The Horror Genre

The Horror Genre

A conventional horror has everything you’d expect is needed to scare an audience — the jumps, the darkness, the sinister music and obviously, some kind of villain fighting against our ever-wary protagonist. Over the years, horror movies have progressed and transformed exceptionally, each new film being released attempting to shock the audience in a new, unseen way. The fight to create a unique horror film is ongoing in today’s media, although they’re not always well received. 

One of the films considered a milestone for the horror genre is Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ (1996), which reignited the love of the slasher genre and opened up a whole new era of teen horror flicks. By creating a villain who is just as human as us, a horror can truly thrill its audience with the seemingly realistic nature of the film. ‘Scream’ takes this to a whole new level and takes the well-known ‘horror conventions’ and subverts them completely. In the first scene of the film, one which will always be ingrained in my memory, we see Drew Barrymore, a well-esteemed actress, milling about her home like any other teenager on a normal night. What we don’t expect as an audience, is for something to happen to such a high profile actress; surely she’s our protagonist? With expert lighting and sound, we hear the first call which triggers a phrase which will be well known in horror movies for years to come: “What’s your favourite scary movie?”

The single line, spoke in a raspy voice with nothing but silence echoing it, became a mantra for the film and audiences worldwide shaking with anticipation. The moment I heard the voice of our famous, ‘ghostface killer’ for the first time, I soon realised that heart palpitations would be a common feat for any viewer of this film.  

Another great thing that, ‘Scream’ manages to do is alert the audience of the so called ‘rules’ of the horror genre.  It picks up on the many things which have been overdone by past films and assure them they won’t see the same cliches in this film, such as saying, “I’ll be right back” or being sexually promiscuous, as obviously, these are ways to your certain demise. 

While considered sadistic by many, the purpose of a horror film is to shock and frighten the audience and many people actually enjoy this sensation of being scared and having their worst fears come to life. There’s something addictive about the adrenaline you get when watching scenes of depravity and senseless violence, for example the popular film from Wes Craven, The ‘Hills Have Eyes’ (2006). Personally, the film left me feeling disgusted and unsatisfied because it lacks the psychological aspect I think horrors need to really connect to the audience. However, the film does deliver on its promise and undoubtedly shocks the audience with its immense amount of gore and physical violence. Shot in a desert scene, the film certainly gives the audience that well-known feeling of isolation used frequently in horror movies to place the audience into the lives of the characters and enable them to empathise with them. 

Unlike the isolationism, Gore Verbinski’s ‘The Ring’ (2002) features scenes of claustrophobia and entrapment. The well-known Japanese adaptation is most popular for its well scene, which I had the misfortune of witnessing when I was much younger, and it was a memory that never left me as I grew. The horrifying visual of Samara emerging from the well from the television set was done in such a way that I was afraid to ever be alone with a television at night again. The lighting set an eerily dark scene and the lack of light from the girl herself suggested something much more than sinister emanating from her. I’ll never forget the almost dead silence that made my heart pound and the way the camera hung in a way which made me feel totally immersed in the set. 

By using female villains, horror films can successfully create a character who is unpredictable in action and script. Jaume Collet-Serra takes perfect advantage of this by creating a film with not only a female villain, but one who is also a child — the epitome of innocence at that, in his film ‘Orphan’. He uses child-like sets like playgrounds and classrooms to give the audience a false sense of security which lures them into the film and alarms them all the more when the inevitable happens and the film turns on its head, exposing the child for what she really is. 

To see how far horrors really have progressed, I recently went to view the new film, ‘As Above So Below’ (2014), and was enlightened with the reality that with the sheer amount of horror film which have been made in the past one hundred years, the element of surprise and shock the horror genre is so well-known for, is beginning to fade. As creators attempt to introduce something new in order to scare audiences with things never seen before, horrors are shying away from the thrill and heading far more towards gore and relying on disturbing sights in order to frighten. Films like The Human Centipede (2009) are clear displays of this. The new film did successfully create a dark atmosphere and while I did see people in the cinema jumping out of their seats from fright, it failed to frighten me in any way personally. I definitely won’t be staying awake at night thinking about scenes from this particular film.