Malus Evaluation Question One – Script

The horror genre tends to follow strict conventions in order to guarantee success in its products. Usually the narrative of a horror film is pretty simple- a negative event happens in the protagonist’s life and the film shows the struggles that they face as a result. For example in The Conjuring (2013), a demonic force possesses a mother and as a result of this her entire family suffer the wrath of the unearthly presence.  “Malus” follows a similar narrative convention as the amateur witches accidentally summon the devil, which unleashes a series of unfortunate events in their lives.

Setting is another convention that tends to be a huge factor in the way a horror film releases the emotional response it aims to release on the audience. Amongst the many successful horror films settings all have one thing in common: isolation. The negativity in a horror film tends to feed of the isolation of protagonists and this is reflected in the locations the products have been shot in. Typical settings tend to be forests, old/haunted buildings, insane asylums, hospitals, post-apocalyptic ghost towns or space. When deciding on the setting for “Malus” we chose to shoot in a remote forest and an old building to tie in the idea of isolation.

As well as setting and narrative the character traits generic conventions amongst horror films. The protagonist tends to be a male character who ends up being regarded as the hero in some sense, perhaps as the survivor of whatever may have occurred (I Am Legend, 2007), the weak and submissive female who tends to be the first to be killed (Casey Becker in Scream) and so in some ways you could say that Malus is unconventional to this convention. The cast of Malus is mostly females who each have their own traits making some stubborn, brave and smart whilst having the only male character playing the manipulative role. This characterisation is popular in the niche witchcraft subgenre, as witches have always been stereotyped as powerful females and this can be mirrored in television series: American Horror Story: Coven, the media product we took our inspiration from.

When conveying our research we considered all sub genres of horror such as supernatural/paranormal films such as The Poltergeist (1982), science fiction horror such as Alien (1979), and psychological horror such as The Shining (1980) before settling on witchcraft. Or decision to focus on witchcraft as the main focus of our horror film was simply because of the gap in the market at the moment. We conveyed a questionnaire in which we retrieved a high positive response from the idea of a female-driven witchcraft film as well as conveying research into the popularity of American Horror Story’s third season, Coven that had such a brilliant reception it made it to Netflix.