Horror Timeline

Deconstruct Evil Dead poster

Audience Research

THE CONJURING (Reactions to the clip)

In this video I have made I used three people’s reactions from watching a horror clip I had previously analysed. The clip they watched was from the movie ‘The Conjuring’ which is an American supernatural horror film that’s based on 2 paranormal investigators - Ed and Lorraine Warren who both work to help a family who are being targeted by a dark presence that’s haunting them in their farmhouse. Reason why I chose to show them this clip was to see what certain scenes triggered them to become frightened, which will be useful when I create my own horror clip as I will be recreating a horror clip so I want to evoke a strong emotion-Fear from my audience. From their reactions it showed me that when the clip progressed and the background soundtrack (creepy music) began to get louder to build more tension it made them begin to appear more uncomfortable and a few of them began to frown but kept their concentration on the screen. When there was more movement e.g. when the wardrobe doors creaked open, it made Nia (the girl that was most scared while watching the clip) more fearful of looking so she frantically covered her eyes, showing me that certain sound effects make a clip turn from boring and plain to frightening. 

THE RING (Reactions to the clip)

EVIL DEAD (Reactions to the clip)

Analyzing Horror clips

 The conjuring - The scene opens with a woman stumbling into a large spacious hallway then called out “first clap!” then the shot changes and the camera is positioned closer to the woman from behind which reveals that she is blindfolded with a red scarf, this makes us understand that the blindfold links into what she said (“first clap”) that shows that she’s playing a game. The colour red could be foreshadowing the woman’s future as red ties into danger so this would make us assume that something will happen to her.

As she’s feeling her surroundings, making her way through the hallway we hear a clap that echoes into the room straight after the clap an ambient sound of a grand clock starts ringing, this is used to startle us as more loud sounds are introduced into the clip.

 As she walks through the hallway she feels around to guide her in the right direction but into the process of feeling around she knocks down a few picture frames which shatters the glass, the sharp sound again makes her jump back.

When she begins to get further through the hallway she bumps into the stairs banister that begins to get us paranoid for her safety as there is risk to her walking close to stairs while being blindfolded.

The shot changes to and the camera is positioned in front of her showing her tightly gripping the banister, she calls out in a strained voice “ second clap” strained because she had previously hurt herself when she banged into the banister. Just like before after she calls out “second clap” we hear another two claps but this time it’s louder which shows she’s getting nearer to whoever she’s trying to reach. 

The next shot has the camera set in the corner of a poorly lit room with shadows casting over the floor and furniture, key features of the room implies this room belongs to a young girl because of the pink posters on the wall and a cute wardrobe but the colour of the wardrobe contrasts as its dark, dull and appears to look creepy.

The woman then enters the room waving her hands around to find something to grab onto something to gain stability The woman tries to reach out and slowly calls out "April" after that we can hear a door creek and behind her we see the wardrobe doors open this builds the suspense, the noise triggers the woman to turn around and says playfully “oh I know where you’re hiding,give me the third clap!” she pauses for a moment waiting, then we see the clothes ruffling and two arms appear and clap for the third time.

The camera shot changes to a mid shot and we see her facial expression is happy as she’s grinning and she proceeds walk towards the wardrobe and say’s “I’m gonna get you now” and has her hands reaching out to grab the girl she’s playing with that we now is named ‘April’.

A Non Diegetic Sound (soundtrack) begins to play; the sound is quite eerie and ghostly and as the volume begins to increase it builds anticipation for the viewer, then there’s dialogue from the woman saying “I can hear you breathing” which makes her acknowledge that there is someone in the wardrobe for sure.

When she extends her arms into the wardrobe the camera changes into a close up of her face as she changes from happy to frightened as she realises no one is in the wardrobe, she then quickly pulls of her blindfold. A young little girl enters the room and chants “Ha-ha, you took your blindfold off! I win, you weren’t even warm mum” stating that she wasn’t even close to getting her, she then proceeds to tell her “I was in Kristine and Nancy’s room” which confuses the mum as she turns back around trying to look further into the wardrobe as she was sure that someone was in there, and obviously us as the viewer we know for a fact that we saw someone in the wardrobe and this leaves a mystery to who was in the wardrobe?     

 
Evil Dead - The clip starts with the main character Mia which is the protagonist in the film, and she’s struggling to push her way through a shallow pond in the middle of an eerie looking forest. First few things I noticed about the location that this scene was shot in is that they’ve used fog to create a ghostly atmosphere as things in the distance appear to look darker and quite faint making it difficult to see any figures that are lurking around which adds a mysterious ambience to the forest. 
As she’s swimming to the edge of the pond we notice straight away that she’s hurt because of the obvious cut and blood on her forehead this shows that she’s in distress and has been a victim to an accident and because of her location we can already assume that she is isolated from people as she’s in the middle of a forest so she could be vulnerable as she’s alone and hurt. While she’s moving her way through the water there is a soundtrack being played in the background which is non-diegetic so only we’re (as the viewer) suppose to hear it, and the music being played is quite dramatic/sinister and builds up tension which creates suspense like we’re waiting for something to happen.

