Horror-Genre Conventions

Settings-
Isolated places, rural/suburban areas in cities to give more of a sense of isolation.
Abandoned houses, old lunatic asylum, places where you go back and visit.
Homes with cellars, attics, secret floors places where the audience feel enclosed and to give them the terror of being watched.
Night time, places which seem innocent int he day time, but give a whole different feeling when out of hours.
Religious/medical institutions- "possession, demons, psychosis.
Dreams and the unconscious mind

Technical Code-
Camerawork using weird high and low angles and also having shots which are canted which makes the camerawork more expressive rather then naturalistic.
ECU's "Extreme Close Up's" on the victim which enables the audience to be able to notify the main character and associate them with terror and to exclude threat from frame. ECU's on monster can connote invasion of our personal space.
POV "Point Of View" is important-subjective, hand-held or steadicam camerawork often places audience in monsters eyes which can raise issues about audience identification.
Use of depth of frame usually used on the protagonist in foreground, unaware of the monster emerging in the background.
Editing pace may be used to create suspense. Sudden increases in editing pace when there is no apparent threat creates feeling of jumpiness....."something must be about to happen"
Sound is very important to help create the suspense as sometimes sound is the first sense the audience is given with. Ambient sound for atmosphere, footsteps, heartbeats high in the sound mix.

Iconography-
Colours such as black and red obviously connotes (darkness, evil, blood, danger)
Lighting expressive and non-naturalistic; motivated lighting, low key, high contrast, chiaroscuro, to emphasis shadows.
Lighting direction from unexpected angles can connote (hell, bonfires, primitive instincts- as a natural light- sunlight, moonlight, room lights- is always from above us)
Commoner objects in the mise-en-scene would include weapons, blood,masks, icons of the supernatural "ghosts-moving objects" and religion "crucifixes, pagan symbols"
Iconography of childhood/innocence-dolls, playgrounds, clowns- children s songs

Narrative Structure-
'Classic Hollywood' Structure- enigma path to resolution-closure or hero-agent of change-quest-resolution-closure; applicable to genre there may be "false closures" for two reasons. 1. to suggest mythic quality of the monster 2. to enable a sequel. This conception is based on Todorov's theories.
Unambiguous hero of classic Hollywood narrative structure is somewhat problematic in many horrors- the slasher film has a main protagonist "the final girl" where other horror films has a victim/hero rather then a simple hero, and thus provides a point of masochistic identification of the spectator which makes it more complicated then other genres.
Some sub-genres have a narrative which are very formulaic. "Childhood psychotic event creates killer who returns to a past location on an anniversary to kill again"-Usually a group of stupid 'immoral teenagers' (Virginal, slightly masculine)-female character who survives "the final girl"
Barthes and Levi Strauss, structuralist narrative analysis-not so concerned with linear development but more with underlying mythic structures. "works well with horrors". Binary oppositions abound like innocence/evil. Horror often plays on this by developing very sinister atmospheres through reliance on our awareness of the existence.

Character Types-
Main protagonist "victim/hero"-see points on narrative structure.
Monster with a hidden secret or made psychotic by an earlier event.
Stupid/"immoral"teens to get killed
Children
Ineffectual police and "normal"law enforcers -horror is not containable on normal channels
The "have a go" hero will get killed
Scientists who do stupid things or over-reach their powers
People who refuse to believe

Themes-
Binary oppositions-natural VS unnatural "Good VS Evil" -Known VS Unknown.
Return of the repressed-Freudian Theory "horror is often close to sex in some way"
The hidden evil side
Science out of control