Thursday, 16 October 2014

Conventions of Horror

Conventions: things we expect to find
Genre: the conventions that place a film into a category
Hybrid Genre: two genres for one film - romcom, etc.

Don't
Ignore
Setting
Technical Code
Iconography
Narrative
Characterisation
Themes

Creepy house, forest, somewhere dark, graveyards = dark, death, scary, bleak. Builds tension, more frightening, isolation builds an uneasy feeling with the audience.

SMEC - sound, mise en scene, editing, camera shots. Scary noises, wind blowing, cat screams, gory makeup, fast cuts, POV, handheld camera work, close ups.

Iconography - famous celebrities, religious symbols, weapons, knives, gore, demonic symbols. Visual things that symbolize genre, filters, colours, blue filters, etc.

Serial killers, asylums, new haunted houses - cliff hangers, psychological, sequel, etc. Never ending plot (Saw), Antagonist never dies.

Equilibrium
Event
Confusion
Resolve 
New Equilibrium

Young people, people that appeal to demographic.

  • Protagonist
  • Sex appeal
  • Irritating guy
  • Token black guy
  • Comeuppance 
  • Unlikely hero
  • Antagonist 
Theme is a recurring element in the plot. Theme - mental illness, revenge, religious belief, etc. are always a theme in films.

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