The horror genre

Genre: Horror

Typical target audience: The usual age for the target audience of a horror film is 15- 25; young adults-teens

Genre conventions: Mainly focusing on mise en scene, in the later parts of horror films, editing becomes much more fast paced. Editors also carefully place eerie music, scores and sound effects to add to suspense. Many films add to the suspense and darkness through very dark colors and hues placed through out the background. Many locations for horror scenes take place in small towns, rural areas, or isolated living spaces. Low key lighting is mainly used to add suspense, and add to the tenseness. In many horror films, the villain is usually seen wearing consistent clothes and most of the time it is dark color. This adds to the symbolic representation. Non diegetic sound is always used to tension to the atmosphere; most of the time being a eerie instrument or a repeated recognizable score. Synchronous sounds can always aid in adding more expression is jump scares, and getting a little more energy out of an audience. Institutional conventions: Institutional conventions are essentially how the film is marketed. Horror trailers and posters usually center around a person or group to introduce the characters to the audience. This also aids in placing emphasis on the horror figure at play (usually kept hidden or relatively unknown). However, horror trailers in theaters usually use very dark hues, loud screeching music, and is very fast paced sound during previews. They also take advantage of using many sharp fast paced cuts and fast paced editing. Nevertheless, promotional images uses a near equal technique. They seek to make you uncomfortable and confuse you at the same time. They add absolutely nothing, but keep you Interested mostly with black, white, or red colors in many promotional images, including fonts on posters and trailer writings to add tension and a contrast.

Film sample of genre: Scream, The Exorcist, Hereditary, The shining

Genre: Horror

Genre content: There is usually very common convention of the introduction of many horror films. They are usually very slow to introduce the plot or centralized character, but as the story progresses  character narrative rapidly increases. Most horror films usually fall under a category of death, religion, living dead, slasher, supernatural, or post apocalyptic, however many modern films seem to try to add hidden meanings. Horror movies also really gain much traction through there emphasis on characters motifs and thoughts. Horror movie characters usually have a protagonist, antagonist, and a unlikely hero. There could also be a certain prop thrown into the scene such as a knife, religious symbol, or a metaphorical object brought about multiple times in a scene. Horror films also thrive off the use of foreshadowing, and referring back to earlier things in the film.

Genre production techniques: Horror film production techniques are extremely well chosen, an compared to other genres, odd. Most films include weird angles. Most of these angles are very high or very low to introduce fear into a setting or to establish the dominance of character. Many horror films are also known to use the Dutch angle to show craziness. Many horror films use extreme Close-Ups to produce grotesque detail or to add fear or disgust out of a certain character. The classic point coming out of a horror film are jump scares, which are basically unexpected moments of calmness or eerie moments when a horrific figure pops in front of the screen to add intensity. Many classic films, such as Blair witch project, used Handheld camera to make the entirety of the movie more personal and just that much creepy. By adding the personal element, the scene becomes shakier and allows the audience in the foot of the protagonist. Horror films also use different depths of focuses and focus pulls to add tension in a horrific scenario that is usually going at a fast pace. This adds chaos to the audience as they are usually put into focus on a horrific figure and are given an unexpected scare. Some films even take part in adding POV shots of victims to make the presence of the antagonist more demonly and scary.

Film 1: Get Out- Get Out is

a true postmodern horror production, that seems to embody the route that many horror films choose to go on today. It uses many non conventional routes through out the entirety of the film portrayed in new media, but contains elements of older conventional horror stories. For example, may horror films seem to chase over a religious figure, a demonic presence, the end of times, or just a mentally deranged person; get out follows an idea or social issue present in our society. Racism. Never has such a large feature film decided to attack an idea, rather than a presence or figure. However its elements of horror are amazing and classic in our current tempo. Although being very postmodernist, it still follows many horror classic routes which make it so amazing. It uses a slow character development route seen in many horror films. As the main character spends more time in the mansion, we begin to see more elements of horror. Cults, hatred and revenge towards a character, keeping characters hostage, murder, escape, and the presence of a unknown hero. But besides the topic of racism, Get Out uses so many elements of symbolism and foreshadowing present in many classic horror films like the shinning. This includes black deer, Jesse Owens pictures, picking cotton, slavery, and the use of many antebellum songs like "Run Rabbit". The film is so unique yet plays into so many elements of horror movie classics like slashers or cults; that there is no denying that Get Out emulates what modern day horror films are about.

Film 2: Hereditary- There are so many plots and followings of horror movies, such as slashers, religious figures, cults, revenge; but one that comes up so frequently has to be the demonic figure sub genre. Hereditary surely does this in a fashion that many modern films do poorly or cheaply through jump scares or ghostly presence. But don't get me wrong, hereditary does have jump scares and ghostly presences, but the way that they all fit together is just so mesmerizing and aid in creating one of the most gruesome horror movies made to date. Hereditary truly does contain elements of all types of horror films- ghost, demons, gore, cults, death, and murder. Not many films can mix all these elements together and make it work, but hereditary surely did. The visuals were fantastic and don't look cheap. The gore resembled also presents that of early horror films as they show severed heads, naked cult leaders, rotting dead bodies, and a disgusting infestation of insects on flesh. Although being extremely disgusting, it does not shy away from what many horror films today use when they imply gore rather than showing it. Hereditary also encompasses many elements of jump scares classic to any horror film. They are done so well and placed with such ease into the film that they make for a great showing to scare the audience. The director of hereditary also made some great decisions to embody that of classic horror films like possession and twisted effects of it. All such elements explained above present hereditary in the pure form that it is, a gruesome horror film. But it does embody many elements of any good horror film, and aids in a good scare throughout many means.

Other films: It Follows, Saw, Psycho, Split, It, The silence of the lambs, The fly