Conventions of a horror film

trailer By Lucy Bennett

Normal conventions of a film include, sound, camera work, editing, mise-en-scene and themes, For the following horror films I have picked out the

stereotypical conventions feature in each trailer.

Cabin in the Woods

The genre of this film is a horror/thriller. The trailer first starts with none diegetic sound, opening out onto a street on a sunny day unlike how horror films typically start, about 30 seconds into the trailer the non-diegetic sound and mise-en-scene flip, from happy music and a sunny day to a darker and glum scene. The music changes to a beat which courses a build-up of suspense and tension. By using pathetic fallacy the audience already knows that something bad is going to happen. This now follows the normal conventions of a horror. As the trailer goes on the quicker the speed of the scenes get, which connotes that the film get fast paste and becomes more like a thriller not just a horror. This film also follows the normal stereotypical characters in a horror film such as, the Athlete character which is the character featured the most in this trailer. The stereotypical blonde also features in the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsIilFNNmkY

Unfriended

This trailer was most unusual as that this trailer was filmed by using unique camera angles to create a new concept to “horror”, by using social networking sites this trailer keeps with the modern image of how a horror should be. In a horror film it is typical to see blood and weapons; within this short trailer we as the audience see a short clip of this which follows the conventions of this genre, illustrating to the audience that this is a horror film. In horror films which feature teenagers/young adults it is a typical convention for all teenagers to be killed due to their stupid actions, which is used in this film where the teenagers bullied a girl to the point of death and now it has court up to them. Revenge is a theme which is rippled throughout this film. As the film trailer goes on the sound speed picks up and gets faster and faster which is often used to connote danger and to create an atmosphere.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unfriend+trailer

Saw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1lgXhFbXy4

within this trailer the use of props is used to express to the audience that this is a horror film which will include blood and danger. In the beginning of the saw trailer we see a close up shot on the victims which is typically used in horror films to show the fair in there expression. The villain portrayed in this trailer is a puppet and that is must to some person, often uses a mask to hide the identity so that the audience reveals the identity later on in the film. In the trailer the themes used are good vs. evil, the good people being those who are trapped and have to escape, and the evil being the one who has trapped them. The use of low key and expressive light has been used which is one of the common codes of a horror film. Throughout the trailer we here non diegetic music of a thunderstorm. For a horror film it is common to see a person trapped on their own, in this trailer we also see this convention.