Deconstruction of Titles of Horror Films

A common theme within the titles of horror films is they are usually relatively simple. For example, they are often only one single word, such as in the examples of Saw, Scream and Sinister. These titles have a strong impact on the audience and immediately hint at a slasher horror genre, as the words chosen for the titles are related to horrific images. This can be seen in Saw through the use of a dangerous weapon as a title, in Scream as screaming often indicates terror or fear and Sinister depicts horror through the definition of the word being a adjective of something scary or creepy.

Another theme within the titles of horror films is the use of a major plot device within the film, such as in Cabin In The Woods, Orphan and The Blair Witch Project. The two latter examples also conform to the first common theme of horror titles. The titles that have strong direct links can be seen in Cabin In The Woods as the cabin the characters stay in is the main location of the film, in Orphan as the antagonist is an orphan and in The Blair Witch Project as the Blair Witch is what the students are investigating. These titles work well with the horror genre as they are straight-forward and to the point. This works well for the target audience, as often horror film fans know what type of horror they like, and having the plot in the title helps appeal to the audience. 

Deconstruction of Typography within Horror

To get inspiration when creating my own typography, I looked at existing examples within the horror genre. 

The first example I found was Saw. The font used for this film looks tarnished and metallic, reflecting the material of a rusting saw. The edges of the letters are rough and the letters are not all the same, giving the impression of the letters being cut out of metal. This is representative of the main weapon used with in the film.

Grave Encounters is a supernatural horror that focuses on a camera crew investigating fake claims of supernatural happenings. As a result there are lots of hidden cameras set up around the old hospital they are in. Therefore the typography of a recording camera screen effectively informs the audience of part of the plot. The use of a block red font connotes danger and fear. Furthermore, the slightly flickered effect on the text, reflects static. This is a common convention of horror.

The use of a sans serif font that looks like handwriting indicates that there will be children involved. The irregularity of the font also indicates irregularity within the characters' lives at the presence of the supernatural entity.

The typography used within Sinister is a standard serif font, similar to times new roman. Serif fonts are commonly found within horror films as they create an archaic look that works well to support the themes of ancient religion with the film. 

Deconstruction of Actors within Horror Films

Horror is a genre that has common conventions that can be found in nearly every film of this genre, so much so that these features have now become a joke within spoof films of the genre.

One particularly evident example of this is within the roles of the characters within horror films, particularly slasher horrors. There is a clear-cut sequence and order in which the protagonists of the films are killed in, and there is a specific criteria for the protagonist the remains alive in the end of the film and is the survivor. 

The character that is often left alive at the end of the film and survives the trauma is often referred to as the 'final girl'. This character is often a virgin and portrayed to have good standards and morals. One of the first examples of a final girl can be seen in the character of Laurie Strode in Halloween. 

The term 'final girl' was first used by Carol J. Clover. She recognised the trend in the altered perspective throughout the films. For example, in most slasher horrors, the killer's perspective is shared by the audience until partway through the film where there is a shift in identification where the final girl becomes the main focus of perspective. 

Other typical characters that are often scene within slasher horrors are the highly sexually active couple. The couple is almost always heterosexual and the female within the relationship is often the best friend of the virgin final girl. This contrast causes the audience to see the female in the relationship in a negative light in comparison to her friend. The common theme within sexually active couples is that they will get killed during or after they are having sex. This is so common within horror films that it is often parodied within spoof films. 

There is also a correlation between ethnicity and order of death. Slasher films often contain a token black character who is left under-developed and is killed off first. There has been an attempt as of late to see the decline of this trope, as it was realised that this was a bad representation of black people within films. 

Deconstruction - Actors in a Slasher

All sub genres within the main horror genre, all include the main stereotypical characters (most of the time). These characters include: the slut, the black guy, the virgin, the non-believer, the hero, the hysterical one, the sexed up couple and finally, the killer.

Starting with the slut of the group, they will be typically be the one that irritates the audience the most. She will also be likely to be the female in the sexed up couple, but will also be trying to sleep with everyone else. The slut will usually be blonde, almost always chewing gum, will be wearing minimal clothing and most of all, she will be exceedingly loud and annoying to the audience and will escape death on several occasions to make sure that at least one person in the audience is close to scream "just kill her already".

