Horror Genre Conventions

Settings

• Small communities/isolated places (often rural/suburban)
• Places with a 'past'
  
  
  
• Homes with various levels (Cellars, Attics) Offering places for the past and secrets to be hidden.
• Night time
• Religious/medical institutions
• Places that offer different cultures/traditions.

Technical Code

• Camera more expressive than other genres, often disorientated.
• ECU on victim shows the audience terror, and gets the threat out of the the frame. Monster ECUs = invasion of personal space
• POV shooting(hand-held, subjective or steadicam) places audience in monster's eyes. Raises issues of audience identification.
• Editing can help create unsettling jumps. Pace may be increased to create jumpiness, and slowed down to create suspense.

                            

Iconography

• Visual signifiers of genre (colours red and black) are apparent.
• Lighting non-naturalistic. Often from unexpected angles to create unfamiliar shadows.
• Commoner objects such as weapons, blood, masks, supernatural icons and religious items.
• Iconography of childhood/innocence - children's songs, dolls etc.
  

Narrative Structure

• Classic Hollywood narrative structure. May be false closures or real closure that is left ambiguous, either to enable a sequel or suggest mythic quality of monster. 
• Clear unambiguous hero = problematic in horrors. Main protag is victim/hero, rather than simplistic hero. 
• Narratives of sub-genres are very formulaic. 
• Binary opposition works v. well in horror, helping to develop a sinister atmosphere through a reliance on awareness of existence of opposite terms to innocence(for example).

Character Types

• Main Protagonist, often victim/hero
• Monster with hidden secret/psychotic
• Stupid/'Immoral' teens to kill off
• 'Normal' law enforcers who don't help
• Scientists who do silly things/go power crazy
• Non-believers

Themes

• Binary Opposition
• Return of the repressed
• Hidden Evil
• Science gone loco
• Other side of death