Genre Research

My short film is based on the Horror genre, and to conclude with my research into short films I am now going to carry out in depth research into the Horror genre to help develop my final idea before I start filming. I will look at books, web pages and films in order to carry out this research. To start off with I am going to look at three Horror films, and write brief yet detailed notes on key points I picked up wile watching these films, and how I can relate them to my film.

What I Found During Research
Horror Films are designed around the idea to create a sense of unsettling environment and unnatural activity. A horror film should keep the viewer on the edge of their seat, wile also wanting to hide behind it! The unsettling mood of the film has to be able to also entertain the audience to keep them interested in the plot. Horror films show the darker side of life, showing the audience supernatural and unreal incidents that they could imagine to be real. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality.

Whatever dark, primitive, and revolting traits that at the same time attract and repel us are featured in the horror genre. Horror films are often linked in the Science Fiction, creating unnatural creatures that are set to unnerve and scare us due to their complete differentiation  to what we class as normal. The creatures in such films as 'The Thing' and 'The Grudge' create an unreal world that frightens and unsettles us, but also keeps us watching as we have no idea what will happen in the ending. Horror films are also known as chillers, scary movies, spookfests, and the macabre.

From a young age we suffer from scary nightmares and thoughts of unnatural happenings in our life, Horror Films bring these nightmares to real life, they bring everyones, from childhood to adulthood' worst fears and put them into a real world situation with a truthful story-line. This scares us and makes us feel in danger, when all it is, is a visual, and we are in no danger at all.

A lot of the time it is the horror films with little special effects and unnatural and unrealistic story-lines that create the most fear. As long as the films are well made and enter into the worst fears of man, then the film will create more tension as they bring real life scares and spooks onto our screens. For example the Blair Witch Project which was a film that was created using only hand held cameras and no special effects whatsoever. It played on the fact that at the time no other films had ever been made like it using just hand held cameras. Also its storyline was developed on and incorporated the legend of Elly Kedward, a woman banished for witchcraft in 1785 in the Blair Township (latter-day Burkittsville) where the film was set which fooled the audience into thinking "could this actually be real?". 

By watching the film and looking at how such a small budget amature film could create such tension and so much good audience feedback, and even be placed in the top 10 horror films of all time is very inspiring to me as I create my short film. Knowing that I do not need so many special effects and expensive equipment, just a creative mind and a will power to bring it to film is very settling and will mean me going into filming with a creative mind, rather than using all my creativity in editing. 

Horror films developed out of a number of sources: folktales with devil characters, witchcraft, fables, myths, ghost stories, Grand Guignol melodramas, and Gothic or Victorian novels from Europe by way of Mary Shelley or Irish writer Bram Stoker. In many ways, the expressionistic German silent cinema led the world in films of horror and the supernatural, and established its cinematic vocabulary and style.

 Another film I feel builds up tension well is The Ninth Gate directed by Roman Polanski featuring Johnny Depp.(Based upon the novel The Club Dumas (1993), by Arturo Perez-Reverte)
 Brief Synopsis: Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) is highly skilled at his work - locating rare books for wealthy collectors - a position that requires dexterity, cultural expertise, nerves of steel ... and few scruples. Corso is hired by eminent book-lover and scholar of demonology, Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), Corso's mission: to compare Balkan's newly acquired edition of the legendary manual of satanic invocation, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of the Shadows, with the two remaining copies located in Europe, and ascertain the authenticity of the three books.

From the films I have watched, the books I have read I am now certain that I can use all the information I have gathered to create a much better film, with some interesting inter textual references. I will make a new post explaining my inter-textual references once I have decided which these will be. 

Here is where I collected most the information for my genre research. 

Useful and Inspiring Films I Have Watched 

I watched Halloween (1978) and from watching it I noticed the dramatic differences in techniques they are able to use, unfortunately due to budgeting I could not try out all of the techniques myself, but here are some ideas I have picked up from the film that I could try in my own production:

• In the opening shot of the house a blue tint is used on the camera to create a sense that something is not right- I could add a blue tint somewhere in my film to give off the same feeling to my audience.

• I notice in the film that the victims are mainly blonde females who are sexualy active, in the film the women is killed shortly after having sex, it would seem in the horror genre that sexual activity is punished- In my film I am going to use a blonde female as my victim, she will be wearing high heels and a dress which should signify to the audience that she is sexually active. 
• A final point on the film that I will be using in my short film is the use of point-of-view shots on the knife before the killing is taken place, this shot I found very effective in scaring the audience and setting the correct mood in the film. 

I also watched the start of Psycho because as I have watched the film many times before I know from personal experiences the start of the film is the best for adapting techniques used. Here is that I found. Once again in this film a female character is the one who gets killed after having sex, as this has come out twice and I have seen it on many other horror films it seems obvious by now that I must have a sexually active women as my victim and I am even considering having scenes of mild sexual activity being shown in my film.  

