Genre Research on Horror

While horror can be enjoyed by any and all ages, the typical target audience for this genre tends to be younger people such as teenagers and young adults from 15-25 years old. 

Genre conventions are common elements, themes, and/or styles that make up a genre and for horror, there are several that can be listed both content-wise and production-wise. 

Starting off with content, this genre usually includes isolation, victim versus monster, and violence. Isolation can be both physical and psychological as characters can be separated from society in an empty and quiet location but they can also be going through something mentally that others cannot see or relate to. Since protagonists and antagonists in the horror genre are more extreme than in other genres, victim versus monster is an accurate description as the main character is usually victim to whoever or whatever is chasing them down. Another tough style that makes up this genre is violence which refers to the fighting, attacking, blood, gore, and other kinds of brutality as they are typically displayed in horror, varying in graphicness.

Genre conventions related to production tend to consist of lighting, camera techniques, and sounds. The lighting used in this genre tends to be lower/darker since little to no visibility creates a sense of vulnerability and bad omen to both the characters and the audience in the genre. Moving onto the shots and movements used, every film incorporates close-up shots, sometimes extreme close-up shots, and quick tilts and pans to make a production appear more chaotic and even produce fear. Additionally, the sounds used are very versatile as it can be very quiet and creepy to make a film ominous or extremely loud and terrifying to create jump scares and get reactions out of the characters and audience.

Marketing within the horror genre are also pretty similar for the majority of horror films. Typical institutional conventions include heart-racing trailers, unsettling posters, and interactive promotions. For every horror movie trailer, there tends to be scenes that include the antagonist, snippets of jump scares, and violence to promote the movie as fearful but also interesting to keep the audience from getting bored and hooked onto the production. The posters for horror movies also tend to include the protagonist and/or antagonist in it or at least a disturbing element of the film to make viewers feel unease, a common example being even the simple color of red. Interactive promotions can be a puzzle posted onto social media or someone hired to promote the movie in person by wearing something or performing an action that relates to the movie being marketed to reel in more viewers.

Film Sample & Analysis #1: Smile 2 (2024)

Smile 2 is a spectacular example when it comes to genre and institutional conventions. The main character of the movie is isolated psychologically from the rest of the world as she is cursed with a demonic mental illness that is constantly hunting and tearing her down, an example of victim versus monster. This curse causes violent hallucinations which sometimes leads to violent in-real-life actions that are graphic and discomforting. While the movie is mostly brighter lighting, there's a few parts where dark lighting is used to emphasize the horror in the scene or lead up to jump scares where close-up shots, fast tilts/pans, and loud bursts of sound are used to create them. When it came to marketing the movie, there were several unique types of promotion such as hiring actors to smile creepily for long periods of time at people in public, an EP of songs by the main character of the movie who is a pop star, and shirts/sweaters with a world tour/concert dates as the designs.

Film Sample & Analysis #2: Don't Breathe (2016)

Don't Breathe is a mostly quiet movie since the antagonist of the movie is a blind murderer and relies on hearing, causing the main character to be as quiet as possible which is also an example of victim versus monster. They are isolated physically since the movie takes place in a low-populated neighborhood and inside a dark and empty house. The movie uses mostly dark lighting as a representation of the low visibility that the antagonist has to deal with. In addition, there are several close ups and pans to create suspense within the film as well as increased sounds to emphasize the antagonist's enhanced hearing. As for the marketing for the movie, the poster shows the main character covering her mouth, showing that she's not breathing to avoid being heard by the antagonist (as seen above).

Film Sample #3: Ready Or Not (2019)

Film Sample #4: Hush (2016)

Film Sample #5: Get Out (2017)

Film Sample #6: A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

Film Sample #7: Scream (2022)

Film Sample #8: Alien Romulus (2024)

Film Sample #9: Truth Or Dare (2018)

Representation

 In the Netflix original, One Day At A Time (2017-2020), there are several patterns in representation throughout the show, some more visible and easier to analyze than others. You can spot them in the types of clothes worn by the characters in the show, the way they speak, and the types of stereotypes shown and/or addressed. The main characters are all a part of a Hispanic family but we'll focus on the grandma, Lydia, and her daughter, Elena. For some background, Lydia is a widowed elderly woman who sought refuge in America when she was a little girl as there was a revolution in Cuba at the time. Elena is one of her grandchildren and she's a teenage girl who has two separated parents and accidentally pushed away her father when coming out as a lesbian. 

