Horror film conventions

Paradigms
these are a set of conventions that horror films use. They are quite like guidelines to what a horror film is and what it contains. For example the last girl theory  this is where the last person to survive is usually female. Near enough every film follows this convention or other conventions.

Examples:
“Psycho”- Psychological
“The shining”- Psychological
“The exorcist”- Religious
“Wolf creek” – True story
“The decent”- Monster/Gore

Horror films are designed to Frighten and panic people as well as causing dread and unhinging our worse fears:

• Nightmares
• Alienation
• Revulsions
• Terror of the unknown
• Loss of identity
• Fear of sexuality   

Characters:
 

·         With horror films there is always a lead character that will most likely survive at the end, this mostly collides with the final girl theory, which entails that the virgin or pure women/girl survives and escapes the killer where as her friend is usually a promiscuous girl who is killed off first.

·         The Killer always has a trademark characteristic in the way in which he kills, weather it being a certain type of weapon or something he is wearing that signifies that he is the killer.

·         The outcome is always that the good person survives/ or defeats the bad guy.

Props and weapons:

With every horror film there is always one significant weapon and people can usually guess what the film is by the weapon that is used!

• A knife is the most used weapon in horror films and is seen in near enough every slasher movie. 
• We also see a lot of weapons that aren’t normally associated with violence and death such as chainsaws and meat hooks this created a completely different type of horror which created gore and lots of blood, the main film we would associate this with would be Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
• The mind is also another weapon that is used and this is probably one of the scariest weapons as it can play with your mind as well while watching a film! And with this sort of weapon there are not limits of what can happen!
• Teeth: when we see this weapon we often associate this with the “creature of the night” or vampires.

Setting/Location:
The location of a horror movie can make or break a movie, with horror films we usually notice that the location is very secluded and in the middle of nowhere.  We also see locations such as:

·         House: when a house is used in a film, there is most likely to be no one in expect the one person being targeted! Houses are mostly used in slasher films as these films are mostly related to teenage girls at home alone! We also

·         The great outdoors:  This could mean anything from the desert to the woods this is a great location for making someone feel alone and secluded! We can see this location used in such films like the Blair witch project and hills have eyes.

How does the opening of scream follow the structuralism theory of the horror genre?

Within the world of film structuralism theory is the way films convey meaning through the use of paradigms (codes and conventions) it is an ideology (theory) that can be applied to film theory. 

Genre is found when we identify Lots of key elements (Paradigms) in the film and in others of the same genre; Audiences can recognise these paradigms setting expectations for the film and its viewer. Paradigms can also be categorised...

Iconography	Structure	theme
Signs, symbols and sounds.	The way it is put together and the editing plot.	The issues and codes it deals with.

Scream (1996) uses many Generic codes and convention (paradigms) within the first ten minutes of the film (the opening sequence) the film scream is of the horror genre.  Within the first few seconds of the opening titles WE see the films name, and non-diegetic sound of a telephone ringing, we then switch to the opening shot which is a close up of a telephone which we can here the diegetic sound of it ringing, this immediately makes us link the telephone with maybe the characters death or the killer.  I strongly believe that the viewer makes this connection because there is more or less always communication between the victim and the killer, and seeing a telephone in the first shot more or less makes the audiences presume that this is how they communicate.   

We then witness a conversation over the phone with Casey (drew Barrymore) and an unknown caller. After the second time she hangs up he rings back and they start to have a conversation although this man is a complete stranger to her, at this point I think that the audience have established that Casey is on her own this iconography then ties in with a another whilst she is on the phone she starts talking about horror movies whilst pulling a knife out from a knife block, this makes the audience think that this is the way she might die.  At this point of the film I believe that the audience have already plotted out the rest of the film and already have a clear idea what happens next, but they don’t want to listen to their head as they want to be scared.

