3. ‘Psycho’ relies heavily on the generic conventions of a horror film:-
An isolated setting is used where no one else is staying apart from
our key protagonist
Relies heavily on sound effects to build up the tension and fear
within the audience
Uses shadows and silhouettes frequently throughout – especially in
the famous shower scene.
Brutal weapons and blood is used
Fits into the slasher horror sub genre by the brutal murders that
take place. However it does not rely as heavily on them as recent
films such as ‘Saw’ who base the shock on torture and terror.
• The split personality towards the end of the film mixes the sub genres
of horror. This puts a more psychological twist on the film. The killing he
does creates the tension and fright within the audience.
4. ‘Psycho’ was released in 1960.
Psycho was the first ‘slasher’ horror to be introduced
Before ‘Psycho’ horror films were extremely gothic and
relied heavily on science fiction. Ghosts and monsters still
remained the heavy feature in horror films instead of a
human playing the antagonist or murder. This was seen in
films such as ‘The innocents’ and ‘Zombies’. ‘Psycho’ was
one of the first films that played on the idea of someone's
mind driving them to kill other people.
‘Psycho’ was only one of the few films that used a
woman as they key protagonist and this influenced the
horror genre dramatically. Women were used to express
their vulnerability and fears more since the release of
‘Psycho’ and the role of women in the horror genre
changed dramatically.
5. A convention I would use from ‘Psycho’ would by the
psychological horror side to the film. The idea of the split
personality is very interesting and would be fun to play
with in my own trailer.
In my trailer I would avoid the conventions of brutal
weapons and murders that are seen within the film. This is
because it would be hard to film and these scenes would
also not feature in a trailer for a film. They are built up to
for the actual film rather than the trailer.
The conventional isolated setting would be interesting to
use in my own trailer as it established the scene and
creates the ideas of isolation and vulnerability.
The use of sound effects within the film is also I
convention I would use within my trailer. The sounds help
to build up the tension and create the fear within the
audience.
6.
7. Saw relies heavily on the conventions of blood and brutal weapons to create the genre of
a horror.
Saw is a splatter/slasher horror as it deliberately focuses on the gore and graphic violence
as well as using a particular psychopath killer. In this case he is known as ‘Jigsaw’
Saw lacks in psychological mind games and instead concentrates on brutal violence to
play on audience fears and make them feel uncomfortable.
Saw does not rely on setting the mood or meeting the conventions of setting the scene
before an incident happens. Instead it jumps straight into the action and shocks the
audience straight away.
Audiences are intrigued and fascinated by horror films such as ‘Saw’ as it meets the
requirements of the Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory. The audience watches the film in shock
but in an unusual way it is comforting to know that there normal lives are not like the film
and when they leave the film, it will not happen to them.
It is a horror movie that is relying heavily on the shock and reaction from the audience
than keeping the high amounts of tension and building up to the horror moments like
psychological horrors.
Saw does not rely on the audience getting to know characters and protagonists well and
creating a connection. They shock does not come from what is happening to the
characters they have got to know, but by the brutal deaths that different people face.
8. The first ‘Saw’ movie was released in 2004.
Early in the 2000’s the return of the sub genre of zombie horrors were brought back in films
such as ‘28 days later’ and ‘The return of the living dead’. ‘Saw’ was one of the first films in
the 2000’s to bring back the return of extreme and graphic violence into horror films.
‘Saw’ concentrated on the emphasis on depictions of torture, suffering and violent
deaths which had not been previously been used before. This saw the emergence of this
particular genre and saw many films similar to it follow. These included ‘The Torture’ and
‘Hostel’.
Before ‘Saw’ the release of films such as ‘Scream’ had created a chain of horrors
concentrating on the teenage market. ‘Saw’ moved away from concentrating horror
films on teenage protagonists and influenced the genre into more extreme violence and
torture of all ages. This played of many different age ranges fear rather than just the
teenage market.
The success of the sub genre ‘Saw’ started was confirmed by the six sequels that were
made in the same way.
The Saw film series holds the Guinness World Record of the highest-grossing horror
franchise in history.
Many people however criticized the ‘Saw’ movies as being a copy of the film ‘Seven’
which was released in 1995. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman compared the plot
to Seven saying, "In a blatant imitation of Seven, Saw features a lunatic sadist whose
ghoulish crimes are meant, in each case, to mirror the sins of his victims. The twist here is
that the psycho doesn't do the killing"
9. The concentration of extreme violence and terror is a convention I
would challenge within my own trailer as I want to concentrate more
on a physiological horror where aspects like this are not as important. I
would also avoid this convention of ‘Saw’ movies as it limits the target
audience that could see my trailer and therefore the market for the
film.
