To find conventions of horror films my group and I watched several horror films. The films we watched were Halloween (2007), The Ring (2002), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Wolf Creek (2005). The reason we watched these films as they each use different conventions to make there film scary/uncomfortable for you to watch.
As a group we got together to talk about these films directly after watching them all, we then discussed how scary we thought they were and we then put them in ranking order. We thought the least scary was Nightmare on Elm Street. Then The Ring and Halloween were equally scary then the scariest was Wolf Creek, our reasoning for this is explained below.
The film Halloween used the conventions of serial killers, blood and slasher. Although these are only a few examples, these are what makes this film fit into the horror genre. This film also uses the sense of realism, the fact that it is possible for this to happen in everyday life is also what makes the audience feel uncomfortable even when they’re in safe surroundings.
Secondly, the film The Ring can be identified as a horror due to the fact that it involves the paranormal/supernatural, death and fear. Paranormal/supernatural can be scary for the audience because the thought of something demonic being there that you have no control over makes them feel uneasy. It’s main element is fear, its obvious that every horror film has fear implemented somewhere in the film. In this film there’s the element of fear that the characters endure that makes it frightening for the audience as well.
Nightmare On Elm Street was different to the other horror films we watched as it wasn’t as modern as it was filmed in 1984. The technology was the biggest difference, we could see that the camera quality wasn’t as good and the lack of continuity and editing was also not perfected as it would be now. There was multiple times in the film where the characters would jump off something and you could see a mattress that they jump off, this shows an unprofessional approach to the film.
The final film was Wolf Creek was an example of a film that ‘was based on a true story’. This gives it more of the scary feeling that it could happen to you and that you’re never safe. This is the more gory film of the four, it involved lots of blood and slight torture which makes you feel slightly disgusted and uncomfortable. This film, as well as Halloween, has a BBFC guideline of 18, most horror films are often given a rating of 15 or 18 due to teens/ adults being able to determine the surrealism of the film, where as the younger children would not understand as much.
I had created this board on Pinterest as I found doing my research this way helped me realise the type of films that they are. http://pin.it/oBbbi8Y
Beth Tyson 