Horror Research

 

A Deep Dive into the Horror Film Genre

    The genre of horror has been gaining popularity, especially around teenagers. 

CONTENT: 

    Horror films aim to provoke feelings of fear, dread, and suspense in audiences. The typical content includes supernatural or monstrous characters, psychological terror, violent and gory scenes, and themes of death. They explore many of human's fears, often emphasizing the unknown, vulnerability, and the inevitable threat of death. Common plot elements that are seen are locations that are haunted and cursed artifacts. 

PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES: 

    Horror films use several techniques to heighten tension and create a scary atmosphere. Low lightning or dimly lit scenes use the shadow and contrasts to obscure figures seen on the screen to create suspense. They also often use sharp and unsettling sound such as eerie music, sudden loud noises, and silence to help enhance fear. 

MARKETING: 

    Marketing for horror films is often easier, as it focuses on one main demographic, as teenagers and young adults are drawn to this genre. They are typically marketed with a heavy emphasis on suspense, mystery, and shock. Trailers, posters, and promotional content often feature jump scares and typically highlight chilling imagery, such as ominous figures, unsettling locations, or key frightening scenes, to create immediate interest. 

SAMPLES: 

    The Shining (1980) is a psychological horror film that exemplifies horror through its claustrophobic atmosphere, supernatural elements, and themes of isolation and madness. The film uses unsettling music, long tracking shots, and unsettling camera angles to evoke a sense of dread. Jack Torrance's descent into madness and the supernatural occurrences in the hotel represent the genre's focus on psychological horror and the unknown. The film's set design, especially the empty and eerie hotel hallways, builds and atmosphere that leaves the audience with a feeling of unsettlement. 

    Hereditary (2018) delves into family trauma, grief, and the supernatural to convey horror. The film combines a realistic portrayal of family suffering with disturbing supernatural elements, which creates a chilling psychological horror experience. It employs unsettling imagery, foreshadowing, and visual symbolism to create dread. The use of long, unbroken shots and moments of silence allow tension to build, while shocking, violent scenes punctuate the narrative, which keeps viewers constantly on edge. The film's powerful performances and eerie atmosphere emphasizes the genre's themes of vulnerability. 

OTHER MOVIES WITHIN THIS GENRE: 

The Conjuring (2013)

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Quiet Place (2018)

The Ring (2002)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Sound Project

 During the sound lesson, we learned that sound is give a scene dimension, increases the emotional impact, assists viewer's perception and drives character personality. We learned about many different types of sounds that are used during production and the proper way to use them. 

For this project, we had to create a soundscape of a scene of something that could happen between 1-2 minutes in real time. We were to find separate sounds of everything that one would hear during that scene, and edit them all together. We were also required to make at least 4 foley sounds in our projects. 

During our brainstorming, me and my partner tried to think of places where there's a lot of sounds around, and we decided to do a grocery shop. As we were writing the outline, we started coming up with more and more ideas of sounds we could implement into our project, such as the grocery cart crashing into the aisle, babies crying, and laughter being heard around. This outline helped us organize our sounds by by order of events of what was happening and how the scene progressed. It also helped us create a checklist of all the sound we would need to find and create for our project. We used Premiere Pro when editing our sounds together and it was very helpful to make our transitions more smooth. 

Overall, I think it is easy to recognize what our scene is, and I think we did a good job at editing all the sounds together. However, next time, I would like to improve some of the transitions a little bit because some sound choppy. 

Our project: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AI-h-ekN33yVI4ICp_O_ytpi4ZrbnLRQ/view