The Mystery Of Horror Films

“What’s your favorite scary movie?” is the most well known line in all of the horror film genre which comes from the opening scenes of Scream (1996). The movie Scream is about a series of murders around the one year anniversary of Maureen Prescott’s death, mother of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). The killer known as Ghostface is after Sidney Prescott to make her pay for the sins committed by her mother. In the beginning of the film, Ghostface calls Casey ( Drew Barrymore) and one of the questions during their phone call is “What is your favorite scary movie?” Scream is one of the most famous scary movies because of Randy’s (Jammie Kennedy) played by three rules for surviving a horror movie. The rules are (1) never have sex, (2) never do drugs and drink alcohol, and (3) never say “I’ll be right back”. Randy makes the argument that the people murdered are the fornicators, substance users, and

Identify the reasons King advances for our interest in and fascination with horror films. Which do you find the most unsettling? Which the most convincing? Why?

With Halloween being right around the corner, children are preparing for ABC’s “Thirteen Nights of Halloween,” parents are picking up pumpkins to celebrate the Celtic holiday, and the urge for a good horror story is emerging. The monster, such as vampires or zombies, is taking the spotlight and it’s hard to ignore. From Dante’s Inferno to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, being frightened has not only been one of people’s favorite pastimes, but a way for us to explain the paranormal and unrevealed. In recent times however, there seems to be a shift from demonic creatures of the night to over sexualized human-like creatures who hide amongst us in the day. In this essay, I will show the gradual humanizing of the vampire and how it has morphed from a demonic creature damned by God into a creature with a big heart that is not much different from us.

Insidious easily fits the film conventions of the horror genre and themes. Insidious incorporates classic horror elements like haunted houses, ghosts, children being possessed, and outside experts of the spiritual world. A family with three children start to witness things out of the ordinary and are unable to understand what they are seeing. The mother, for instance, knew she was seeing strange deities, but her husband refused to believe it and thought she was just out of it. The classic element of denying there is anything out of the ordinary going on is a classic horror element. Typically the people who deny the reality that there might be something supernatural happening, are the first people to be killed or affected in some manner.

Horror film is designed to scare the viewer, and what is scarier than seeing the real world for how it truly is? Films have always replicated reality but there is something quite different about the horror genre. Horror films have always mirrored reality but, unlike other genres, have heightened our fears and manifested them into atomic monsters (post World War II), or mummies and skeletons (early 1900s). But as the world around us got scarier and reality was twisted with war, horror films began to add aspects of political and social climates. With political campaigns happening every four years and the rapid development occurring, it was not hard for film directors in the late twentieth century to latch on to something.

Many films, and sometimes film genres, are dismissed as being part of the cinema of escapism. This assumes that in times of particular social or economic hardship (often on a national or international level), people go to movies for the sole purpose of “getting away from it all.” While some films may follow this overall trend, it is important to note that it cannot be a generalization made for all films. During the Weimar era in Germany, the nation was in the midst of a national struggle on many fronts. As a people, Germans attempted to deal with their past (the problems during World War I as well as the consequences of their loss) and move toward the future (finding a solution for their economic struggles and defining themselves

Monsters have proven to be more than just the fiendish appearance or the evil within such creatures – their monstrosity symbolizes, more or less, the characteristics that define mankind and/or our innermost fears. Prior to this Exploration of the Humanities course, I have interpreted monsters for what they are: heartless and destructive creatures that generate fear. However, I never bothered what the true cause of such fear is – only associating the gruesome presence with a psychological reaction of horror. But taking this class allowed me to broaden my perspective on monsters and monstrosity: humans fear the “Other” because we as individuals have an “Other” within us (subconsciously) that we are not willing to show to those in our

American horror films have often played on our societal fears, and in Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992), the film directly deals with race, reminding us that it is still very much a problem in society today, and that ‘our traumatic racial past still haunts us’ (Vern, 2015). The film ‘marks the introduction of an African-American monster to the horror mainstream’ (Donaldson, 2011) and it ‘succeeds in asking some very pointed questions about race and class’ (Elizabeth, 1992). Ultimately this is done by investigating ‘the obscure fears we harbour about the unknown’ – or the racial ‘other’ (Blackwell, 2015). Andrew Tudor says that ‘typically, a horror movie will exploit the tensions implicit in a particular contrast, confronting known with the

Horror movies allow us the experience of intense emotional excitement from the unacceptable actions and their consequences in the films.

