Research
-Horror

Repertoire of elements

The repertoire of elements in horror films is very different from those used in a romantic comedy for example. While comedies, thrillers and love films create a welcoming and happy feeling, horror creates a dark and scary feeling. The idea of a horror is obviously to put fear into the viewers, some different aspects of repertoire elements have different objectives but all are there to add to the scary effect.Mis en sceneWe generally expect horrors to be set in places such as haunted houses, deep dark gloomy forests and abandoned out of the way places; some are set in normal houses and fit in with a normal lifestyle. This adds to the scary effect because it makes the audience believe that because it is happening in a real place it is real. The moon is a very popular source of light in many films as they want to keep it as dark and scary as possible.

Themes/ Ideas

The main theme of a horror is death; a character usually tends to die fairly near the start and most defiantly at the end of a horror film. A lot of horrors track a particular character who undergoes lots of scary and weird experiences, then comes face to face with death towards the end of the film. Other times the storyline follows that of the killer or the bad guy in the film, this is effective because when we see this person appear at times in the play it is scarier.

Style-Lighting

This plays a key part to how scary a horror may be to the viewer, in most cases it is dark and very gloomy sometimes with bad weather adding to the scary atmosphere. There are horror films that are set in the day though; this is an effective way of making a film believable because although we can relate to the night time most people are at their most active in the day time so when something strange happens it gives it a greater effect on the realism.

Characters and Relationships

The characters vary in horrors, modern day horrors include a lot more humans than they used to. The effect of using humans in a horror is that like some other aspects of the repertoire of elements it adds to the realism and the believability of the film. It is common in horrors that we have for example; ghosts, monsters and characters in masks, these are also effective in making an audience frightened as we think to ourselves when watching about what we would do if we saw that in the real world. The relationship between characters is mainly some sort of grudge that they want to make another character pay for, although sometimes we see a love relationship turn nasty or a friendship group hunted.

All media is constructed and the reason these ideas are used in horror is because it is what people find scary and all of these repertoire of elements contribute to that effect.

Josh Thompson