Has there ever been a black guy in a horror film that has lasted more than 15 minutes? As far as my viewing of horror films has spread, not once have I seen the black character be the last to die until the end with one exception... A parody film called "Scary movie" where the black character, shorty, gets shot in the lung and even then, he tries to re-inhale the smoke he already had in his lungs from smoking marijuana. The fact that they feel the need to parody a black guy dying in a horror film by leaving him as the last main character to die helps to outline the initial point of the black guy always dies first.

The virgin, also possibly the hero of the sequence will be the last survivor and in the case of them being the hero as well, will be the one that eventually brings the killer down. They will typically be a religious as it has stuck all the way through the horror genre that people that have a religion will be saved by god and so they are also the purist character out of them all so will give the killer less of a reason to hunt them down which will indicate that they won't be killed or at least not until the end of the film when everyone else is dead.

The non-believer will usually be the one to die straight after the black guy. They're the one that laughs around and jokes about the killer. Even when confronted with the killer in Scream (1991), Tatum (non-believer) even asks ghost face if he'd like her to play the helpless victim and if he'd like to play the violent killer that nobody can escape from. After a few silent nods of the head to Tatum's questions, ghost face then goes for her by slicing her arm to prove it's not a joke and then eventually kills her by opening up the garage door she's stuck in and breaking her neck by lifting her head up to the roof.

The hero, as the name would suggest, is the one that will save everybody, or the remaining characters if there are any, from the murderer. They won't typically be the one that leads the group and tells everyone what to do. That person will die and the hero will be the one that everybody turns to for last resort of help.

The hysterical one, almost as irritating as the slut if they're separate characters in a particular instance, will be the one that won't stop crying. She'll usually be a survivor from the opening sequence if it involves a murder (which nearly every horror film has) and then for the rest of the film will refuse to go anywhere and will stay home with people keeping an eye open around her house for the killer. However, their 'guards' will be quickly killed, followed by the hysterical character  soon after. They will always be killed alone due to the group going off and looking for the killer which gives the killer a perfect chance to kill her, Or they're killed off one by one which eventually leads down to the hysterical one and the hero being left alive and they either need to triumph and both survive the inevitable bloody battle against the killer as the finale, or they both die a bloody, painful death.

The sexed up couple will be the ones that the audience will shout at a little more than the blonde slut. They will almost always be killed just before they have sex, or whilst they're having an intense make-out session in a parked car in the middle of nowhere. They won't take any notice of the killer even when he's inches away from them because they're too horny to notice anybody else until there's a knife plunged into their chest.

Last but not least, the killer. The killer will be typically masked as the audience shouldn't know who the killer is until the end of the film so as to keep the audience on edge, constantly trying to figure out which member of the group it is that is actually the killer which tends to be discovered within the last 10-15 minutes of the film to allow time for a gory finale.

Deconstruction of Lighting in Horror Films

In all sub-genres of horror, a key theme within the lighting of these films is grey overtones and general dark lighting. This can be evidenced in many horror films, such as The Ring.

As can be seen in this shot from The Ring, there is a relatively low saturation over the footage which makes the shot more gloomy. This supports the conventions of horror, as the gloomy atmosphere indicates something is wrong, which is in this case the possessed entity within the video tape. 

A change in lighting is often used in horror films to reflect a change from a happy time to a negative time where the villain is at large. This can be seen in The Purge, where the lighting in the beginning of the film is of warm tones when the family are calmly sat at home eating dinner but later changes to become darker and less saturated to indicate the shift in tone. 

Flickering lights are also common in horror films in times of panic, as can be seen in Carrie at the climax of Carrie's supernatural breakdown. The flames from the fire and destruction create a warm, orange glow that flickers and contrasts with the otherwise dark lighting. 

Practical Task - Props

For my practical task, i decided to make a body bag prop. These can be used in our sequence where there are multiple bags hanging from a wall with blood dripping from them. They're incredibly easy to make and not only are they cheap, they also create a really creepy affect.