The camera then cuts to a different location of the forest and the camera technique used hear is from a point of view shot which is a subjective treatment as the camera is showing the point perspective as its looking through the of eyes of a character. The camera is travelling at a fast pace in this scene as its zooming past through the trees in the forest showing that whoever this character is, is rushing to get to something or someone. The non-diegetic soundtrack in the background in this scene gets louder and the tone is a lot deeper which shows us that whoever this character is that’s rushing through the woods may have bad intentions and could be the evil one in this scene.

Devil (2010) - Review

Devil was released in 2010, it is a drama/horror/mystery/ supernatural modern horror. The opening scene starts of with a panoramic shot of the sea then tilts up towards a skyline view of the city but this shot has been flipped upside down which has been done to cause an effect of disorientation.

While this shot of the city goes on we're introduced to a character fro the film through a voice-over by Ramirez (security guard in the film) "When I was a child, my mother would tell me a story about how the Devil roams the Earth, sometimes, she said, he would take human form so he could punish the damned on Earth before claiming their souls. The ones he chose would be gathered together and tortured as he hid amongst them, pretending to be one of them. I always believed my mother was telling me an old wives' tale".

He then went onto saying, this act always started with a suicide so right on cue the scene cuts to inside the building where we see a man fall and land on a truck hitting it with hard impact killing him instantly which signifies the start of bad events occurring. 

Five strangers enter an office building down-town and happen to get on the same elevator. This is when we're introduced to the 5 main characters: 

•Ben - A Temp Security guard

•Sarah - Heiress about to see her lawyer

•Vince - A Salesman

•Tony - An ex-soldier

•Jane - An older woman

The elevator suddenly gets stuck, the building’s staff and some

cops try to get the stranded passengers out of the elevator car, but they struggle as they can only speak to the people in the lift but they cannot speak back. The Hispanic security guard notices something on the CCTV screen, he rewinds the tape and realizes an unclear frozen face on the CCTV but once he analyses it closely he realizes it appears to look like a demon. after that occurrence with the tape the passengers begin to experience strange and deadly occurrences that set them against one another, and each time it blanks out and another person dyes each time the suspicion keeps changing from person to person. 

Tony the ex-soldier was the last person to survive and was left to come face to face with who we thought was an innocent old woman but turns out she was the 'Devil', this is the point where he apologies for a hit and run and as a result of repenting the power returns to normal and he is released.

How are vampires represented in each film?

Deconstruction - Horror movie Posters

The Possession (2012)
The possession is "based on a true story" as it states on the top of the poster in the centre of the page. This text is to get the audience thinking of how this film is replicating real horrific events that actually occurred which builds up the scare factor. So this entices the audience to want to watch it so they can discover what happens to the female character that's displayed in the centre of the poster.
There's a strap line underneath the title which is "Darkness lives inside" this line creates a mystery for the audience to question what it means by that and increase their curiosity to want to know more. Also the strap-line con-notates that something unfortunate will happen to the young female character, the tagline also describes the image as this old rotten hand is coming out from inside of the woman, through her mouth which hints that this demonic hand is the "darkness" and "lives inside" of the girl.
"The Possession" being the title of the film allows the audience to acknowledge that the narrative of the film is based on a demon/supernatural creature that takes over someone's body hence the lifeless looking hand which could connote death.

Mama (2013)

For the poster the image they've used is of a little girl gripping closely to an older female character which as the viewer we know because of the figure and dress shes wearing. The title of the film 'Mama' indicates that the older female could be the little girls mother but her creepy,decaying, dirty appearance gives off the impression that this character is the villain as she's portrayed negatively because of her look. 
In horror movies its common to include children and its one of the main conventions in horrors for kids to have an eerie demeanour and a frightening appearance if they ae portrayed as the villain e.g. 'The Omen' but in this 'Mama' poster the child symbolizes innocence and vulnerability as shes clinging to the older woman showing shes dependent on her and maybe she longs for a mothers attention or protection, which would explain why shes hiding behind her.The child appears to be very pale which could signs of her having an  illness, this would make viewers sympathetic as the child's face connotes sadness which makes us automatically feel emotional for her.
The figure standing next to the little girl which I assume would be the character 'Mama', looks un-kept and dirty because of her torn  dress and dirt all over her lifeless arms.

Oculus (2013)

Introduction

My feelings towards the horror project is that I'm excited and nervous for it, reason being is that I enjoy the thrill that watching a horror movie gives me but certain types of horrors effect me more than others. One of the first horror films I had watched as a child was 'The Exorcist', it traumatized me and I couldn't get the image of that demonic girls face out my head so that's what started my fear of films about possession and demons taking over peoples body's.
After watching the movie 'Saw' I realized that I prefer more gory films that involve blood and torturing instead of paranormal/demonic creatures.
A few other films that I had watched:
-The Grudge
-The Ring
-It
-Saw
-Evil Dead
-Chuckie
-Scream
-I spit on you grave
-Jaws
-The human Centipede
-The uninvited
-The conjuring
-The cabin In the woods
-Paranormal Activity
-Drag me to hell

Now i enjoy horror films a lot more than i use too because i love the adrenaline i feel during the film, and because I've seen quite a broad range of horrors I've picked up on the conventions that are used a lot such as jump scares, i can tell when something is about to appear just from the soundtrack playing in the background then the silent suspense that comes after it etc... So I know that already seeing all those horror films will help me in this A2 course as I'm expected to create a trailer as well as a front cover and poster so knowing conventions from the horror genre will be an advantage for when it comes to the making part of my coursework.