AS Film Horror Essay

AS Film Horror Essay

The horror genre has changed a lot since first appearing in 1895 by Thomas Edison, believe it or not, but this film is actually only 18 seconds long and is called “The Execution of Mary Stuart”, although there has been controversy about this. Since that time horror films have increased in length over the past 120 years. It has experienced many different things from Frankenstein in 1931 to Saw in 2004, it has experienced reboots of other famous horror films. Overall the horror genre is there to create terror in your hearts for about 90 minutes or so and, for most of them, as long as they can afterwards.

The whole genre has many different things to play with, whether it’s your psychological standpoint or your thrive for action. It is intended to manipulate you, like most films, but does it so that you’re frightened. Horror films can be many different things, they can actually be frightening, they can sick, they can funny, they can be manipulative, they can be the unknown or they can be creepy.

The frightening films generally are the ones that use techniques such as jump scares and uses the music in a way that it can grab you and make you grab your blanket to cover your eyes because you don’t want to see what happens next. These films class as drama usually and horror obviously as it generally builds up tension.

The sick films, not in a good way, just are plainly twisted because they usually show things that are otherwise unimaginable; examples of this would be The Human Centipede series, Orphan,   they tend to just not censor things, or try to make you imagine what is happening, to be honest I don’t know which is more twisted.

The funny ones, my preferred type as I’m not much into horrors, are the ones that will always make joke out of otherwise serious situations and normally don’t use music that often. Some of them can create opportunities for dark comedy films that have a serious tone but do bring along some funny scenarios. Zombieland is a film that just makes you laugh even though it is a world taken over by zombies. American psycho is more of a dark comedy that has a serious tone but also comedic scenes.

The manipulative ones tend to mess with your mind as it builds upon the characters emotions and the tension that surrounds them. They are there to make you uncomfortable as you watch.

The unknown type can be known as supernatural or science fiction, it can basically be anything out of the ordinary. They can be from aliens to superheroes. To name a few, Alien, Man of Steel and The Purge.

Finally, there’s the creepy, the films that you want to watch but afterwards you can’t sleep because you think something will happen. These films tend to be similar to supernatural and follow that sort path. They just creep you out and make you cringe due to the horror of it or because of it being just weird. Films like this are Paranormal Activity, Sinister or Insidious.