Psychological Horror

Psychological horror is one of the many sub-genres of horror. We chose to opt for this specific form because most people find this scarier than other sub-genres, purely because it focuses on everyday life, meaning that there is a chance that those events can happen in reality, therefore making the audience more cautious.

This would differentiate from other sub-genres such as supernatural horror because those events are less likely to happen. ‘Based on true events’ is often used with psychological horror because it tends to be based on factual occurrences in real life. Film makers often use this as it creates the illusion that there is a possibility than the plot can happen to the audience, thus making them want to watch it. They rely on the audience’s mind to create the horror effect.

These films tend to rely on the characters beliefs, fears and other hidden truths about the character/what they have done. They expose the evil that hides behind normality, but also contains elements of the paranormal genre in which the audience cannot relate completely.

This will be reflected in our trailer as (insert name) hides away her other ‘evil’ identity and no one else knows about her disorder. A common convention of this genre is that they tend to involve ordinary people who end up exerting the horror onto other characters (though this is generally established at the end of the film).

Generally, the killer tends to appear normal: there aren’t any physical signs that would make them appear as a killer. We will reflect this in our own movie trailer as we will display the idea that she leads an average life, causing false certainty amongst the audience as they would not expect her to be the antagonist and the protagonist. Also, in the trailers, the audience rarely sees the killers face as this helps to produce mystery and increase suspense.

When it comes to the use of weapons in psychological horror, they tend to not be physical but rather there is a focus on the killer’s twisted mind, which is used to frighten the victims. Visions, ‘jumpy’ moments ect. are used instead of physical weapons such as guns and knives.

Common settings for psychological horror trailers are as follows: big houses, woodland locations, warehouses, schools and hospitals. These settings create a sense of realism in relation to the audience as they would be able to relate to some elements of the film as they might have seen/been or live in such surroundings. This would increase fear as they would be able to picture themselves in the position of the victims.

Another common convention of psychological horror films is that there tend to be flashbacks which inform the audience of why the killer has reached such a state. However, bearing in mind that we will be constructing a trailer rather than a short film, we would have to leave this part out as otherwise we would give away the whole plot – however, there is a small scene in the therapists office which nods to the idea that the audience would find out the cause.

Often the sounds/music used in psychological horror films is contrapuntal sound (i.e. the sound does not match the action that is onscreen). This is effective because it is used to contradict what is taking place on screen.

The antagonist of psychological horror often comes back for revenge and the victims tend to differ, but females are often the ones that are targeted the most. The use of children as killers is also common but we decided to break these conventions in order to shock/confuse the audience.