Within in my own trailer I would also challenge the convention that
‘Saw’ uses by not setting the scene and getting a connection with
the key protagonists. I believe it is very important in a trailer to see life
before the horror event takes place to show the extreme contrast,
especially in the short time frame a trailer allows. I also believe it is
important to gain a connection with the key protagonists so I can
play with the audiences fears and emotions more within my trailer
once they get to know them and guess how they would react to
certain situations. This would help to keep the audience on edge and
constantly frightened.
A convention I would like to use within my trailer is the huge elements
of shock that the ‘Saw’ movies create. Although I would like to build
the tension more than these movies, the huge element of terror and
shock created by the scenes in this movie is something I would like to
incorporate in my trailer.
10.
11. ‘Paranormal Activity’ uses ‘found footage’ and is mostly filmed by hand held
cameras to give the effect that the supernatural activity is more realistic and
we are realizing their fate at the same time that they are.
It is a supernatural horror film which plays of psychological horrors.
The film works by creating and building up tension throughout out the day and
the action happening at night. This creates fear and worry within the audience
every time we see the footage being filmed at night.
The film does not heavily rely on blood and gore to be a horror film, instead it
plays of the audience psychological fears and builds the tension slowly to
reach the climax point.
The tension and fear is built in the film by the paranormal activity getting worse
and worse every night. This builds on the audiences fear of the night and dark
as well as them expecting something worse to happen each night.
The film still uses the convention of blood at the very end but this is not what
has created the shock and fear within the audience throughout the film.
The film does not use the conventional isolated dark setting and instead uses a
modern house in America. I believe this plays of the audiences fears even
more and makes the situation seem more realistic and relatable.
12. ‘Paranormal Activity’ had the influence on the horror genre by cleverly
creating a low budget horror and showing the effect of how cleverly you can
build tension and play on the audiences fear.
‘Paranormal Activity’ also showed the effect of the home filmed video
footage instead of trying to convey professional filming to create the fear. The
terror and anxiety in this film was created by the realism the home videos
created.
Many films towards the end of the 2000’s were becoming remakes of older
horror films such as ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’.
‘Paranormal Activity’ moved away from this and created a genre of horror
that played heavily on psychological fears and relied on no blood or brutal
weapons at all.
‘Paranormal Activity however is never bland, and tends to make viewers
believe what they're seeing is plausible, such that every creak, groan, and
bump in their own homes just might not be what they think it is. That is the true
effect of this sub-genre of horror movie; the injection of possibility into the
viewers psyche.’
Often, the thought of something happening, whether positive or negative, is
more impactful than the actual event. This is why moviegoers will (for better or
for worse) probably see an influx of movies like this. Better, because hack-and-
slash is tired, and worse, because the suspension of disbelief only has so long of
a shelf life. To be more specific, most of what the viewer experiences are
sounds - bumps, keys falling, etc - which allows the imagination even more to
work with. We hear the thumps, hear them getting closer; the anticipation for
what we might see works its magic.http://voices.yahoo.com/paranormal-
activity-strikes-home-horror-genre-gets-5168571.html?cat=40
13. A convention from ‘Paranormal Activity’ that I would use would be
the use of the hand held camera and footage. I think this makes the
film look more realistic as the protagonists are filming all the action
themselves and it looks as if they are wanting to find out what is going
on rather than them being filmed. The hand held camera also creates
the effect of fear within the audience and for the key protagonist.
I would also use the conventions and same techniques that the film
uses to build tension and play psychological mind games with the
audience. I want to avoid the brutal violence and torture and build
on the audience fears through the tension built.
I want to explore the ideas of a supernatural horror like ‘Paranormal
Activity’
I would use these conventions and build tension by slamming doors
and lights switching off as they are easy to create with the camera
and resources that I have available. These conventions will be able to
appear more professional than if I tried to convey a torture scene. I
do not have the equipment, actors or settings to make my horror look
believable. This would be the easiest sub genre to convey.
14. ‘An audience can be described as ‘a temporary collective’ (McQuail 1972) – I
would disagree with McQuail with the idea that audiences change all the time
because an audience that is interested in watching a horror genre are
attracted back to the same codes and conventions. The target audience for a
horror varies between ages but all are attracted to watch a horror film due to
the generic conventions that it includes. Though there are different sub genres
of horror, the same audience continues to watch them and each horror film
does not attract a different audience.
‘…the tendency to concentrate solely on why audience consume the media
rather than extending the investigation to discover what meanings and
interpretations are produced and in what circumstances i.e how the media
are received’ (O’Sullivan, Dutton &Rayner 1994) – I believe this theory to be
true for the horror genre. We watch a horror film for the fright and terror of it
and not to receive a moral message at the end. In most horror films, the issue is
not resolved at the end meaning there is no satisfaction or moral messaget
aken away from it. Audiences watch horror films for the anxiety and the thrills
they receive from it and then walk away at the end and forget about it. It does
not leave them pondering with moral issues. For example , the cultivation
theory does not relate to the horror genre as it does not make you take
anything in particular away from the film or affect the way you learn and think
about the world.