After a handful of failed attempts at making limbs and trying to get them shaped properly, I managed to create what resembles a small child wrapped up in bin liners and hung upside down. This creates a really creepy and almost sadistic feeling to any location. The process for making a body bag is really quite simple and this is how I made a "parent" for the child.

So I started with a pair of old trousers, an old t-shirt, a vast amount of newspaper, a roll of duct tape and then some bin liners and a knife to trim excess parts off.

The first step in actually making the body bag was sealing up any holes that would allow newspaper to fall out by its own accord (I also did this to the sleeves of the t-shirt).

I stuffed the trousers with balled up pieces of newspaper which worked really well to fill out the trouser legs to a "human" shape.

After using an entire newspaper to fill the trousers properly, they start to look really good and have taken up a nice shape.

I then had to tape the t-shirt to the trousers so the "body" keeps a fairly rigid shape and won't end up spilling any newspaper balls in the bin bag when it's all sealed up.

The dummy now has a very human-like shape and is now almost ready to be wrapped up.

The head was really difficult to shape correctly because newspaper really likes to do its own thing no matter how much tape you cover it in so I decided that the best way around this, was to tape up the neck really really tightly which gave the head more of a rounded shape and a better neck outline.

The body is now finally ready to be bagged up and hung to see if it will look good or not.

All it needed, was two bags, (one at each end) and to be tightly taped up.

I honestly feel that the taping could have been better done, however when I tried to adjust the tape, it tore the bin liner and I had used the last one to make the body bag so in the future I should have a better body shape to finish with, but the end product looks really good in my opinion and the use of string to hold the body tighter together and to hang it upside down makes it seem even more like a butchered piece of meat hanging to bleed.

Deconstruction and inspiration from Se7en opening credits

The first thing to appear in the opening credits to Se7en is the production companies name. This is pretty much always the case with every film as it identifies by whom the film was produced by.

The opening credits quickly move on to include creepily detailed drawings/photographs of human body parts that have been manipulated/mauled to immediately give the audience the idea that this certainly won't be a product aimed at young children looking for a funny film to watch.

The use of close up shots is already becoming apparent in the first 20 seconds of the opening credits. this is to indicate that the film takes place in a close and personal setting such as a house. This close up in particular shows the "killer" as we can only assume is featuring in this clip, is removing their finger prints by using a razor blade to slice them off which not only suggests that they want to hide evidence of them killing someone, but also indicates that there might not be something right with a person that would rather slice their own fingerprints off instead of just wearing gloves. This is a key point to take note of for our production to decide whether our killer will wear gloves or if they'll just remove their fingerprints altogether and how we'll show this.

The killer/protagonist we focus on in the opening credits seems to be keeping a diary of their killings/sick and twisted surgeries they carry out on their victims. We can see this very easily as the protagonist is writing pages of words and then sticks newspaper clippings or photos from medical journals on brain surgery which indicates that they know what they're doing which adds to the fear factor, that the killer knows that what they're doing is done in hospital yet they're wanting to do it for themselves at home and make diary entries about it.

Something else we can take away from the opening credits, is that the soundtrack is very parallel to the sequence as it is slow paced and has a dark eery feel to it which is very common amongst psychological horror films as they want to have the audience constantly on edge so the effects of certain scenes is amplified.

practical task - Location scouting

So I chose to look at outside locations during my scout and came across a few excellent locations for use in a potential chase scene or to be used in establishing shots followed by a cut to the protagonist(s) in their current location(s).

My favourite, and first, of the locations, was in part of a woodland near to where I live in Yalding.

I really like this as a woodland location as you can see in the distance that it has plenty of ground space, but the trees still obscure direct view in most directions and so can be used as an effective chase location.

I can explain the use of the smoke. It was purely as a way of seeing the potential usage of smoke to create "fog" when it becomes dark enough to appear as night. The fact it was red is just as a way of seeing the effect as a more exaggeration since at night, we'd have lighting set up to shine through the white smoke which would be time consuming to replicate, however if this location is chosen alongside the mise-en-scene of the artificial smoke, we may revisit smoke grenades and their use.

