Horror Film Questionaire

1. Age:

12-14                                                               15-17

                    

18-20                                                               21+

2. Profession:

3. Do you watch horror films?

Yes                               No

4. How often do you watch horror films?

Atleast Once week      Atleast Once Month      Atleats Once every 3 months

Once a year or less              

5. Rate these films from your favourite to least favourite (1 being the worest and 4 being the best)

Paranormal Activity     Saw     Dawn of the Dead     Nightmare on Elm Street

6.      Which horror films did you dislike the most and why?

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

7.      What do you like most in Horror movies?

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

8. What do you think makes horror films most convincing?

Plot           Gore/Death           Sound           Actors           Special Effects                                            

9. Who would you like to be seen as the leading character?

    (Please tick two)

Male           Female           Young           Old           

                                       

10.  Who is your favourite horror movie survivor and why?

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

11. What sub genre within horror do you find most scary?

Slasher          Zombie         Supernatural          Vampire/Werewolf

12.Where would be the best place for a horror film to be set?

Cemetery         Big House         Woods         Spaceship         Old Building

13.  Do you prefer horror movie trailers to leave you guessing and why?

Yes         No

14.  How do you find out about horror movies?

Internet         Billboards          Cinema Trailers           TV Adverts

Other please specify

......................................................................................................................................

15.  What style of films do you prefer to watch horror movies and why?

Sequals          Franchise          Trilogy          Stand alone films

16.  How do you consume in media products?

Cinema           DVD/Blu-ray           Illegal downloading      

   

Legal downloading           Torrent site

Handheld Horror Presentation

Handheld horror films

View more presentations from Korrinaalbert.

Codes and Conventions

Texas Chainsaw Massacre Trailer Analysis

Narative:

• Period of Equilbruim- at the beging the trailer shows the group of teenagers enjoying a road trip, by showing them smiling and playing cheerful music.
• Moment of Disequilbruim- this is the moment when they see a scared women by the roadside.
• Period of Disequlbruim- the teenagers are shown being entering a house that they are tod they shouldn't be in and then they chased and tortured by a masked man.

Editing:
At the begining of the trailer they use fade to blacks transitions to show that there is nothing wrong whilst time passes, but after the moment of disequilbrum there are lots of fast jump cuts and fade to blacks which are very fast.

Codes and Conventions:

• Aandonded house (isolation)
• Dserted road and town
• Sex=death (people kissing)
• Drug use means they'll get kiled (seen imoral)
• Final girl theory (last female survivor)
• Curiosity Kills
• Teenage charcters
• Afraid of the unknown (darkness)
• Screaming girls/women
• Penertrative weapons (Chainsaw, chopper and meat hook)
• being trapped
• graveyard
• maskedman

Drag Me to Hell Trailer Analysis

Narrative
The trailer starts off with a period of equilibrium which although is not a happy period like other trailers it is considerably more cheerful than the second half of the trailer. The main character is shown at her work place and is told that she has to be brutal in order to successful; this is when she turns an elderly lady down for an extension on her mortgage. The elderly women then steals a button from her then cast some sort of voodoo which will “drag her to hell”, this is the moment of disequilibrium. The trailer then goes on to show a serious of events leadering up to main character being sent to hell, which is the period of disequilibrium.


Codes and Conventions
The cast used in this film are mainly young and attractive which is a regularly used convention in horror as it relates to the viewer, the villain however is old and unattractive, again this conforms to typical horror films. Lots of religious imagery is used in the trailer which is usually used in supernatural horror films, the conation of this is the idea of spirits and devils which is what the film is about. Although this film does conform to horror film codes and conventions it does go against the norm by setting the film in a city which is very rare in the horror genre as this is not cut of from the outside world, making it easier to escape.

Sound
At there beginning of the trailer there is slow passed music which is much quieter. After the moment of disequilibrium there id a small period of silence to show the fear of the character, the music then speeds up to match the viewers heart rate as the trailer gets scarier because of the action on scene.


Editing
“Drag Me to Hell” uses several editing transitions between scenes such as fade to blacks that show the calmer atmosphere and show time passing. When the period of disequilibrium begin the editing changes to jump cuts of very short shots.

The Decent Trailer Analysis

Narrative

The trailer begins with a period of equilibrium in which a group of young women that are in a car on a deserted road showing that the girls are alone. The trailer then goes on to show the group taking pictures and then going on to climb down a cave. This is when one of the group members says, “There’s only one way out of here and it’s down there” this shows that the group have no choice but to go down making them trapped. Then one of the members gets trapped in a small tunnel and is almost crushed, this is the moment of disequilibrium. They then become disorientated and fearful as they are hunted down by the unknown.

Codes and Conventions

The main characters in the film are all young females, this is the stereotypically choice of character as the audience can relate to them as they are at a similar age and women in horror are seen as helpless and vulnerable against evil. The location of the film is in a small dark cave underground this evokes several fears out of the audience such as claustrophobia, fear of the unknown and being trapped. This is a typical location in a horror film as its isolated and there is no way out.

Sound

The most effective sound used in the trailer is mostly diegetic sound of the women breathing heavily due to their fear along with the point of view shots this puts the viewer in the characters position. The trailer also uses non diegetic sound which is cut in between dialogue in order to match the action a sound on screen, The pace of the music also increases to go with the increasing fear of the characters and viewer.

