Horror research

Conventions of the Horror genre

Death is used constantly as a scare tactic in this genre, as the main character is someone we constantly want to prevail it is shocking to us if he/she is in danger of death. Shocking images are used (funnily enough) to shock the audience, films such as 'SAW' use extremely graphic and violent images to make the film seem uncensored and more real. Films within the Horror genre don't generally have a musical theme (a single tune that runs throughout) but it uses dark tones to create suspense and tension. There is always a villain in the horror genre, someone who (generally) they eventually kill/get rid of, so there is always a balance of good and evil between the hero and the villain(s). As well as this there is always a sense of darkness, darkness is always a huge theme in horror because our fear of darkness comes from our fear of the unknown and some horror directors use darkness to hide the villain to make it even scarier for the audience.

Stock situations

Normally in the horror genre you have the hero and the heroes friends going to a new place. After they go to the new place there are always a few strange events that start to happen, in which one of the group believes something is going to happen, although the others in the group never believe them. After this members of the group start to get killed off by the villain until eventually only the hero and/or heroin are left. At this point they manage to either escape, kill the villain or (very rarely) die themselves and then film doesn't have a resolution. Film makers tend to have a resolution to the film rather than leave it to a cliffhanger because some people are annoyed the film doesn't have a 'real' ending and other times they feel the film has sold out so it can make a sequel to make more money.

Another stock situation that is always there is that the hero and/or friends of the hero are always helpless against the villain in some way. Either they don't have anything to fight it, or their friends are dead so they cannot help, or they are far away (in the woods) and cannot call for help or the one used in most horror films, they don't even try to get away until right at the end! Generally the police are either in on it which gives the audience a sense of confusion of how can they win if the police are against them, or the police never believe them until right at the end when it is too late. Also good looking women get killed, this goes away from our societies love for being thin and good looking, or maybe film makers just love killing young attractive women?

Stock characters

The hero - The hero always has the best plans and is able to bring all the friends together to work as one against the villain. The hero is generally the character that eventually kills or gets rid of the Villain and brings resolution to the story.

The heroes best friend - This character always has the heroes back, or sometimes is totally against them during the new situation against the villain, in this case, the character will probably be the first to get killed (clearly the villain likes to believed to be real).

The villain - The villain is generally hidden in some way, and in some films not shown at all to create more tension and mystery behind the character.

The wise man (knows about the situation) - The character has either been through the situation before or is clever enough to work out what is going on. This character is also very mysterious and generally we don't find out how he/she knows what she has done.

The false hero - This character will pretend to be the hero and try and do what he can to protect everyone, but will eventually be killed by being cowardly or doing something wrong.

Camera work

The camera work in the horror genre always focuses on dark, moody shots generally with high contrast. The darkness again signifies mystery and focuses our fear of the unknown. Close up shots are used very often and often tracking shots are used to follow a character running, as if the villain is also running. Sometimes shots are used as if a handy cam so that it is as if the villain is watching them.