What are some of the key conventions of the horror genre?

In all genres there are obvious key conventions creating the mood and atmosphere within that genre. Horror has a lot of common conventions running throughout all horror films. In this essay I shall explore the different ways in which the fear is intensified by the different conventions used.
The setting of the horror film is one of the most important conventions used to create the atmosphere. Small rural or suburban communities are often used as the establishing setting as they can also start the base story. For example there could be a hidden secret between the villagers that is yet to be uncovered. These places could also have a past that is making a return or an abandoned house or old lunatic asylum could cause the return of the repressed. The houses used also often have a lot of levels to them and almost always have either an attic or cellar or both. To us, attics hold our hidden fears because we’re never really sure what could be up there as it’s not common territory to us. They’re also known to contain old artefacts which, in our minds, link up to ghosts and ghouls. Whereas, the cellar connotes our primitive instincts and our minds run ary with thoughts of hidden monsters lurking in the dark corners. All these places may even seem like perfectly innocent buildings or areas in the day time, but at night the truth may unfold to reveal a very different atmosphere of horror and fear.
In the film ‘Halloween’ for example, the murder house appears to be perfectly normal until the night of Halloween when eerie happenings begin. This particular house also had a past to it which brought home the repressed Michael Myers who’d killed his sister 15 years previously.

The camerawork used is also important to the mood that is given. Weird high and low angles and canted camera shots are common in horror films and make the audience feel disorientated. Extreme close ups (ECUs) of the victim also allow the audience to identify with the character and their fear. This also excludes what is being seen by the character from the shot, intensifying the fear as you don’t know what is there. Sudden ECUs of the monster connotes the invasion of our personal space sending sudden jolts of terror through our bodies. Point of view (POV) shots are used to allow the audience see through the monsters eyes and throughout the film they become more frequently used to see through the victim/protagonist/final girl’s eyes.

Changing the depth of frame is a very popular use of camerawork as it enables a view of both the protagonist and the monster, but also shows that the protagonist is unaware of the monsters presence, building the tension for the audience. The editing pace is used to create suspense, for example, speeding up the editing pace creates a feel of jumpiness and makes the audience expect something to happen.
Within the iconography used in horror films, visual signifiers such as the colours red and black that are used are obvious connotations of dark, evil, blood and danger. The lighting used is expressive and non-naturalistic. Low key, high contrast lighting is used to emphasize the shadows allowing the audience to imagine the monsters that could be hidden in the shadows. The light is often shown from unexpected angles such as beneath the character also, as we are used to lighting usually being from above. Lighting from low angles casts odd shadows on the characters face and could connote hell, or bonfires (relating back to our primitive instincts). Common objects such as weapons, blood, masks, supernatural icons, crucifixes etc are all common objects used in the mise-en-scene. They’re all commonly related to fear.

Horror films usually follow similar narrative structures. Normality-enigma-path to resolution-closure, or hero-agent of change-quest-resolution-closure are the classic realist/classic Hollywood narrative structures. However, there may be ‘false closures’ with the real closure left unclear, either to suggest a mythic quality to the monster or to enable a sequel. The obvious hero in the classic Hollywood narrative becomes problematic in many horror films as throughout the film the main protagonist is often also the victim. As the audience identifies with this character it provides a point of masochistic identification which is more complicated in many other genres.
In sub-genres such as slashers the narratives become very formulaic. A childhood psychotic event creates the killer who returns to a past location on an anniversary to kill again. The victims are usually a group of dense teenagers, mostly girls, including one virginal, slightly masculine female character who survives to be the ‘final girl’. An example of a film that fits this sub-genre narrative is Halloween. Boy kills sister-15 years later he returns (on Halloween) -kills group of sexually active teenagers-Laurie (main virginal girl) is the victim/protagonist and survives and is known as ‘the final girl’. Levi Strauss’s analysis of narrative structure works particularly well with the horror genre. Horror often plays with opposites such as innocence and evil. It develops the menacing atmospheres by relying on our awareness of the existence of the ‘opposite term’ to innocence. The use of dolls, fairgrounds, nursery rhymes and children etc in horror therefore plays with this term as these objects are often associated with innocent acts and are now being used in an eerie sense.

The character types included in horror films are: - the main protagonist. Who is often the victim/hero. This is usually also the ‘final girl’ (mentioned in the previous paragraph). – The monster, who has either a hidden secret or who has possibly been made psychotic by a previous event. – The stupid/’immoral’ group of teens to get killed. – Children. As they are part of the ‘opposite term’. – Ineffectual police and ‘normal’ law enforcers. These characters fit in well with the film The Shining. The main protagonist being Wendy, who also becomes the victim as Jack turns on her. The monster being Jack, who has been made psychotic through the pressure of work and distractions at the hotel. The child being Danny, Wendy and Jack’s son and the law enforcers being the people at the other end of the radio who don’t do anything to help when Wendy and her family are stuck out in the snow with no phone lines.

The themes in horror films are often one of the following; binary oppositions, such as natural Vs unnatural, good Vs evil, known Vs unknown. The return of the repressed - things from the past coming up to the surface to change a person’s personality so that they become a psychotic monster. The hidden evil inside and science out of control.