in horror films we don’t usually here about other films, but the director and writer found an opportunity for Casey and the person on the other end of the phone to have a conversation about their favourite horrors films, She mentions Halloween as her favourite “you know the one in the white mask that walks around and stalk babysitters”  when she says this I think the audience may begin to think that she is babysitting She then guesses that his favourite is nightmare on elm street We can then make a direct link as viewers that both of those films are famous for killing teenagers and usually Promiscuous young girls for that matter.  At this point she starts to get flirty with the unknown man down the phone denying she has a boyfriend as the tone of her voice changes. This is a major paradigms within horror films SEX = Death, the girl that act promiscuous or has a boyfriends is always one of the first to be killed where as the virgin (the pure girl) usually survives.

Casey Then realises that someone is watching her and it is the man on the phone. As she turns the patio lights on we come to the assumption that the house is deserted and that she is defiantly alone, which makes her the perfect victim for the killer. He then starts to threaten her down the phone telling her not to hang up and to start playing a game; she panics and locks all the doors  then the doorbell rings and that when she knows that this is real and he is actually watching her. The killer then says “Don’t you know not to ask who’s there you might as well go out an investigate a unknown noise”  these are some of the codes and convention that we see in most horror films but as the killer has mentioned them it make the film seem a little more realistic.  She admits that she does have a boyfriend making her seem all the more promiscuous and that he would be there any second to save her but its o late because the killer got there before her and tied her boyfriend up and she had to play a game with him to survive, but the audience already know that no matter what she won’t win the games as the victims never do!

At this point we see another close up of the popcorn that she placed on the hob at the beginning of the film, the director used this prop as it acts like a timer once the popcorn was done it stated to overcook setting on fire and this is when the killer enters the house, and she starts to scream. Most horrors films are structured like this we find the girl/victim and home about to watch a film or have shower and there is some sort of communication whether it is through a noise or in this case a phone call, and the girl is always found to be flirty or promiscuous in one way  or another. We then see the murder weapon or what we think is the murder weapon as well as finding out the house is deserted and isolated in the middle of nowhere making the audience believe that there is no help!   These are the things that we usually see in every single slasher movie, the paradigms for this film where made up of iconography, structure and theme and this is what makes each individual movie. At the end of the opening we see a chase between Casey and the killer and as to expect we cannot see his face, the kitchen id made all Smokey because of the overcooked popcorn making it harder for the victim to see. The killer chokes her with his bare hands so when he parents arrived home they could not here her scream. This is also familiar with horror films there is always someone there to help by the end of the scene or movie but the killer will always find away so the victim cannot be noticed.

The structure of the opening of this film is used in near enough every slasher film, and in each film only a few paradigms every change and as the audiences we all sub consciously know this and know how people will die but we tend to still get scared as we don’t want to believe that this is what’s going to happen but the film makers are always coming up with new ways to scare people for example using double jumps. But I believe from the beginning of the film the audiences is scared from all the little clues that they get and signals that might indicate the killing.

History of the horror genre

The horror films main aim is to scare us the audience, weather we are screaming crying or are too shocked to say anything it usually means the film has met it means for scaring us. Within the genre of horror there are many sub genres giving us all different types of films to enjoy and suit everyone’s taste. But where did the horror film establish from and what made the directors and writers come up with all this different sub genres.
Starting back at the very beginning before there was cinema, there were stories and as long as the stories were there so were the ones about the “unknown” and “other” a lot of these stories  were based around religious type views and monsters “of the night” myths and tails that were used to entertain people in a scary way.

Some of the earliest films were The Golem (1915) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) These films were based on the idea of monsters although it was unclear to see What kind of monster it was, but as it was something and audience had not seen before it gave people a scare but also some did not know what to think.
Nosferatu (1922) was one of the first vampire movies it was described as an actual vampire movie that believes in vampires, this was because the audience found it extremely realistic unlike what films they had seen before. The film was Shorty released after a massive flu epidemic where 70 million people had died and a lot of people were reminded of this horrific time by the film. They came to this assumption form the pale face of the monster and the diseased look upon his face.

