Horror - Genre Conventions

Settings

• Small communities or isolated places

• Places with a 'past'. Abandoned houses, old lunatic asylum .

• Homes, usually with several layers. Cellars, attics - places where secrets may be hidden

• Innocent places at night time - play areas, etc. 

Technical Code

• Camerawork is EXPRESSIVE, rather than naturalistic. Canted angels to create disorientation.

• ECUs on victim to show their fear and making sure the threat is off screen so you don't know where it is. ECUs on the threat to connote a invasion of personal space.

• Sound is important. Often with heartbeat noises high in the mix with common ambient sounds in the sound track.

• Use of sudden jumps from LS to ECU to unsettle the audience. 

Iconography

• Visual signifies like the colours black and red (blood, danger, darkness, evil)

• Motivated, low key lighting

• Childhood innocence - playgrounds, dolls, clowns, childrens songs. 

Narrative Structure

• Classic realist Hollywood narrative with normality-enigma-path to resolution-closure
• Could contain a 'false ending'
• Final girl of slashers films

Character Types

• Main protagonist, Victim/Hero
• Monsters with hidden secret or made psychotic
• Children
• 'Immoral' teens get killed
• The 'have a go' hero

Themes

• Binnary opposites - natural v unnatural, good v evil
• Science out of control
• Hidden evils