Genre

The genre of a horror film can be a range of different things, its aim could be to startle the viewer in different ways one of them might be through the means of supernatural and have them at the edge of their seats,horrors usually have a thriller genre combined with it also. Horrors usually deal with a persons nightmare, hidden or worst fear. Though a great deal of horror films are surrounded around the supernatural other films that have plots of morbidity, serial killers , a disease/virus outbreak and surrealism may be catergorised as a horror, films such as "Silence of the Lambs", "28 days later" and "Resdidant of Evil" go with this catergory.

Plots surrounded around a horror genre usually involve a evil force, event in the everday world. Elements that are typically in horror films are ghosts, torture, gore,vampires,curses,satanism,demons,viscious animals, cannibals, haunted houses, zombies and serial killers.

Early horror films are greatly based on ninteenth- century literature of the gothic genre, films such as Universals Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein also in (1931).

The first depections of supernatural events appear in the silent short films in the 1890s, the best known to be Le Manoir du diable (aka, "The Haunted House" , 1896) which is sometimes credited to be the first horror film.

In the early 20th century, the first monster appeared in a horror film, Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame who had appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).

Visual things contribute to the horror genre colours such as black, grey and red are used in the film posters and blue filters are used in a lot of horror movies. The Mise en Scene of horrors are the use of props like axes, knives,guns and loads of blood. Weapons are sometimes a cliche to the mise en scene of a horror film, they are also very iconic and memorable such as the hand of blades Freddy Kruger uses in the horror movie "Nightmere on Elm Street" and the axe Jack Nicholson uses to cut through the door in the movie "The Shining" and delievers the famous line "Here Comes Johnny". Music and sound are a big nesscitiy to a horror movie, the sound of a scream makes the film more disturbing and scary if a person was to watch a horror movie without sound you would lose the whole illusion and ultimately you wouldnt find the film as interesting and scary.Aswell as that point the music used in a horror creates the mood of the film.