Genre Research

Horror is a film genre that aims to create a sense of fear, panic and dread for the audience. These usually rely on scaring the audience and using their worst fears against them. Many horror movies include mythical creatures such as ghosts and zombies. Horror films incorporate a large amount of violence and they usually centre on the arrival of an evil force or person.

1. Insidious




















2. Sinister


3.



A large component in a horror film is fear, the aim of a horror story is to scare people, it is by far the most important factor of a great horror film. Constructing a a story based on fear is making sure you can scare people with fears they may not have.

Having the ability to surprise the audience is an eye catcher, making people fear things which they don't is difficult but with a flow of surprises you can make the audience consider their fears.
Suspense helps with the audience wanting to know what is about to happen next, this is a great opportunity to surprise the audience at the end of a suspense because they will be on the edge of their seats.

The Dark is a great element for a horror movie, ever since we were young, we have always been afraid of the dark because we are afraid of the unknown, we don't know what the dark may hide and walking into a dark room creates suspense, fear and then with a surprise, this can frighten and scare the audience which is what you are aiming to do. I could include in my film some scenes where it is dark and my main character has to go through these dark areas, it creates a lot of suspense but it also intensifies the situation as people are afraid of the dark and they can expect something to happen, but I can leave them waiting for this to happen keeping them on the edge.

The audience would want to see lots of "Jump scares", this is where things will jump out at you all of a sudden giving you a shock, blood is something in a lot of horror movies, this can show that something terrible has happened. Lots of Dark areas are common in films so they can help with creating suspense, this doesn't mean add a surprise in after but it creates tension in the audience.

A stereotypical representation in a horror film would be that people die, this is a classic, if a horror film doesn't include some sort of death or a tragedy it probably won't be as successful as any other horror film. Another would be that there needs to be dark areas which a main character will explore.
"Jump scares" are very popular in horrors.

Other then darkness and "Jump scares" there are more factors of a horror, one frightening factor is being alone, being isolated from everybody else is daunting and most people can relate to it as it is likely that it has occurred in their lifetime. A great example of this is "28 Days Later", this is where a man is on his own in London, which is usually crowded with people, so then to go from lots of people to just one man is different. Also small communities that have isolated themselves away from the rest of the city or world can be very scary, people from cities who are comfortable where they live and are familiar with lots of people being in one place will find small communities like this freaky, as it isn't what they are used to seeing.

Primal fears, these are fears that everybody shares, everyone can relate to these, isolation, the unknown, death, there are many more but these are the main fears everybody has in common. Using primal fears works well because they effect everybody, the unknown is a very useful fear factor because when watching a horror movie and some mythical or sinister being shows up, it is unsettling and uncomfortable to watch as we aren't familiar with it, therefore if its used in the right hands it can be very frightening. Seeing death is what you would expect from a horror film, but it is still disturbing now to see somebody lose a limb or a decapitation, including all of the blood it can make the audience feel sick and it definitely makes the audience remember what happened making it more scary. The audience usually avoid thinking about death because it is the end, its haunting, so to see the end of a life is awful.

I will need to include some sort of monsters, main characters and I will need to create a lot of tension and suspense to get the audience on the edge of their seats. I will definitely need to think of different ways to scare the audience so they do not it coming, so I need to find a way of catching the audience off guard.