Genre Findings

 Define chosen genre/sub-genres

Main genre:

  • HORROR: The audience is meant to be terrified, shocked and excited by horror stories. Horror can be interpreted in many different ways, but it typically features a main antagonist, a monster and a threat that symbolize the concerns that the society is now experiencing. Horror adjust changing societal conventions and concerns.

The horror genre is a popular genre in various fields like games, films, and many more. This genre is famous for its evokes of heart-racing moments, lack of humanity, action, and dark and dismal settings. With a sense of frightening images, themes, and situations it became the audience’s favorite genre for entertainment. Horror is expanded to a variety of themes, demonic, death or evil spirits. As the development of creativeness through decades, the horror genre developed several contemporary themes such as serial killers, slasher stories, etc. 


How to make a horror movie?

To construct a horror genre, the media such as literature, film or television should consist of several factors that would startle, shock or even repulse audiences. They often needed to build character, the environment, and overall mood. 

As the development of creation, the existence of the mashup genre appeared. There are significant unique and the most common are horror-comedy, psychological-horror, etc. 


The Anatomy of Horror

However, the codes and conventions utilized in a film vary depending on the sub-genre, every horror genre media should consist of these six pillars. 

  1. The Familiar Made Strange 

  2. Tapping into the Reader’s Darkest Fears

  3. Verisimilitude 

  4. A Sense of Claustrophobia

  5. A Sense of Paranoia 

  6. Violence 

Sub-genres:

  • PSYCHOLOGICAL: Psychological horror is a subgenre which focuses on the audience's mental, emotional, and psychological states to terrify, upset, or unnerve them.

  • THRILLER: While thrillers simply aim to "thrill," horror movies aim to "horrify" their viewers. Scaring people is the main goal of horror. They usually know that a great evil exists, and the viewers watch as voyeurs while the great evil haunts, devastates, or even murders its victims inexorably.


Defining elements of the horror genre

  • Themes: The horror genre frequently mirrors the worries of the society at the time, such as illness, invasion, nuclear testing, etc. 

  • Character Types: The different sub-genres have specific hero archetypes besides the killer, monster, or threat (e.g., the Final Girl in Slasher movies).

  • Setting: A horror film might take place in a variety of locations, including a tiny town, a gothic castle, a space, or a haunted house. It might happen in the past, the present, or the future.

  • One crucial aspect of the horror genre is music. It works incredibly well to create tension and atmosphere.


Technical characteristics of the horror genre


Technical conventions: (camera, editing, lightning)

Camera: 

  • Dutch angles create confusion and disorientation.
  • Long tracking shots create tension and introduce the setting of the film 
  • POV shots show what the protagonist or antagonist sees.
  • Switch of shallow and deep depth of field to focus on the protagonist, blurring the background and making the audience panic when there is a movement they cannot see clearly.
  • Big close-ups and close-ups show the protagonist's facial expression
  • Sudden big close to the antagonist, a red-dressed lady creates jump-scare effects
  • Angle shot from above, high angle show to portrays how small the subject, the students is to the overall scene
  • The small dim light in the elevator when the scene of the woman / dim light in the apartment

Sounds: 

  • Orchestra sound used when running down the start scene creates intense and pressure feeling
  • A moment of silence with sudden sounds to surprise the audience 
  • Use of: non-diegetic heartbeat, background sound that has intense, suspenseful feeling, wind sound that emphasises the coldness and the vibe of the scene, sound of flashbacks
  • Diegetic sound: the sound of the elevator opening, DING sound, breathing sound, screaming sound, and footsteps which make the scene more lively

Editing:

  • Constant cuts represent the emotions of the students
  • Montage edits
  • Wide frame pans describe the running movement

Symbolic Conventions: (setting, miss en scene)

  • Colours such as black and red connote death, evil, danger and blood.
  • Props used by students: uniform, bag pack, glasses to represent the student's model
  • Props such as a red dress, long wig, high heels, red sparkly makeup, holding something mysterious to portray the red dress lady 
  • The setting of an old, dusty and dark colour apartment shows the setting of a horror film

Characters:

  • The main protagonist is the hero/victim of the film.

  • The antagonist, a villain - tends to be a monster, demon, ghost, zombie, mutated freak or serial killer/psychopath.

  • The careless teenagers who often get killed first.

  • Creepy children.

  • Authority figures, such as police.

Themes:

  • Good and Evil

  • Illusion

  • Trauma responses

  • Real and Unreal

  • Insanity

  • Nightmares

  • Lust


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