Genre Conventions in Horror.

Individual Research into Genre – Conventions - Storylines, characters, editing, cinematography, music/sound, mise-en-scene, iconography etc




Storylines:

• The plot of a novel, play, film, or other narrative form.

Characters:

• A person in a novel, play, or film.
• The mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

Editing:

• How something is put together. For example how a film is edited together or how a magazine is edited together.

Cinematography:

• The art of photography and camerawork in film-making.

Music/Sound:

• Within film this can consist of music used in the title sequence or end credits, throughout the film in certain scenes or diegetic or non diegetic sound within shots.

Mise-en-scene:

• Everything within a scene. For example lighting, colour, costume and props all make the scene.

Iconography:

• The visual images and symbols used in a work of art or the study or interpretation of these.

Symbolic images which recur throughout the history of horror films include:

• the haunted house (forbidden chamber)
• Symbols of death
• The disfigured face or mask
• The screaming victim (in modern horror ‘the final girl’
• The phalic murder weapon: knife, stake, chainsaw
• Binary oppositions of good and evil eg Dracula/Van Helsing
• Darkened places where the ‘monster’ lurks: woods, cellars
• Blood and body parts (body horror)