Horror Film Genre Analysis with the concept of more and the same

For commercial purposes American film-making employs the concept of more

and the same. It tries to produce films on the basis of certain established
conventions, and organise the outcome as per certain specific genres.
Nevertheless, every film tries to establish its certain uniqueness.
Horror film genre also has its own established
conventions. At visual and aesthetic end, it runs on dark themes and portrays
a narrative that consists of murder, psychological trauma, demons, aliens and
gor. The main motive of the horror genre is to invoke fear in the audience.
Horror also has many sub-genres such as terror, gor,
slasher, supernatural, and sci-fi.
Horror is a tough genre to define. It is usually used to evoke fear but it
uses a variety of other feelings to muster it up. For example, in a
psychological horror film such as the shining a plethora of feelings such as
love of father toward son and between familial relation is used to create a
feeling of fear and horror among the audience.

Below are five films analysed on the basis of genre criticism( with the concept
of more and the same).

1. The Nun

This is a supernatural horror

movie. It does confirm the
specificities of the horror
genre.
The film has
a gothic setting. It is set in
the ruins of a castle turned
abbey located in Romania.
The setting evokes eerie as
it is isolated from the
nearest human settlement.
There are props for dead
bodies and blood.
 The narrative begins after the world war. When the shellings
from the war break the seal obstructing a demon. The demon is
unleashed into the world but needs a vassal to step out of the abbey.
For this reason, the demon named Valak starts killing all the nuns
inside the abbey. The last remaining nun sacrifices herself. This nun’s
dead body is spotted by a chore boy from a nearby village who supplies
groceries to the abbey.
A Roman priest and a novitiate nun are sent to investigate
the case by the vatican. The horror begins when strange things start
happening to them. They must survive the torments thrown at them by
the demon.
Finally they stop valak the demon by using some drops of the
blood of jesus.

2. The Possession Of Hannah Grace

This is also a supernatural horror

film. It portrays a teenage girl
being possessed by a demon.
This movie is
set in morgue where an expolice
women works in a night shift.
Thus just like other horror movies
its setting is also placed in an
isolated building.
The horror begins
when a dead body possessed by a demon is brought into the morgue.
The dead body starts killing the people at the morgue.
 The protagonist, an ex-police woman fights the demon
and throws the dead body in an incinerator to destroy the demon
forever.

3. The Bird Box

This movie is not of a typical horror

standard. It is set in a town and in
the beginning it's filled with people
not isolated.
No specific props
are used.
The horror begins when the
people of the town start dying
spontaneously from a mysterious
occurrence in the sky; whenever
anybody sees this unknown
occurrence they are killed in an
instance. The only warning they get
for this occurrence is from the birds.
In the story a woman whose
acquaintances are killed one by one by this unknown occurrence travels to a
school for the blind. As blind people can’t see this unknown thing, they are the
only ones immune to this. As it turns out, the blind school is the only safe
place left to survive.
A thrilling fear is evoked as the woman carrying her two children
travels to this school overcoming every obstacle and danger in her way.
4. Evil Dead

Evil Dead is a movie filled with

all typical elements of a horror
movie genre.
It portrays a group
of friends and a pair of siblings
who decide to lodge in a jungle
away from busy city life. They
want to use this experience as
a therapy to help Mia(one of the
siblings) recover from her habit
of drug abuse. Her brother David is said to have left her alone in her
teenage years with their sick mother. This leads Mia to a psychological
trauma.
But things start getting worse when the group finds an
occult book that contains spells to summon a demon from hell. One of
them opens the book and reads the spell.
Horror begins as the demon takes the possession of Mia and
starts killing the other friends as it needs four sacrifices to enter the
human world.
The film is filled with a lot of gory scenes. There is frequent blood
splatter and use of violence.
What evokes the fear and horror in this movie is the thrill
that follows the struggle of survival of this group. Overall it's a good
typical horror movie.
5. World War Z

World war z is a sci-fi

action horror movie. It's
about a zombie virus
that contaminates the
whole world. It infects
every human being with
an exception of human
survivors.
Among these
survivors is also the
protagonist( Gerry
Lane) and his family.
Gerry Lane
struggles to survive the
apocalypse along with
his family.
They must survive and
find a way to avoid these zombie attacks.
The movie uses CGI and props to create gory scenes. The fear
in this movie is evokes by the thrill and suspense in the family’s struggle
for survival as they confront something unknown and uncontrollable.