Horror Genre Analysis

The setting provides opportunities for physical confrontation, concealment and context which can become menacing, these can include;
Small communities and/or isolated places, in more rural than urban settings, provide more of a horror, and more suspense can be created, and darker 'things' can be hidden.
Places with a 'past' also create a sense of 'return' by a 'ghost or poltergeist', for example in old cabins, mental asylums, haunted houses.
Homes with attics and basements provide a great horror setting as we can relate to the mystery within our own home, making the audience feel part of the movie.
Night time is the classical time of day when paranormal activities occur, often innocent places of fun during day time, but at night become eerie i.e. a park.
Religious and medical institutions, hold demons, possesion and psychosis.
This can be followed by dreams and the unconcious mind, tricking us between reality, for example insidious.
Eastern cultures can also become a setting, within different countries as their strange traditions i.e. voodoo, seem frightning due to their unknown.

Technical codes can be characterized by set piece violence, explosions etc. ellaborated through special effetcs. Sound effects and camerawork provide a key 'kinetic' element to add to the thrill of a horror. Camerawork is expressive rather than naturalstic, with canted camerawork and strange angles to make us feel disorientated. To make us connect with the characters and feel their horror, ECU's assist the terror. Even ECU's on the sudden villain become crucial as they make us feel uncomfortable- in our personal space. Point of view shooting is very important to make the audience feel like we are in the persons body, adding an extra sense of danger. Depth of frame can also be used to make something appear in the back ground of the protagonistic to alert us of the danger before the main character, this is important for suspense. Editing can be used to make everything in the film flow smoothly from one shot to another, however this can be used to the editors advantage in horrors, by cutting the shots quickly together reducing editing space, increase suspense furthermore. Finallly, one of the most important- sound- Ambient sound can be used to create an atmosphere, footsteps, heartbeats high in the sound mix. Contrapuntal music can also be used to make the film more 'dark' by playing happy childrens music whilst someone is being killed to increase the chil factor.

Iconography can be used as an indicator of masculinity and conflict through blood, wounds and scars, these visual signifiers follow the pattern of the colour red, connoting evil through vulnerability. Lighting can also be used in an expressive or non-naturalistic way; low key, chiasoscuro, high contrasting lighting emphasizes shaddows. Objects like masks, phallic knives, and icons of the supernatural and religion, (ghosts/ crucifixes), these can be mysterious and even frightening aspects of a horror film as they're uncommon to everyday life be a gauling reoccurance in horrors. One of my personal frights is the iconography of child innocence- dolls, playgrounds, childrens songs, little girls

Narrative structure also helps to classify horror. The clasical hollywood structure consists of equillibrium to disequillibrium and in the end equillibrium is restored, although sometimes there may be 'false closures', this is usually done to allow a sequel to be produced. This is based on Todorov's theory. The final protagonist in many horrors, is usually the virginistic girl, who is a hero/victim, rather than just being a hero, thus forth, provides a point of masochistic identification for the spectator which is mre complicated than in many other genres. Binary oppositions also help to create a further distance apart from lets say good and evil, to contrast and provide a larger impact on the film, creating drama.

The classical character types consist of the main protagonist who as perviously said, is usually the 'victim/hero', who is androgynous; hiding a deeper gender philosophy. Monsters are regularly presnt from ghosts to alien speies, these provide an unearthly or paranormal twist to the film, almost always introduced from a past event. Typically, immoral, irresponsible teens are killed, as a threat to the main horror target audience, this is done to make the audience feel vunerable and also seems to hide (like sexual gender) an educational subliminal message. Young Children are also frequently used in films as they are unpredictable, with creative imaginations, they also seem to be innocent, yet usually turn out to be terrored (case 39). Horror films often contain irrelevant police and the everyday 'powerful' peoplewithin the law, to connote the unnarual pathway of a horror, and not even politial power can save you. Many a time, you get power hungry scientists who do stupid things to over reach their powers, leading to an unimaginbale scenario, that causes havoc. There is usually a "have a go" hero, who often gets killed; brave but insignificant. And lastly, there are the people who refuse to belive, who always get whats coming to them!

Common horror themes consist of fear, return of the repressed, hidden evil inside, justice, nationalism, the assertion of male power, maculinity vs. authority, the shift in evil, darkness, evil vs. good, fight for survival/ escacpe, the evil twist, vengeance, 'the other side', science out of control, challenging conventions of horror, challenging normal ideologies.