Horror Film Conventions

Horror Film Conventions:

Emily Francis - Preliminary Task

This is the preliminary task I did with Emma Pound and Jemma Wells.

The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense
The sixth sense is a film which our group are extremely interested in as it revolves around the idea of a child seeing the dead. The young boy in the film is misunderstood like the young girl in our storyboard, the young boy sees the dead 'ghosts' of all people and how they died. The young girl in our storyboard can see the ghost of her sister.

Dr. Malcolm Crowe is a child psychologist who is looking at curing the boys illness, the young boy in this film represents innocence and contrasts the dark nature of the film.

This was the film which was most linked to our original idea and was partly to do with why we chose to use a young girl.

This is an example clip of the innocence of the child and how we wanted our child to be portrayed:

Location, Location, Location

Typical Horror Villains

Our first task we explored the typical villains within Horror films to try and make a decision as to what kind of character we wanted to centre our film around. We researched the top horrors and created the above moodboard.

One character that is typically used which we found to be our particular favourite was young girls, as they challenge the representation of children. It subverts our expectation that young girls are delicate, dainty, gentle and innocent. This is why we have chosen to use a young girl as the main focus of our film.

Emily Hillyar - Preliminary Task

Our chosen genre- What is Horror?

The above pictures shows all the elements we feel are key in any horror film and would like to include in our film opening.

What is Genre?

Genre: style or category of art, music, or film

There are various different types of genres within film. Different factors can represent a genre. The main ones include:

How do we distinguish which genre a film comes under?

Specific characteristics of a film can denote genre. 

Horror films usually all have similar characteristics and can be identified by low key lighting, non-diegetic sounds, extreme close ups and quick cuts. 

Romantic Comedies usually have high key lighting using filler lights, upbeat non-diegetic music and bright colours within costume. This is a combination of romance and comedy and is just one example of how genres can be combined.





Another example of combined genres include Lord of the Rings which comes under both fantasy and adventure. Characteristics are typical of both- many involve tracking shots to follow the action, and melodramatic music to reflect mood.

Benedict's Preliminary Task

Here is my Preliminary task which I created in October with Nick and Jack.

Film Openings Research