Wednesday 27 January 2010

ERT- Genre Analysis

Our Chosen Genre

Our group has decided to create the opening sequence of a horror film. Horror films generally try to make the audience feel fear, terror and horror. The plot of a horror film would typically involve death, the supernatural or mental illness, which could be applied to the victim or the villan.

Sub -genres of horror
  • B-Movie Horror
  • Cannibalism or Cannibal Films
  • Classic Horror
  • Creature Features
  • Demonic Possession
  • Dracula
  • Erotic
  • Frankenstein, other Mad Scientists
  • Ghosts
  • Gore
  • Gothic
  • Haunted House, other Hauntings
  • Halloween
  • Macabre
  • Monsters
  • Older-Woman-In-Peril Films ("Psycho-Biddy", aka 'Hag Horror' or 'Hagsploitation')
  • Psychic Powers
  • Psychological Horror
  • Reincarnation
  • Satanic Stories
  • Serial Killers
  • Slashers or "Splatter" Films
  • Supernatural Horror
  • Teen Terror ("Teen Screams")
  • Terror
  • Vampires
  • Witchcraft
  • Wolves, Werewolves
  • Zombies
Conventions and typical narrative of horror films
As already researched and published on the blog as well as from previous knowledge we found out that horror films normally consists of: Blood, Death, Killings, Villains, Victims, Haunted houses and isolated settings, Monsters, Evil, supernatural, Weapons, Darkness, Storms, Chase sequences, Gore, Violence, Screams, Ghosts, Threats, Obscured vision, Camera angles and movement, Lighting [low or limited or stylised]. Our ideas at the moment conform to the conventions of isolated settings, mental illness and screams, although we may or may not inclued all off these. The narrative mainly focuses on making the audience feel fear.

Pick three to look into ...

The ring (Verbinski, 2002) is a horror film with a gothic/ psychological sub-genre. This film includes a child, which relates to our idea and also the fact that she is psychologically ill. It represents her well through the use of costume and in particular her hair, which i think we should bear in mind whilst filming ours. Two of the locations for the films is in a basement and a white room which resembles a hospital. As we are only filming the beginning sequence I think it would possibly too much to use to heavy locations within the first two minutes unless in a flashing still images sequence. I do however think that it would be suitable and really relevant for us to see if we could film in a white room as it would fit in with our initial ideas really well.






The exorcism of Emily Rose is a film also based on a child but with a demonic possesion. As I have not personally seen the film I viewed the trailor and from this I can see alot of the locations used are typical to the horror genre and very dark. It has a fast cutting rate and uses alot of close ups. I think these are things we should include in our film as well because they are very effective and create an edgey fearful mood for the audience which is our aim.








The orphan is a film, again, about a young girl who is psychology ill. The techniques used in the trailor for this film is again alot of darkness and typically horrific locations, such as a playground, school, and dark bedroom. I think we will look into using all three of these locations as they bring a certain type of fear as they are all places that parents send there children to because they are thought to be safe and normal. Therefore, when used in a horror film a creates a more dramtic fear especially for any parents watching.


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