Genre Research Horror

Horror is simply a film genre that is intended to bring about a feared

reaction and release negative emotions from the audience who view it.
Horror films have been around for a century and the way horror film ideas
were thought of is from the inspiration from various authors such as Mary
Shelley, Bram Stoker & Edgar Allan Poe. Horror films most often have an
evil entity or person being brought into the modern world where it does
not belong. Examples of evil characters are demons, zombies, serial killers
and ghosts.

Codes/Conventions

Generally horror films are made with codes and conventions in order to
frighten the audience and according to Todorov's narrative theory that
most story lines or plots follow the same pattern it links in well with the
horror genre itself. It begins with the equilibrium where everything is going
well and everybody is enjoying themselves such as in a horror a family
might be moving into a new apartment, but as we are aware it is a horror
film we know that it will later not be this happy. The next stage is the
disruption where we could as an audience see subtle things that are going
wrong and be aware that this is a sign of something bad is about to
happen. The characters are ignorant to recognise this is at first which
makes the scenes even more suspenseful. Then comes in the realisation of
the disturbance where the characters would finally notice something weird
going on and typically be worried about it. Then the restored order takes
place where the characters attempt to get rid of the problem and kill off
the evil spirit, but ends up creating a new problem they have to face as
well. The final stage is the return to equilibrium where everybody becomes
free of the problems, however it is common in horror films to have a death
at the end of the film and sometimes a cliff-hanger to indicate that there
will be a sequel to the film.

History

The history of the horror genre begins with the first appearance of one,
which was during the 1890 s-1920 by a film pioneer named Georges
Mlis who arguably created the first horror film in the late 1890s called
Le Manoir du Diable. During the 1910s, Edison Studios produced the first
film version of the classical horror novel Frankenstein. As before the
1930s, horror films were called dark melodramas, as there would be
heavy plots, which included stock character that mainly focused on genres
such as suspense, romance and violence. During the 1930s- 1940
Universal Pictures stared to be successful in their gothic horror film
series. James Whales Frankenstein (1931) and The Old Dark House
(1932) had featured outrageously evil and frightening antagonists.
Advances of technology in the 1950s- 1960 had meant that horror films
were moving from gothic themed to modern concerns. There were 2 sub-
genres that made its entrance and that it is the Doomsday film and the
Demonic film which were films about alien invasion threats and life-
threatening mutations occurring to people. An example is the well-known
Godzilla (1954) film, which featured the effects of nuclear radiation. In the
later 1950s, the UK began to produce horror films themselves and had a
large international success from these films. The 1970s were a really
influential time for horror films as George A. Romeros Night of the Living
Dead (1968) was produced on a low budget of $114,000, but ended up
grossing at around $30 million worldwide. This films a =bout a mass
invasion of zombies really had an impact on how horror films were going
to be produced in the future. The Exorcist (1973) was another example of
a low-budget horror film that had large success and these were seen to be
more and more successful in the making. This film was different from the
Night of the Living Dead as this film has an evil entity possess a young
girl, but it has the same impact on the audience. Serial killer films were
also being made a lot during these times such as Halloween (1978), Friday
the 13th (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which was a great
sub-genre that increasingly became successful. The genre had continued
into the 1990s and the films, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the
13th all had sequels in 1994 which showed the relationship between the
real modern world and fictional horror. During the 2000s the horror genre
had a slow period, however there were remakes of older horror films to
revive the genre. There was a Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake and
Maniacs (2001). Also, during the 2010s remakes remained popular and a
new style of recording was introduced called found footage style videos
such as slender man, which was very popular on YouTube. Horror was
introduced into the TV series such as a very popular series right now, The
Walking Dead.

Subgenres

Slasher film - This revolves around a serial killer who murders other people
in a way usually resulting in unbearable pain which most often happens
due to a past story involving the antagonist and him/her being treated bad
and examples are: Friday the 13th and Halloween which are both Slasher
films. This will be the subgenre for our production because our antagonist
(Psychopath) is a slasher who goes around slaughtering people.

Supernatural horror - This involves malevolent ghosts and un explainable

curses haunting others in a way to re enter into the modern world and live
a life they may have not been able to before and examples of these type
of films are: The Ring, The Grudge and The Amityville Horror.
Zombie Film - This type of sub-genre involves the mindless, craze creature
that is usually dead and had been brought back to life due to a series of
events that causes mass panic and distress for the world. Examples of
zombie films are Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and Dead Snow.

Science fiction horror - This is the type of sub-genre that brings the
unthinkable to life such as the idea of alien invasions and a result of an
experiment gone wrong. Films that are made to be Science fiction horror
are Resident Evil, Frankenstein and Alien.

Comedy Horror - This combines the 2 genres, horror and comedy together
to bring a sick twisted film involving death being referred to as comedy.
Examples of Comedy Horror are Jennifer's Body, Teeth and Army of
Darkness.

We decided to pick the horror genre for our film as we find it the most
entertaining ourselves and it also is one of the most common genres that
people prefer to watch as it gives the a shot of adrenaline which a lot of
people enjoy. We also feel very comfortable with the genre as we have
watched many horror films before, therefore it would be easier for us to
construct a storyline or plot ourselves for this genre.

Top 10 horror films of all time rated by IGN:

10) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

9) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

8) Rosemarys Baby (1968)

7) Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

6) The Shining (1980)

5) The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

4) Alien (1979)

3) Jaws (1975)

2) Psycho (1960)

1) The Exorcist (1973)

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

http://uk.ign.com/articles/top-25-horror-movies-of-all-time?page=3