Horror Genre

Horror
A film that depicts the viewers emotions, worst fears, terror of the unknown, disgust and nightmares. The horror genre is a genre that often feature scenes throughout the film that scare the viewer with the use of macabre and also that of the supernatural. The genre also overlaps with many other genre’s such as fantasy, science fiction and thriller. Most plots of horror films involve an evil force, event, or personage commonly of supernatural origin into the everyday world. Elements that feature in horror films are often torture, gore, ghosts, demonic forces, supernatural organisms and serial killers.


Example
Halloween (1978)
Director- John Carpenter
Release date: October 25, 1978
On Halloween 1963, the small town of Haddonfield is shocked when six-year-old Michael Myers returns from trick-or-treating and for some unknown reason stabs his older sister to death with a big kitchen knife and is found by his parents staring into space with the bloody knife in his hand. Sent to a mental institution, Michael spends the next 15 years just sitting, still staring into space despite the best efforts of his Doctor, Dr. Samuel Loomis. Now, on October 30th 1978, something triggers Michael off and during a storm manages to steal a car from Dr. Loomis and Nurse Marion (who was coming to take Michael to a court to keep him locked up) and goes back to Haddonfield where he steals a white mask. There, Laurie Stode, Michael's younger sister, finds that Michael is stalking her during the day (at school, at her home etc - but she doesn't know who he is.) As Dr. Loomis arrives and with the Sheriff frantically looks for Michael he doesn't know that Laurie is baby-sitting Lindsey and Tommy and that Laurie's friends Annie, Lynda and Bob are disappearing one by one.


This horror film set the conventions of horror films as it made significant use of first-person camera perspectives, unexceptional settings, and female heroines, all of which now define the horror film genre and are used in frequent other horror films.


This example of a horror film and the research of the horror genre allowed me to explore different ideas, when thinking of the storyline for our main-brief. The fact that Halloween contains a family in danger, made me think about using the concept of a nuclear family as it highlights that the horror that is in the film can happen to anyone, this makes it more scary and realistic.