Conventions of the horror genre

Horror films are designed to:

•  Cause dread &alarm
•  Evoke our hidden worst fears
•  Captivate & entertain us in a liberating experience
•  Often conclude in a terrifying shocking finale
• frighten and panic

Depending on the audience watching horror can create different types of fear:

• Vulnerability
• Terror of the unknown
• Nightmares
• Alienation
• Revulsions

Settings:

• Urban environments
• Dark streets
• Narrow alleyways
• Small communities or iscolated places

Anything that connote isolation or being alone. Often, sometimes places with ‘dark’ history, like abandoned houses, hotels and insane asylums.

Locations for any good horror genre film could be:

•  Abandoned houses
•  Barnes and farms
• Cities
• Cabins
• Creepy hotels
• Graveyards
• Pirate ships
• Basements
• Hunting places

Character types:

• The main protagonist, often the ‘victim/hero’ of the movie.        
• The villain, often a monster, mutated freak, alien or serial killer – tend to have a trademark characteristic as to how they kill (e.g. weapons and who they kill)
• The stupid/immoral teenagers that always get killed
•  Creepy children
• Police officers (either good or bad)
• Many others: Ghosts, zombies, demons, psychopath, stalker, weirdo, werewolf, cheerleader.

Themes:

• Good vs Evil
• Depression
•  Religion
• Childhood issues
• Revenge
• Supernatural
•  Beyond death
•  Science gone bad
•  Zombie Apocalypse 
•  Nightmares
• Madness
• Insanity
• Lust
• Envy
• Suicide
• ‘self-consciousness’ – making you question what is real and not.