A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the

“Horror itself is a bit of a bullied genre, the antagonist being literary snobbery and public misconception. And I think good horror tackles our darkest fears, whatever they may be. It takes us into the minds of the victims, explores the threats, disseminates fear, studies how it changes us. It pulls back the curtain on the ugly underbelly of society, tears away the masks the monsters wear out in the world, shows us the potential truth of the human condition. Horror is truth, unflinching and honest. Not everybody wants to see that, but good horror ensures that it's there to be seen.” - Kealan Patrick Burke. Recently, the school board has decided to implement a ban on all classic horror stories, including those that were previously part of

Horror can be defined as a genre meant to psychologically trigger individual fear with the presence of certain supernatural or abstract characteristics. The genre is dependent on people’s fascination with unrealism and the sensation that comes from experiencing fear personified into tangible elements on a screen. Horror films have thrilled audiences for decades, revealing stories of the more sinister parts of life. The popular allure that stems from the genre comes from the tension moviegoers experience when aroused by specific stimuli uniquely present in these cinematic features (Walters). Over time, as the genre progressed, the standardized elements found in a typical horror movie began to shift in different directions primarily due to changing societal circumstances and increasing consumer demand for cinematic innovation. The expansive nature of the different codes and conventions within the horror genre, coupled with the evolution of society’s fascination with these characteristics, has led to the mutation of the genre itself in order to allow for unique approaches to a familiar style in response to both economic developments and taste shifts within the consumer industry.

A sixteen-year-old boy sits on the couch and watches a horror movie. Suddenly, a scene where a man stabs a woman emerges on the television screen. The boy is not distressed by this scene because he is used to witnessing a great deal of violence before. He just learned a new idea and increased his criminal expertise. As a result, horror movies inspire copycat crimes. Copycat crimes are defined as those that are “inspired, motivated or modeled after acts that have occurred before in the media” (“Understanding”). The crimes themselves either mirror the inspiring acts or are simply based upon them. Violence and criminal behavior shown in horror movies affect people psychologically and physically. Watching violence in the media desensitizes people to the world around them and enables them to become more familiar with violence and crime. One may conclude that horror movies do not affect them because they watch horror for fun, however, people are unconsciously affected by watching horror movies. Although most people believe horror movies do not impact them, horror movies inspire people to commit copycat crimes in real life because the violence portrayed in the media psychologically damages people and makes them more aware of violence.

Horror films have been around for over 100 years, petrifying people and bringing their worst fears to life but still they can’t get enough of this sick and gory genre that is unbelievably entertaining and captivating to the audience. Horror comes with many sub-genres from your bloody slashers like Friday the 13th to your Supernatural-Horrors like The Exorcist, but in the end they all seem to do their job by scaring you and leaving you with nightmares for weeks on end. Usually Horror’s films have the same character stereotypes such as the nerd, the jock, the slut, the virgin, the junky, the tough hero, the unlikely hero and last but not least the masked murderer, but yet they all play their own part in the making of these horrors movies whether it is the extremely slow walk the killer does but almost always catches the victim, or the unwise decision to split up and investigate where the unusual noise is coming from.

Horror films are movies that aim to elicit a strong physiological reaction in the viewer, such as raised heartbeat and fear. Three horror films by the names of Psycho, Scream and The Messengers will be analysed and compared to an episode of the popular children’s show Shaun the Sheep. Five elements will be addressed in this analysis, those being camera techniques, Mise-en-scene, Editing, Lighting and Sound.