Another film I watched which I found inspiring and interesting, and which has further helped me in my pre-production is The Thing.  
Brief Synopsis: A group of Norwegian scientists in Antarctica chance upon an alien spacecraft buried in the ice. Near the strange craft is the body of an alien being, frozen solid. Thinking they have made the find of a lifetime, the scientists bring the alien body back to camp and thaw it out. The alien awakens and proceeds to take over the identities of the scientists, the remaining humans try and destroy the creature before it reaches another camp but ultimately fail. Now the members of Outpost #31 soon find themselves in the same situation and must discover who among them is human and destroy "the thing" before it takes them all.

While the Scientists are trying to find out who the alien is impersonating the tension increases until it climaxes with a scene where Kurt Russell,the main character, forces everyone to take a blood test to make sure they are not "The Thing". I think the film creates tension so well and is very inspiring in it's way of creating a feeling of isolation. I think the mise en scene to the film is excellent, and although not quite how we would set up ours, it shows how important a good mise en scene is to create this feeling of isolation.
I liked the way even though the film was clearly a horror, and used very violent and graphical images to scare the audience, the film also used humour to attract a wider range of viewers. The 'shock value' is used a lot in this film, and has inspired me to try create the same for my film. 


Useful Books 
To develop my research even further I have also read 3 books that I am now going to explain what they have shown me and how I can use this in my short film. 

Book 1: 501 Must See Movies 
The first book I read is called '501 Must-See Movies'. This book is about all of the films that have played a big part in media and have changed the way films are made to this day, I have looked into the Horror section of the book and found these films where of great interest in developing my knowledge of the horror genre: 
 
The Phantom of Opera (1925):
Synopsis:At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What's his goal ? What's his secret ? 

The Film  is well known for the 'legendary set' which created an amazing mise en scene, even without all of the technical advantages we have in the modern world. From watching clips from the film I can see just how good the set design is, and it really shows how much mise en scene plays a massive part in the over feel for the film. It has led me to understand how important my set design will need to be, and I am now going to have to put a lot of thinking in to creating a good set.
 
Dracula (1958):
Synopsis: After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost.

This film created by Hammer Productions, is known as one of the best horror films ever made, the acting in the film is at a standard much higher than expected in it's release in 1958. Christopher Lee's acting is superb and will go down as what he is remembered for. The film has excellent costume and make-up design which is inspiring to any film maker and has influenced costume and make-up ever since.

Ringu (1998):
Synopsis: After the death of her cousin Tomoko, reporter Reiko hears stories of a videotape that kills everyone who sees it exactly one week after viewing. At first she discounts the rumors, but when she learns that Tomoko's friend (who watched the video with her) died at exactly the same time, she begins to investigate. After viewing the tape herself, strange things start happening, and so she teams up with her ex-husband to try to stop the death clock that has once again begun ticking.

This film, a Japanese version of The Ring, is known to be one of the most scary horror films ever created, and as I watched the film I noticed just how much better it is than the original version. The film has some fantastic camera shots used to create tension.

Book 2: Legacy of Blood 

This book gives a guide to how to make slasher films and what is expected in them, as well as giving various references to inspiring slasher films. The book gives a detailed and excellent set of codes and conventions to slasher films, and has given me some great ideas as to how to construct the scenes of my short film, as well as inspiration to make it more towards the slasher sub-genre.

Useful Websites 

Top 20 Shockingly Chilling and Tense Horror Movies (Click Here)
This is an extensive top # list of the best scary movies ever made. The list was made after hours in dark rooms in front of big and small screens. It has been compiled with critic reviews and best-movie lists. Some are box office hits and some you may only find on VHS at the local rental store. If you like the feeling of being truly terrified and surprisingly startled check out this list of the top 20 scary movies of all-time.

1. The Ring
2. The Exorcist
3. Campfire Tales
4. Silence of the Lambs
5. Seven
6. Saw
7.  Mothman Prophecies
8. The Blair Witch Project
9. Exorcism of Emily Rose
10. Scream
11. Friday 13th
12. The Shining
13. The Sixth Sense
14. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 
15.  Alien
16. The Others
17. Rosemary's Baby
18. Hostel
19. High Tension
20. American Psycho 

By using this list I can now look into each of these movies and possibly if I get the time I watch a few of them before I start my production. I am sure to find some useful and inspiring footage and techniques in these films as they have been voted in the top 20.

AllMovie Click Here 
This website is absolutely brilliant in giving every aspect of information needed for every film you could ever think of. Although not quite as detailed ad IMDB, I prefer the layout of the website and have found it very useful for finding horror films to collect information for my research. 

Useful Videos I Watched for Inspiration: