Genre Theory

Genre theory is used to categorise films into a certain category of composition characterised by its similarities in the film or the style of the film. Things such as, directors and story lines, titles and point of sale displays.

An easy way for dummies to identify a specific genre is to analyse a set of films placed in the same genre, for example, horror. In many horror films, we sense danger and fear within the advertisements as they are usually dark and mysterious and does not inform you much about the story line and often has one big picture juxtaposed in the middle, a slogan and the title.

The director of the film. Directors often produce films in the same genre as they start of with, directors such as Steven Spielberg will always produce, fantasy, action packed, thriller films.

The titles of the films also represent genre, such as 'Friday the 13th', 'Psycho' and 'Halloween'. All three titles suggest that the film itself is about something bad as everyone knows Friday the 13th is known to be an unlucky day, halloween is a day where ghosts and devils are talked about and Psycho, psycho defines a person that is ill in the mind, a psychopath and suggests that the film is about a psychopathic person or people.

Knowing what genre a film is can benefit the film itself as it makes the audience aware of what they are watching and aware of what they want to watch. However, as we progress, genres are mixing into each other and creating hybrids which can cause problems as people may argue that some genres should not be changed or merged together.

The Blair Witch Project

The 1999 released $25,000 budget film is one of the turn around films in horror. This film bought the horror genre back in the game and changed cinema completely. A film with such a low budget could not possibly be successful we must think? However, without all the sound effects and special effects, the viewers are still scared by the film and would continue to be scared for a period of time after watching it.

It is based around three students 'filming' themselves staying in the woods for a few days to find out information about the Blair Witch. All film footage is recorded by the three students and an unmounted handheld shot is used throughout.


One of the students go missing the day after he discovers some sort of goo slumped onto his backpack and clothing and the other two go looking for him. The two end up in an abandoned house in search of their friend because his voice is heard, the two then separate by accident and a camera we are viewing drops on the floor. The final girl starts running and looking for her friend and her camera, too, drops on the floor. Just before the second camera drops, we see a man standing back towards us and looking in the corner, this refers back to earlier in the film when a man said the witch would abduct children and make them face the corner of the room as she kills another child.

This film is highly influential to my horror trailer as I now have a better knowledge of how to create fear and horror within a film without using special effects and/or sound effects. I will focus on scaring the viewers from their own mind and imagination.

Masks

Masks is used and seen a lot throughout horror films. They are used for hidden identities and often it is the villain that uses them.
In Friday The 13th the villain, Jason, uses a cloth to hide his identity until later in the film, he kills a victim and finds a hockey mask which becomes his trademark for the film. Masks are often used in the horror film posters or would be featured in it as it gives off a scary vibe.

In Scream, the stretchy ghost mask is used and if we were to see it, we would know who it is straight away.

I think using masks in horror films are extremely effective as this can really spook the audience and hide the villain's identity until later on in the film in which the 'final girl' somehow whacks it off the villain's face for a brief moment..

The Monstrous Feminine

The book 'The Monstrous Feminine' about Jaws, Alien, Little Shop of Horrors and Poltergeist that plays on men's fear of women.

There is a quote about Carrie within the book in which the writer claims that the director of Carrie portrayed women as pigs. This is done by using menstrual blood and the beginning of the scene to represent women and at the prom scene, he drowned Carrie in pig's blood. These both happen after Carrie has her few moments of pleasure. Woman's blood and pig's blood flow together signifying horror, shame and humiliation.

Often directors that are similar to this are White, middle aged and middle class.

I agree with the book's quote as it may be true. But only to a certain extent. We as an audience do not know what the directors are thinking unless we are actually them. What the writer see's is the own interpretation of the film and I also see it in her view as well, however, this is only because in the film, Carrie is seen as nothing and the 'others' by the characters in the film, which is why she is compared to a pig and not necessarily all women in general. We see pigs as nothing just like how characters see Carrie as nothing.

Sinister - Official Trailer [HD]

The title of this movie could suggest that it is a horror film. The word Sinister suggests that something evil or harmful is or will happen.

From watching this trailer I can decipher that the film is loosely based around a man discovering old films recorded by the previous family that lived in his hosue and he suspects that they were serial murderers. He also discovers that there is a pattern with all the killings, as a symbol is discovered which later on we find out that it is a satanic symbol. However, he then finds out that it was a some srt of ghost or soul that adbucts kids. He is informed that once a kid sees the ghost they would be abducted, too. The man tries everything to save his kid and he attempts to leave the house but isit too late?

The film has a lot of conventions of horror such as use of shadows, minimal light, a lot of digetic and non digetic sound which creates a scary atmosphere for the viewers.

Timeline

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 and 2003

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 is an american exploitation horror film directed by Tobe Hopper. This film is a good example of horror as it includes many conventions of horror such as an isolated location, a killer, hidden identities.

The remake of the film really adapts to the modern generation, a lot more violence and detail is included.


Also, from looking at the two posters for the films we see a difference, too.

In this one we see a really dark and scary looking poster. The poster is taken up by a person's face with scars. The colour is really distorted and old which fades in with the black background and underneath the title of the film is placed in the bottom centre. This creates a really simple yet intriguing poster for the film in which I think, would attract the modern audience.

However, in this one, we see that the poster is really plain and bright. As if it is a poster for a theatre performance or a play. The background is white, which is not a colour that the horror genre would generally use to induce fear. The rhetorical question takes up a lot of the poster and we are straight away attracted to that first. I do not think it is effective because the use of font and style does not have any horror included.

Nosferatu

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu was the first expressionist horror film.

It was an unauthorised adaptation of the 1897 horror novel Dracula.

Names such as Dracula were changed to Count Orlok and Vampire was changed to Nosferatu.