The Horror Genre

Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our fears.

There are lots of types of sub genre horror films such as action, body, comedy, gothic, natural, psychological, science fiction, slasher, splatter and zombie horror movies.



I looked into certain short horror films to give me inspiration when creating our own horror films, here are some examples - 

Incubator

http://www.fearnet.com/shorts/incubator

A combination of great special effects and visceral storytelling captures the mayhem of waking up to a terrible situation. A young man wakes up in a motel bathtub full of ice, only to find his problems have just begun.


Through a combination of dark lighting, claustrophobic close ups, ominous non-diagetic music and gore. The film feature things such as a lot of blood as the protagonist wakes up in a ice bath and realized that he has been operated on, this film deals with the fear of the unknown. Like the character the audience has no clue as to what has happened, they are put into the same mind set as him, wondering why he is there and what had gone on. This is the main point of the horror genre, to upset and disturb. It puts the the audience into situations that they know they would never want to be in. 


The Screaming Skull

http://www.fearnet.com/shorts/screaming-skull






Ashley Thorpe serves up another stunning mix of animation and live action in this award winning film.Set after the First World War, ‘The Screaming Skull’ is a gothic story of ancestral anxieties, hereditary madness and ghosts that won’t be put to rest. Drawing upon such influences as M.R. James and the Amicus movies of the 1970’s.

The Screaming Skull is filmed using a camera that looks as though it was from the 1920's when silent films had just been introduced, the context of the film matches this. It adds a creepy and dark aspect to the film as the house is old and gothic and the entire film looks like old footage. There are lots of shots that show different parts of the house such as portraits and chandeliers, all which are things that someone might possibly relate to a haunted house, in this way it is quite stereotypical if a horror movie. Also there are a lot of piercing and unexpected non-diagetic sounds that are mean't to make the audience jump as the rest of the sound is quite quiet such as the diagetic whispers. The weather and constant darkness add to the fear also as this is generally what people would associate with a scary place. Even the way the characters move in a jump cut way is creepy as it is not normal for someone to move around like that, it is snappy and uncomfortable. None of the scenes in the short flow constantly, the frames and speed jump around, this puts the audience on edge as it is not something they are used to seeing.