Genre conventions for psychological horror

1. For psychological horror genre conventions i found out that there are many
codes and conventions that can be followed, some include weapons,
creepy setting, sights, sounds and characters.
GENRE CONVENTIONS

2. WEAPONS
• When researching psychological horror’s, i noticed that many
used weapons, not physical but mental. For example, the
killer/psychopath uses their mind against their own victims
because it is so damaged and disturbing it can make anyone
feel helpless and threatened. Visions, jumpy scenes and
supernatural concepts may be used instead of real life weapons
such as knives. For my own short film we use the main
characters mind against herself as she starts to see visions
which are all in her head and not real life, suggesting that she is
constantly thinking about herself and nothing else as she has
been mentally consumed by materialism and appearance.

3. SETTINGS
• Some of the main settings you will see time and time again
when watching a Psychological horror film are big houses,
forest/ woodland areas, ware houses, schools, and hospitals
and so on. These types of settings create realism for the target
audience as they are able to relate to the film on some level,
having seen/ been or currently live in these settings. This
increases the fear for the audiences are they begin to picture
themselves in these positions. Nonetheless for my own
production, we filmed all the footage in a normal house, that
was not creepy or abandoned, which creates even more realism
for the audience making them relate even more to the setting as
many do live in similar houses as the one in our own film.

4. SIGHTS
• Quite often, when watching a psychological horror film, there
are flashbacks that take the audience back to see why the killer
is disturbed and to explain what happened to them in their lives
that has lead them to become mentally challenged. We also
may see shadows/ silhouettes which nerve and terrify the
audiences. In a way we do this in our production, however we
do not use flashbacks we only show what is happening in the
present moment such as taking, deleting selfies, using social
media as a comfort zone and providing evidence as to why she
protagonist is going crazy.

5. SOUNDS
• Common sounds/ music that we hear when watching a
Psychological Horror film are; Contrapuntal Sound- this
is sound that doesn’t match the action that is on
screen. For my short film, there are not many sounds
as we decided to keep the background music soft but
with tension, so every time something jumpy happens
the music would accommodate the action to give the
audiences a bigger scare.

6. CHARACTERS
• A disturbed, or tormented individual is the main antagonist,
usually comes back to get revenge on their victims. The victims
can differ but like any horror film, a high percentage of the
victims are female. The uses of children as the killers are also
very popular. E.g. the Orphan, the Omen... When psychological
horror films use children as the killer, again, the victims tend to
be female. This could have something to do with the fact that
mothers are maternal and the female audiences watching will be
able to relate to the character in some way. We used a young
female adult, who is mentally disturbed but is not aware of it, her
own self comes to torment her and lead her into insanity.