Genre Research: Horror

Commonalities:

Camera Angles/Movements: There is a liberal use of canted angles and a more rare use of wide and long shots. Other common angles and movements are close ups and handheld.

Mise-en-scene: The lighting in these films is usually very dim, only highlighting points of interest such as weapons or wild murderers. The setting is often isolated, with only the main antagonist and protagonist group being within a large area. The antagonist in these films use costumes and makeup to make themselves less human looking, for example Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Streets' particularly melted looking face or It from the movie It's clown outfit. The antagonists typically use weapon props such as knives or bats. The acting in these movies is all very similar, with the protagonist and their group being on edge or terrified and the antagonist being stoic, creepy, or deranged.

Editing: Action matches, zooms, and shot-reverse-shots can be found in every horror movie. They also use eye-line match to establish settings or threats. Cutaways and crosscutting are used less often because the main story often follow the protagonist through one location, where the threat or antagonist is present.

Sound: The score in these films is often slow and off-putting or rising to grow tension. They use abnormal diegetic sound such as scratching. Non-diegetic sounds can be harsh and loud when something frightening happens in the full (i.e. the killer appearing in the doorway). Ambient noise also plays into the creepiness, often coming in the form of creaking floorboards or crows cawing. These loud sounds disrupt people's focus on trying to look out for threats, stressing out the viewer further.

Film Examples:

- It

- Old

- The Invisible Man

- The Conjuring

- Us

The Positives: I appreciate the sound design in these films, specifically the rising score that subtly builds tension. I also like the use of canted angles and manipulation of lighting. However, my favorite part of horror films is the costumes and makeup. Transforming people into unspeakable monsters but still maintaining the human shape is impressive, especially ones that don't look obviously faked or tacky.

The Negatives: The acting in these movies, for the protagonists mostly, is dry and predictable. The protagonist is always paranoid, overdramatic, and makes bad choices for their situation. To show, whenever a horror protagonist hears a noise in another room after it is established there is a threat nearby, they go to investigate regardless of the almost certain possibility of said threat making the noise. These movies also risk becoming repetitive, cliché, and tacky. Having the characters run around each other the whole movie gets old fast, and having the characters play simple "monster and human" is horribly cliché. The tackiness comes mostly in costumes but also in low shots or close ups that don't cause enough fear in the viewer.