the point that Danny and Wendy gets convinced that
Jack might try to do the same thing, Grady did.

6. Blair Witch Project
• Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard, student
filmmakers, set out to shoot a documentary about a local legend,
the Blair Witch. In the forests near Burkittsville, Maryland, many
children have vanished in the 1940s and people still avoid going too
deep into the woods. So, the party sets out to look for facts that
prove the legend, equipped only with two cameras and a little
hiking gear. First, they find little piles of stone that must have been
arranged artificially, later, they have to admit to be lost in the
woods. Eerie sounds at night and more piles of stones in places
where they have not been before cause the already desperate
group to panic. And one night, days after they should have been
back home, Josh disappears completely. Only what has been
recorded and filmed with the cameras is found a year later and
shows what happened in the woods.