At the start of the 1930’s the horror movie was reborn with the creation of sound which change cinema altogether, adding more terror and fright the audience only previously saw in picture motion. This also made peoples imagination go wild with the ideas of what kind of films they could create.  Universal studios made it name with horror films during this time, and this was the decade when two character actors (Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff) became lucky at landing lead roles for two of memorable monster of all time Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s creation the monster. After these two films it opened up all these ideas about monsters and all the different types than can be created for example the mummy (1932) and King Kong (1933). The mummy had a lot influence from the ancient Egyptians and the way they use to mummify people and this ancient tradition was turnt into a way of scary audiences of the 1930’s. The original King Kong has also played a very big part in influencing Many films such as Jurassic Park, Jason & the argonaunts to hundreds of “creature features” of the 1950’s.

Wartime movies of the 1940’s were purely an American product, as they were banned in Britain. They were solely to amuse the domestic audience, The studios stuck with the ideas that had been tried and tested, even if they took the risk of suggesting that they weren’t coming up with any new ideas, the 1940’s was not an age of innovation.  By the time the 1950’s had come around new ideas were developing and we were seeing a slightly different side to the horror film, and the human face was becoming much more related to the horror that was caused in the film. The military action of WW2 had left over 40 million dead and millions more were exposed to the full spectrum of man’s inhumanity to man. Shorty after this the cold war started which left people living in fear of a war happening but it was the technology That scared people, in 1947 there was the first UFO sighting shortly followed by the famous Roswell incident, This gave writer and directors and whole lot of new  ideas to play with. By the 1960’s influences were coming from everywhere  and we saw the start  of the Slasher genre With the Film Physco (1960) and this is where we saw a man kill a women he was close to in such horrific ways and it was usually the man’s mum or girlfriend being killed. This opened up all different types of new ways to kill someone and this is where the Slasher films we see today get there influence from.  Carol Clover came up with the Final girl theory which was mostly present in horror films, this is usually where the female Lead has some sort of close relationship with the killer and most of the time is a virgin (pure) and there is nearly always a promiscuous Friend that is killed during or after sexual acts.  Clover suggests that the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the lead girl part way through the film.  During the 1960’s We also saw the start of the Zombie film, With night Of the Living Dead which was the beginning of the influence for a lot of today’s films, but this was nothing compared to the sex that was scene in horrors and the message it put across was if you have sex you will die, this was good at scary people as it reminded them of deadly diseases and so on.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s We saw the beginning of children being involved with horrors and them becoming the killers for example The omen (1976) When little cute Damien is the devil but as the audience we don’t feel sorry for him as he is causing so much horrific pain to these people but most people can’t look at him and think that is just a child because he is not as he is being portrayed as this creation of pure evil and this is something that cinema had not seen before. Shortly before The Omen was released The Exorcist (1973) was but this was slightly different although it was starring a child acting in a possessive nature we actually felt some compassion for the young girl as we knew that was not her normal state.  But the Films kept coming during the 1980’s With such films as Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Halloween, Childs Play, Chuckie and The Shining all stared children as the victims or the killers and this was a great attraction for teenagers as they were able to relate to the films.

For horror films Location means everything and to make something seem authentic and like the film was actually filmed there, a lot of money goes into set design but the director also has to remember that is had to give of the idea that he is trapping someone and sometimes even creating the feeling of claustrophobia. Also shooting in a well known city or place is good because the audience can relate to this. Over the years horrors films have improved ever so much and it comes down to these things where it is set, costume, make-up and special effects. And with technology improving we are create more epic and disgusting horrors but we would not have been able to do these without great ideas and films that were made within the last hundred years, which shows that the history of the horror film plays a immense part in today’s cinema as we are constantly finding influence’s from them or we are making remakes of films that might have been made in the 1980’s for example Halloween which has been remade around 8 times.