Sydney's Media Studies Blog: In-depth into Horror

What is Horror?

In a blog post from October, I made a post about horror comedies. It is a genre I am a big fan of, but I think horror on its own is even better. As horror is the genre I want to use for my portfolio project, I need to know how and why horror works, how it's so captivating.

The typical audience of horror is 15-24, of which mostly consists of males. However, there is a split amongst the genre. Horror can be categorized into either action or paranormal. An action horror film is seen to be catered mostly towards men, while paranormal horror is "evenly distributed between genders."

Horror films that focus on action tend to be slashers, such as John Carpenter's Halloween or Wes Craven's Scream. They cater to the male gaze, having a female hero defeat the killer. They were first called "Final Girls" in Carol J. Clover's novel, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Since the golden age of slashers in the 1970s and 1980s, the final girl has evolved into a more feminist role, often less sexualized as well.

A great example of an action horror movie is The Purge (2013). The film is an alternative version of the United States, where one day a year all crime is legal. It is not a typical slasher, but still uses symbols that would be seen in those types of films. Slasher horrors often have masked characters, that this film uses. It is an easy way for the audience to identify the villain by just their costume.

Ex. Masked characters standing outside the protagonist's home in The Purge (2013).

Paranormal horror has taken on many forms lately. These films can be religious, such as The Exorcist or The Nun. These types of horror use this universal idea of religion and turns it into something terrifying.

One of the most famous uses of paranormal horror is The Blair Witch Project. This found footage horror film changed the genre forever. Many of modern paranormal films use social media and the internet as a common space for the movie's scares to take place, like the 2019 horror film Countdown which created an app to connect with the film. The Blair Witch Project, however, came out at a time when the internet was new. People believed most of what they saw online, which contributed to people perceiving the film as real. The virality of the film had to lead the filmmakers to come out and say the film was not real. Though it may not be possible to create the same virality again that this movie caused, it changed how film is perceived over social media.

Experimental horror is a fairly new aspect of horror, of which tends to be more paranormal. It can often be seen on YouTube, as many small creators can use the site to share their horror videos online while having a small budget. YouTube creator BiteSizedNightmare used this platform to share his video titled "Heck" that was a predecessor to his full-length film Skinamarink.

Ex. The short film that was the premise of Skinamarink

Skinamarink is a newer film that takes the idea of the paranormal and mixes it with the childhood fear of the dark. Even when the shots show dark empty hallways, the graininess of the scene plays tricks on our eyes that makes it seem like there is a creature there, so, when there actually is, the audience is not sure. The camera placement reinforces this, making it look to be from the perspective of a child. It solidifies how clueless we are in the situation, and even how helpless the victims of this situation are.