While we chose our film opening to be a thriller, it came out to be a horror which isn't that surprising considering the two genres are like cousins.
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. or in this case, our main character is the antagonist and chasing down her victim. 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.
SOURCE FOR GENRE CONVENTIONS: https://media-studies.com/horror-genre/
In our film opening, we chose to challenge the main character being a victim to "whoever or whatever" is chasing them down. In our film, we decided to swap the roles and have our main character, Elena, be the antagonistic killer who chases down another "main" character. Besides that, we did follow the rest of the conventions including the "physical" and "psychological" separation from society. It's definitely physical as the two main characters are alone in a house with no help nearby. It's also psychological as Elena is genuinely insane considering she kills men who don't fall under her standards when it comes to dating. We also did include violence shown through blood and a "dead body" (me) on the floor!
When it comes to representation, we showed it through gender and age. For women, they're stereotyped as more picky and overreactive and so when our main character, Elena, kills men because they're not "perfect" for her, it definitely lines up with common stereotypes against women. We also had Elena wear a dress which is another common conception of females as they're expected to wear dresses mostly during formal occasions but also just in general. Moving onto age, the film has two young main characters, Elena and Jackson, that are in their 20s. How'd they meet? Oh, you know, just the normal place young lovers meet each other for the first time: Tinder. This shows how young people are stereotyped to be obsessed with technology and rely on everything to be digital, even their dating lives which can lead to marriages that'll affect their entire lives which can also indirectly mean putting their future generation of children in the hands of Tinder!
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