With the help of some wind, I was able to get the effect I was after. As you see towards the left, the smoke is still thick, however, if a figure were to be stood within the smoke cloud with lighting behind them at night, we would be able to have an amazing effect of this ominous figure appearing from the mist which will be effective at building tension and gaining audience anticipation. Again, the smoke will be white if it were to be used in the actual sequence. However to make it easier to detect the effect created by the smoke, I have used red smoke during the daytime.

In my opinion, this is another great location for both an establishing shot of the area, and as a location where the killer can make a creepy first appearance where the protagonist walks across the entire frame and as they walk past, the killer is then perhaps stood beside one of the trees or a body is suddenly hanging from a tree, foreshadowing the protagonists inevitable outcome.

I really like this location for the sheer purpose that it is exceedingly creepy in the correct lighting. You're unable to see far in the distance and the space is claustrophobic as the trees line the path on both sides and also arch overhead to give the feeling that you're almost trapped which is a genuine feeling I get every time I walk along this path.

I don't know what it is about this part of the woodland location that I find eery, but I get the feeling that it's due to the hard foreground lighting and soft background lighting that make the space feel enclosed when actually it is the same clearing that the person is stood in holding the smoke grenades (photo 2). Again, to have a sudden jump cut to this exact location with the same lighting with a figure either stood here or dead here would increase the intensity of the sequence, especially if the protagonist(s) passes this location before they come across the killer.

Deconstruction of Mise-En-Scene in Horror Films (Thriller, Psychological and Slasher)

One of the main goals of thriller horrors is to entice the viewer into believing what is occurring in the film could potentially happen in real life. This is especially true of the hybrid genre of psychological thrillers, which is the genre we are aiming to use for our film opening. As a result, the mise-en-scene of thrillers often consists of regular, everyday locations, props and costumes.

An example of this can be seen in Orphan. The mise-en-scene in the film reflects normality, as can be seen from the ordinary house the lead family live in.

The same can be said for the props and costumes used and worn by the main characters. Each of the family members wear regular clothes, making them seem as if they are an ordinary family. All of the mise-en-scene within the film is nothing other than ordinary, apart from the props and costumes surrounding Esther, the little girl who is the villain in the film. Her costume is from another era, and is obviously not normal.

This isolates Esther as a character who is different, and is the irregularity in the seemingly perfect life of the normal family. The miss-en-scene of the clothes being older than the child also acts as foreshadowing for the ending of the film, where Esther's true past is revealed. The contrast between Esther's Victorian style of clothing and the modern day miss-en-scene of the remaining characters highlights that Esther is out of the ordinary and is the threat in the film. This is further supported by her Eastern-European accent, showing she is an outsider and is different from the other characters.

The use of mise-en-scene to differentiate the villain is also used in slasher horrors, as can be seen in Scream 4. The majority of the characters in Scream 4 are just regular students, and so they have ordinary homes and dress in regular clothes. The settings used are common, everyday locations such as houses and a school. 

All of the characters are dressed in regular costumes and are perceived to be regular people. This supports the idea that this could happen to anybody, and that the audience can relate to the main characters. 

The antagonist of Scream 4 wears the classic Scream mask. This makes it clear that they are the killer, as masks are a common convention in slasher horror films. From this point onwards, the audience knows that whenever the mask can be seen, a character is likely to be injured or die.

Other props that are commonly used to associate the antagonist in slasher horror films are melee weapons, such as knives or axes. This can be seen in many horror films such as Scream 4, Texas Chainsaw and The Purge.

Common locations for horror films vary slightly based on the sub-genre, however the general setting remains the same. It is common across all three sub-genres for the film to be set within a house. The type of house (abandoned, just moved into, etc) varies based on the sub-genre, however normal, everyday places are commonly found within all types of horror. This can be seen from the slasher film Carrie, which is partially set in the protagonists home, in comparison with the supernatural film Insidious which is also set in the home of the protagonist. 

Carrie's home in Carrie

The family home in Insidious

It is also common within slasher horror films for the primary location to be an abandoned area, such as a cabin or forest, as can be seen in the slasher Texas Chainsaw 3D.