Lois A2 Media

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Genre Conventions Of Horror

As you can see, I created a diagram which shows the genre conventions of horror. I selected the fundamental aspects of horror, such as iconography. Iconography includes props and costumes. Props are normally notably with the villain in the movie. The iconography in this case is a weapon which can involve a knife or chainsaw. For example, in Psycho (1960) Norman Bates uses a knife to kill all his victims with and in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Leatherface uses a Chainsaw to butcher all of his victims with. I also spoke about the lighting and the villains characteristics. I personally believe that themes are a genre convention of horror as they explore different themes such as death, religion, good vs evil, depression, revenge, supernatural, insanity and the corruption of science. I believe that these are all significant aspects of the horror genre as a horror will not look as effective without them. Camera work and isolated settings are also genre conventions of horrors as they need to look effective so that the audience will feel engaged. Stereotypically, a horror film will be set in an isolated area, a haunted house, in the woods, dark streets or ghost town. These are all cliché, but this is what audience members get the thrill out of watching.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American found footage horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The film relates the story of three student filmmakers, Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard who disappeared while hiking in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend the 'Blair Witch'. The viewers are told three were never seen or heard from again, however their video and sound equipment was discovered a year later and that this 'recovered footage' is the film the viewer is watching. I found The Blair Witch Project very interesting as it wasn't a horror genre stereotype. In fact, many conventions they use in horror were not used in The Blair Witch Project which I found that this is what made it successful. The fact that the movie was shot like a documentary made it even more interesting. It was very realistic like the posters and the acting made the film seem real. The idea of the 'other' was made clear as it was a supernatural species the audience were never in contact with. The unknown was a prominent theme in the movie.

Alien (1979)

Alien is a 1979 science-fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott. The film's title refers to a highly aggressive extraterrestrial (object or being beyond the planet Earth) creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. I personally believe that Alien was an interesting movie. It had very little horror conventions, but the iconography was similar to the horror genre. Firstly, the isolated setting was prominent throughout the film. The fact that the people were on a spaceship connoted that they were in the middle of nowhere, possibly not aware of their surroundings. They obviously did not know the area well, which foreshadowed later events in the movie, in which being death or meeting the 'other'. The aliens in this case were the 'other' and the villains as the attempted to kill everyone on the spaceship. Fortunately for Ripley, she managed to survive the alien attack and be the final girl. This is a subversion as females are usually the victims, being the first ones to be killed off.

Thursday, 16 October 2014

Scream Review (1996)

Scream (1996)

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Audience Reaction To Halloween (1978)

Here is an audience reaction to the American independent slasher horror film Halloween (1978). I found filming this audience reaction useful as I was able to notify who does and doesn't like horror. As you can see from all of the three girls reactions (Amber, Camilla and Holly), they were all scared from the clip that I showed them. This is convenient for me as I will therefore use all three of them for my horror focus group. Some feedback I got from the girls was that the masked villain is what made them jump and the ominous music. I will therefore use this iconography in my horror trailer because I know that particular aspect made people scared. This also will make my horror trailer quite successful because I'm looking for an audience reaction and I've already been given some I can use further. The girls also said that they were scared of the suburban setting on screen, as it wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere that seemed so residential and ordinary. This is another handy source of information I can use for my horror trailer. In this video, the girls are watching the scene in the movie where Laurie is hiding from Michael Myers in the closet. The link is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN5ue_1vTXI