Editing

The editing starts of by being more subtle showing 1 to 2 second shots and fade to black transitions in-between shots, this is to show a sense of fun and calm. However during the period of disequilibrium the shots become much shorter at around half a second long, this is done to match the heart rate of the viewer as the action becomes scarier throughout the trailer.

Scream Opening

How does the opening of Scream follow the structuralist theory of horror?

In this essay I will be discussing how the horror film “Scream” follows the structural theory of the horror genre. Most horror films follow almost exactly the same format and although scream does challenge some of horror films conventions it also conforms to the usual horror film structure. The film does this by the use paradigms which are iconography, structure and theme used throughout the film.

The main area of codes and conventions used in horror is iconography, through the use of the iconography we define the film as a “horror”. The characters in scream are a good example of iconography as the characters are those that are usually used in horror film. The setting of “Scream” is a very important part of it following the codes and conventions of the horror film genre. “Scream” is set in a large house, it later becomes apparent that the house is very isolated as the killer says, “we're out in the middle of nowhere”. The house is also surrounded by a forest, a deserted road and it is set a night time. By setting the horror somewhere dark and isolated it makes the character more alone and able to call for help therefore making the view more scared as it seems there is no way out. The large house also makes the film more exciting as the killer is able to chase the victim around this would not have the same affect in a small apartment.

The characters are also a key part of the iconography as this is another way in which paradigms are shown so that the film can be identified as a horror. The lead character a young female, this makes her more vulnerable and an easy target for the killer. The female characters very stereotypically as women screams and cries however she is defeated by the killer. In “Scream” the killer is masked and wears black and he is also an anonymous caller, this is done so that the killer is mysterious and essentially could be anyone making it more scary. This is a key feature in most films for similar reasons and so that anyone can play the lead character and many sequels can be made rather, which makes production companies a lot more money which is another reason why the killer never dies in horror films including “scream”.The characters of “Casey's” boyfriend is the first to be killed again this conforms to the usual narrative of horror and conforms to the idea of final girl theory. When he is killed he is tired up making him trapped and his killing is more of torture.

Another paradigm is the structure of the horror film, this is used by sound and editing creating the atmosphere of horror films, this is used in most horror movies. The editing in “Scream” is very similar to sub genre of the “slasher” horrors as lots of quick jump cuts are used during the action to match the viewers in increasing heartbeat. Point of view shots are also used to make the audience feel part of the action, making the film scarier. The music is also very similar to other horror films of this kind as loud music orchestral music is played whilst the action is happening and then there are parts were silence or quiet music is played as that is more threatening.

The final area of horror film paradigms is theme, theme is used very differently in this horror film compared to others. As in “Scream” the reality and fiction is blurred because the characters in this film openly discuss horror films making the film more realistic and this even becomes part of the fear created in the audience as they can relate to it. However there are some themes found in “Scream” that are found in usual horror films such as women being terrorized. The female character is shown to be possibly sexually active so she therefore must be punished for being impure. Her character also flirts with the anonymous caller even though she has a boyfriend giving the view the idea that she deserves to be killer or tortured for being unfaithful. the killer which is the idea of horror being linked to rape fantasy as the films are made by men and the main target audience is young men and this is what they what to see.

Questionaire Analysis

The majority of people that what horror films are between 15 and 21.  100% of those between the ages 15 and 21 said yes when we asked them if they watched horror films, this tells us that this age group will be our target audience. Question 11 showed similar results as we asked What sub genre within horror do you find most scary? and over 50% said supernatural again showing that this is the best genre to base our film around. All of the people that we asked said that they were full time students, showing that we could relate to our audience by relating our film to college, school or typical student behaviour, such as drinking and smoking.

When asked what how they would rate 4 popular horror films 60% of the people we questioned chose Paranormal Activity which is a supernatural and handheld horror. This shows that the majority of our potential target audience find this film to be the best modern horror. Therefore this is an obvious choice of horror film for our trailer.

In our questionnaire we asked What do you like most in Horror movies? their answers were mostly about being genuinely scared whilst watching the film. This means that it is important for our trailer to be convincingly scary as this is important to our audience, we will have to be aware of this throughout scripting, filming and editing our trailer.

From the questionnaire we found that the most convincing feature in a horror film are the sound, as this builds up suspense. Also special effects and gore are important however as our film is low budget we are unable to use expensive effects to make the film convincing. 

These results clearly show that our target audience think that it would be most scary to set our trailer in either the woods or an old building we will take this into consideration when finding a location and writing our script.

When we asked the How do you find out about horror movies? the majority said on the internet, which was a likely outcome as they are a younger people who are the most frequent users of the internet. This means that the internet is the best place to advertise our trailer particularly on sites like twitter, facebook and youtube. As well as this we can use the internet for audience feedback by posting parts of filming or ideas so that we are able to get general feedback from its possible audience.

We asked those that were filling out our questionaire What style of films do you prefer to watch horror movies and why? The vast majority of them said they preferred stand alone films, this is probably because they prefer films with more artistic merit, rather than films repeating the same storyline across several films. When creating our trailer we do need to consider that the audience are looking for a different kind of film, as they are more exciting although we still need to take into consideration the codes and conventions that are found in all horrors.