Tyler Poyle

Typical horror films are designed to be unsettling, frightening and to cause panic or fear. They look at the dark

parts of life and focus on forbidden or strange types of events. To do this they will use the general publics fears, vulnerabilities and the possibility of death. Horror films will have classic conventions to do this. Some of the classic conventions of horror include: Character types like the final girl and the villain, a setting that creates a sense of isolation, and recognisable iconography. Character Types -The Final Girl The idea of a final girl is a very common theme in thriller and horror films, particular slasher films. This idea refers to the last woman alive to confront the killer and possibly be the only one left alive to tell the story. The final girl can relate to things like innocence and is often portrayed as a virgin. This idea has been used in many films such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, The Ring, and many more. A common usage of the Final Girl idea is that a series of victims are killed one by one by a killer, creating an increase of terror, creating a climax at the end in which the last survivor stops the villain or gets away. There are some cases where the final girl does not survive to the ending. An example of this is the TV miniseries Dead Set were the final girl Kelly is the last one of the group alive. She is trapped in a room surrounded by zombies when she decides to try and fight them off. She opens the door, screams and then the camera cuts to black later showing her as a zombie.

The protagonist Kelly from the TV miniseries Dead Set by Charlie Brooker.

-The Villain, an evil force. The antagonist of horror films can come in many forms, some being supernatural monsters like Dracula, Frankensteins monster, and the Wolf Man. Examples of real life monsters include the shark in Jaws the Snake in Anaconda or the crocodile in Lake Placid. Villains also come in the form of serial killers like Jason from Friday the 13th , Michael Myers from Halloween or leather face from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The antagonist Michael Myers from the

movie Halloween.

Tyler Poyle

The Setting The setting in horror films varies quite a bit but is often a faraway location, distant to the rest of society, a place where help is few and far between. Setting like this could be a cabin far away in the woods, or an abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere. Places like this give a sense of unfamiliarity and most of the time this kind of setting is chosen by the villain and not the victim, as they would not usually go to a place like this without some kind of exterior motive. In other films the location is one of the domestic kind, making the viewer or victim feel like that they are in their comfort zone and that they are safe, only to have that feeling destroyed once the villain enters the home. The audience can relate to this because their home is a place that they consider safe and having the villain enter a place like that would make them doubt the safety of it.

The cabin in the woods from the film The Cabin In The Woods

Sidney Prescotts suburban house in the film Scream