Genre ResearchHorror

Codes and conventions of a horror:• Unsettling footage that is designed to cause panic and terror in the

audience.• They centre around the dark side of life and focus around characters

vulnerabilities and the terror of the unknown.• They play our humans fear or death • Clear binary opposites e.g. Good vs. evil• Horror films tend to build up suspense in the audience this then leads to a

shocking ending therefore entertaining the audience till the end of the film.

Codes of the horror genre would be things like:• Dark lighting • an isolated setting e.g. a forest, a house in the middle of nowhere and a

abandoned hospital.• Jumpy non - diegetic sound • Disorientated non-diegetic sound • High camera angles to make the victims look my scared and more

vulnerable to the audience.• There are many different sub genre’s to horror this includes Psychological, True

story, Monster horror, Gore and many more .

An example of a film that follows the horror conventions is haunting Connecticut. synopsis:

• Just as the Campbell family life couldn't get any worst with an alcoholic dad Peter Campbell (Martin Donovan)things go bad to worst when they find out that there oldest son Matt Campbell( Kyle Gallner) has terminal cancer, they struggle with life as Sara Campbell (Virginia Madsen) a very religious mother is frequently taking her son to St. Michaels hospital Goatswood in Connecticut to get the treatment he needs. Sara believes its best to move to Connecticut to get the best possible treatment for her son despite there second mortgage. Sara then finds an affordable old house that has a lot of history behind it since it was a funeral home in the past. the family then move to the house not knowing the past to the house. When Matt has weird visions and nightmares from the past, he calls Reverend Popescu (Elias Koteas) his best friend who also has cancer and tells him that an evil entity is trapped in the house and they are able to see him because they are in the borderline of the worlds of the living and the dead. Matt has to find away to release these evil entity to free himself from his living nightmare.

Haunting in Connecticut opening scene:The opening sequence of haunting in Connecticut uses the codes and conventions of a horror this is by:• The still images disoriented non- diegetic sound is play throughout it

gives the opening a very creepy and jumpy tone to the opening. • One factor that brings the emotion of fear in the audience is when

the title sequence says 'Based on the true story' this provokes the emotion of fear because after the still images of dead people we already know the film is a horror and now we also know its based on a true story.

• In addition to this the still images are very dark they fade in and then reverse zooms and fades to another images, the images are all old and most run along the theme of death, with dead bodies in coffins.

• As well as that props help to get the conventions across in the cutaway the women is speaking to the camera it tracks over a table where prop newspaper laying with the titles saying , 'THE REAL HELL HOUSE' , 'NIGHTMARE IN CONNECTICUT' and 'REIGN OF TERROR' this is one of the key conventions already with taking about nightmare and terror these mirror what the horror genre play on this being nightmares and human fear and terror.

• The camera tracks from the newspaper to the women this is an enigma codes builds question in the audience like how are the women and the house connected? What was so bad about the house? it also then connects the house and the women together and the audience knows there is a bigger story behind it.

• The mid shot of the women shows that she is very much alone. this then highlights the women's vulnerability. It also shows her facial expression very well, she has a very blank face, no emotions this then shows the audience that the memory she is thinking about is serious and gives the impression she doesn't want to go back to it and remember it.

• The women's dialogue mirrors the good vs. evil. In the opening she say ' why do bad things happen to good people' this then highlights the struggle of bad things vs. good people and that there is always a fight between them, its not later on in the film until the audience find out which will win.