The Horror Genre

The Horror genre is one of the most appreciated and favourited of the film genres, praying on the audiences primal fears to create negative emotions, Horrors often include a negative, evil force that that draws on the viewers nightmares. Horrors often aim to repulse and terrify the audience. Literary influences from Bram Stoker and the infamous Dracula and Mary Shelley with Frankenstein helped create the horror genre into what it is today. 

The Horror Genre uses a lot of low-key lighting, which creates shadows and preys on the audiences fear of the dark. This also accentuates the tone of the film and creates a sense of suspicion and adds to the suspense. Backlighting is also used a lot in horror movies to create silhouettes, for example in Psycho the iconic shower scene was shown through showing the silhouette of the killer and the knife and then swirling of blood down the drain. Silhouettes are used to create a negative connotation about a character.  

Horror Films tend to use a lot of Close-Up shots, often of a disturbing character to unsettle and scare the audience, for example in Sinister there is a close-up of Bughuul, the demon who would take control of the child, kill entire families and then devour the child’s soul. Horror films also often use bird-eye shots, with the camera looking down on the victim and seemingly from the point of view of the killer making the victim look powerless, Panning shots are used to show the audience the full view of a macabre scene or following the actor/actress to give the sense of them being followed or watched. Tilted shots are widely popular in Horrors because it offsets the image and makes the subject of the scene seem disturbed and off-balanced, it is also used when in the point of view of the victim so you can see what they see and often experience their murder. Hand-held camera shots are very popular in the Horror genre and aren't really used anywhere else, they are popular in the supernatural and haunting types of horror films. Establishing shots are often used to set the scene of the horror or show a macabre scene or disturbing setting and can sometimes be used to show how empty an area or town is.

The Horror genre has created many aesthetics that are reserved purely for the use of horror, for example Horror mies-en-scene often includes axes which have become an iconic horror prop, other mies-en-scene includes blood and the colours red and blue, with the blue colour having negative connotations and the red can show love or danger depending on the genre but with Horror it tends to show danger and can often be symbolic and replace blood. Sound in a horror is mainly composed of screams or music that creates a slow climax and suspense and then cuts out at the climax of the film.