There is a complete difference between the construction of Lydia and Elena's outfits throughout the entire show. Lydia tends to wear more traditional and colorful clothing and more accessories such as bracelets, necklaces, earrings, etc. This type of appearance demonstrates that Lydia cares about the way she presents herself as she grew up in a time where beauty was more significant than in today's time. Elena, on the other hand, is usually seen wearing her Catholic school uniform which is her blue polo and a darker blue skirt which is a complete contrast to her character in general. Elena doesn't like religion as she thinks it's controlling and she also dislikes wearing extremely feminine clothing as she believes they're too gender specific, all of which represents teenage rebellion, a typical stereotype for teenagers in media. The contrast between these two characters in their appearances is also seen in other aspects such as their language, opinions, beliefs.

Since Lydia originally lived in Cuba for most of her childhood, her first language is Spanish and she learned English when she moved but remained with a strong Hispanic accent while Elena is the complete opposite of her as she grew up in America, first learned English then Spanish, and has an American accent. Their way of language isn't always referring to the way they sound as it also means the words and tones they use. Lydia and Elena usually are on opposites sides of several topics such as quinces, religion, elections, gender societal roles, etc and it's obvious which one of their viewpoint is more traditional (Lydia's) and which is more modern (Elena's). Elena usually complains about a lot of important and debatable things, another common teenage stereotype, and Lydia tends to counter her by standing her ground and speaking up about her opinion, a typical trait among the elderly who are seen as wise and authoritative. The constant mentioning of culture and traditions from Lydia during an argument between her and Elena can also be seen as a way of de-centering as Elena has to try and make her point to her religious traditional grandmother who, at times, makes points that cause Elena to reconsider hers.

Though it's common for people of the LGBTQ+ to be religious, it's a common stereotype that gay people are atheist/against God and Elena is represented as that rebellious teenager who believes God/religion isn't important and cannot be seen for more than what it is; faith. Lydia is a very religious Hispanic woman as most older people are and she constantly refers to God and his power, creations, etc. and tends to try to push it onto her family, another stereotype that is associated with Hispanic grandmothers. Another common stereotype in media that both Lydia and Elena share is the verbal aggression that Hispanic women share as the both of them have very strong beliefs and ideas and aren't afraid to speak up and be loud about it. More recently, it's been common for younger characters in films to be more "woke," meaning more open and informed on important and/or debatable topics as Elena's teenage character definitely is as she is always bringing up certain arguments regarding politics or society and problematic issues that are controversial. The two of these characters have their same and different stereotypes and they can observed all throughout their different interactions with each other and others as well.

Sound Project

    For the sound project, we were taught the different types of sounds, their features and purposes, and we also learned on how they're created. Our assignment was to create a 1-2 minute audio clip that could actually occur in 1-2 minutes (meaning no time jumps) and we had to really think about every single sound that would be heard in the environment and context of our story and then add it into the audio clip as well as make our own four separate audios through foley (manual audio creation). 

    Me and my partner took awhile to think of an idea but once we came up with our story, it took even longer to think about every single audio detail we'd have to incorporate into the clip. We sat there and we thought of the basics pretty quickly but when it came to the smaller details that were easy to overlook when brainstorming, we both just sat in silence for some time and really tried to imagine ourselves in the same environment which honestly helped every now and then. When we finally figured out all the details we would need to include in our audio clip, we listed them in order and it helped us not only keep track of all the different audios we'd need for the project but also the outline of the story itself as the different audios describe the events that would be taking place in the project. 

    We used iMovie to edit our project and I don't have that much experience using it but I think we did an admirable job overall. We used all the different sounds that would be heard in that environment and context and organized them accurately in the order/time they would occur in the same real-life setting too. The only part I was a little unsure of on whether we did a great job on was the length of the audios we chose as we mostly only decided on audios depending on how accurate and well-sounding they were and less on their length which mean we had to extend them by either duplicating them or maybe even slowing them down to make them longer.

Sound Project