Research: Horror Genre

 Horror Genre

     What is horror? Horror is a genre of storytelling intended to scare, shock, and thrill its audience. Horror can be interpreted in many different ways such as the supernatural movements, monster, or a threat that is being posed on the "main character". The horror genre is often a reflection of the culture and what it fears at the time. In this blog post, we will be taking a look at the history of the horror genre, its conventions, and the main reasons why horror is still popular in todays' society. The reason why im choosing to research the horror genre is because my group is thinking of creating a horror film opening and we would like to take inspiration from other successful horror films. This will help to strengthen our 2-minute film opening as we will know what we are looking to achieve which is hopefully to give the audience a sense of horror and unexpectancy. 

History of the horror genre in film:

     Mellies created “Le Manoir du Diable,” aka “The Haunted Castle” or “The House of the Devil,” in 1898, and it is widely believed to be the first horror movie. As we reach the 1910s, horror films began to solidify the aesthetic that is still used to this day. The main question to answer is what makes a good horror film. An example I will be using is "Pyscho" directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, and John Gavin. 

     In Hitchcock's 'Pyscho' we can see the groundbreaking cinematic techniques for their time such as the handheld camera in shower scene which was revolutionary and had a lasting impact on the horror genre. The plot was also very suspenseful but even more importantly, is the representation that this film had. Such as when the girl's blood was going down into the drain spiraling which represents that her death was just a grain of sand on a beach. This was represented beautifully as the scene had a pan movement to the newspaper to show that life moves on. The violent murder scene in the shower was a traditional horror element, and this mix of revolutionary cinematography and traditional horror elements is what really helped separate this film from others at the time period. In my own film opening my group won't be including a kill scene as we will just be creating suspense for the 2-minute time period and hopefully the audience will be left on the edge of their seat wanting to watch more. Some key takeaways we will be using, will be the different horror elements used in "Pyscho" such as the camera movements. However, we will mainly be taking inspiration from "The Conjuring" with the dialogue between the characters, and this will help to create a story within 2 minutes of film.