Genre analysis - Horror

7
Genre analysis The Horror Genre

Transcript of Genre analysis - Horror

Genre analysisThe Horror Genre

Iconography

Put simply iconography is a character or prop that is memorable in film because of the part they/it played in a movie, the most iconic props in the horror genre would be Jason Voorhees’ mask from Friday the 13th or Freddy Krueger's claw glove and stripped shirt from nightmare on elm street, the reason for these objects being so memorable is because they instill fear in the viewer.

Setting

The setting of a horror tends to be similar, generally the setting would take place at night or in a dark environment the areas can vary from typical suburban areas (nightmare on elm street) to the middle of the desert (The hills have eyes) as for the time period for most movies they usually take place during modern times as to make the movie relate to the viewer and make them think that could happen to them.

CharactersConventional characters in horror films mostly fall into similar stereotypes first is the antagonist who is the threat in the film though this changes depending on the film, a film like Friday the 13th has Jason Voorhees who kills people with a machete but in a horror film like Saw the antagonist is a person who kills people with traps the running theme for a main antagonist is the fact that they scare people with their way of killing, the second character type is the protagonist or in some cases the victim the story will usually revolve around them and depending on the film franchise their life can go either way, the final character archetype are the characters who die in order to progress the story giving them the nicknames ‘red shirts’ this can be seen in films such as Jaw which or scream in which a character dies for the sake of the plot this act as a way to draw audiences in and make them ask questions about what is happening.

Themes

There are several different themes which can be seen through different films the three most common of which appear in horror films would be gore, serial killings and the protagonists being unable to do anything throughout the majority of the film, these themes can be seen in films such as Saw, Halloween and scream; in these films each antagonist is a serial killer of a sort as they kill many people, usually in a spectacular fashion accompanied with lots of blood, and the protagonists are helpless and unable to retaliate due to fear or them being weak.

NarrativeThe narrative in most horror films is to either catch the antagonist and to stop them or to try and escape from them, it mostly depends on the protagonists convictions in the case of movies like scream with a serial killer on the loose the protagonists spend the majority of the film trying to figure out who the killer is, or in the case of movies like Saw the protagonists must find a way to escape the antagonists traps, the ending for horror films like these can vary they can find and stop the antagonist or they can be killed by them the story can vary depending on the franchise or the type of character the antagonist is.

Style

Style in films are recognizable conventions that appear in film of the same genre the most common one in slashers would be the excessive use of blood and gore this convention can be seen in slasher films such as scream and the Texas chainsaw massacre in which there is a large amount of blood and gratuitous violence.