The horror genre is a well known and widely watched genre; these genre's conventions can be catagorised into six main areas. The first area is setting, for a typical horror film like Halloween for example, the setting is a dark night, in 2 main houses, and the lights are mainly turned off in these houses. In this street it offers a sense of isolation, nowhere to turn, it’s like a secret inside this small community. Within the small town there is a empty house where there is a history, many horror films have a house or a town or a place where there is a history or a past. Within the dark house or dark places in horror films, this is good as people and zombies can hide in these places for example within wardrobes or attics. The time of day is a major factor in horror films as most of them are set at night time or the evening. The weather in horror films is mainly stormy or very windy, the thunder and lightning adds to the setting of the film and makes the scene more eerie and “scary”.
The next convention is technical code, which are all the cinematography, editing, sound, setting, characters and iconography of the film. Within horror films the camerawork is often “Expressive” rather that naturalistic so the camera is canted a lot and there are weird high and low angles, this is so that maybe we can see what the monster is hunter or what they are going to do next, this is shown at the start of Halloween when Michael Myers is creeping round the house, we are in the eyes of the killer, we can see what he’s looking at and what he’s going to do next. Extreme close up’s are used within the horror genre for identification values; this is done so we can indentify with the terror as we cannot see what is going on around them. The camera work often makes use of Point of view shots this can be with a steadicam, which is used to create terror as it makes it seem as if we are in the monsters eyes. The editing within a horror film creates unsettling jumps, this can create suspense and can be faster cuts when we can’t see a threat it creates a feeling of jumpiness and we think that something might be about to happen. Sound is very important within horror films as there are ambient sounds within the films for atmospheme, and footsteps and a heartbeat can be added in the sound mix, this helps us relate to the people within the film.
Iconography is the next convention within horror films, this can be through visual signifiers, within colours for example black is a colour which people can feel scared as it is the unknown, people get trapped in the darkness so black relates to this, red is another colour which can connote horror, it represents blood and death. Lighting within horror films can create shadows, which are normally seen round corners and under doors, they create the feeling of mystery, the natural light like sunlight and moonlight are also used a lot to create an unnatural feeling. The objects within the mise-en-scene are normally commoner objects like weapons or just household object like a lamp could be used for a weapon or icons of the supernatural; ghosts, crucifixes. The iconography of childhood innocence plays a part as in Halloween when we see that Michael Myers is just a young little innocent boy we don’t expect him to have killed his sister but when we see him with the knife in his hand dripping of blood, it makes us on edge.
The narrative structure is another convention of a horror film, this can be with the sub genre of the film, such as the slasher, because they are formulaic, such as childhood events can create a killer within the film then later when the child has grown up it has become a killer or a group of stupid teenagers such as in Eden Lake who are completely immoral with one female girl who survives to the end of the film this is known as the “Final Girl”.
The character types in the film is the next main horror film convention, as mentioned within narrative structure there is normally a “Final Girl” who survives throughout the film or nearly to the end of the film. There are also monsters with a hidden secret or a hidden plan within the horror genre, these monsters are normally made evil or psychotic by an earlier event within the film. There are also teenagers who are immoral and don’t really care about anything and have been brought up uncared for who go round killing people or get themselves killed in a stupid way. The police in horror films are normally seen to be stupid and unhelpful or are easily killed early on within the film.
The themes within the horror genre are a big convention within these films, there are normally binary oppositions i.e. natural VS. unnatural, good VS. evil. There is also the return of the repressed within horror films this is a Freudian term; where something bad that happens to someone earlier on in there life is repressed, but then is remembered or returns when something reminds them or what happened, then they act on this.
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