SUB-GENRES – FINAL DECISION

For my A2 media studies coursework, my group have decided that we are going to make our horror film in the psychological sub-genre of horror. We chose this because we feel that the narrative of our film can be interesting and we felt that our creativity could be expressed easily as there are many codes and conventions of existing psychological horror films that can help aid us in creating our own. We also chose psychological because not only will it be slightly challenging to portray the haunted nature of the main protagonists’ mind but it will also benefit us as we will be able to research the different ways in which this has been done successfully.

To help persuade our decision in choosing to make our horror film in the psychological sub-genre, I looked at existing psychological horror films for inspiration as to what to add into our narrative to make our horror film a success. The film ‘Black Swan’ was an important factor in the decision to choose the psychological sub-genre because it is a popular film in the genre and many aspects of it have influenced the ideas that we have come up with to include in our practical pieces.

Various camera shots and scenes shown in the Black Swan trailer have helped persuade us to choose psychological as they have given us ideas on what to display in our horror film trailer that will show our target audience that the main protagonist is experiencing psychological torment in the form of her own mental strain.

Once we decided what our final sub-genre was going to be we looked at existing psychological horror films for ideas on who our antagonist of the film should be. Films like Misery and Orphan showed us that it is conventional for the antagonist of a psychological horror film to be female because they are usually meant to be depicted as weak and vulnerable but if they have a psychological burden then they may turn to violence in order to overcome their struggles. We looked at the film Gothika for inspiration on how to present our antagonist as the antagonist in their film has psychological traumas but no one believes her.

The character Miranda tries to convince her doctor and the people around her that she is not imagining the eerie things that are happening to her but fails to persuade them as they just think she is crazy. This has inspired us as we know in our trailer to make the protagonist/antagonist the same person who is experiencing psychological trauma in order to scare the audience and show them the genre of the film.