The Sub Genres of Horror

The sub genres of horror from Rachel Williams

Audience

For our film, we think that a range of people will be able to enjoy it, but because of the classification and some of the features of your film it wouldn’t be appropriate for younger teens or children, as it could be disturbing for them.

In relation to the age certificate, which we have decided is a 15, our films audience would be anyone over the age limitation, maybe a little higher as some people can be sensitive to blood and gore.

Males and females are both welcome to watch the film, and I don’t think there is a specific gender that would prefer it more. As a stereotype, boys are probably more likely to enjoy the horror side of it, but there will be girls that like horror films too. Also girls are likely to relate to the main characters, as apart form the killer (who is unknown) all the main characters are female. 

Apart from small children because of the age restriction, a family could probably sit and watch this film together. There are no rude or sexual scenes within our film, as there would be no 'cringe-worthy' moments that would create an awkward situation.

Because of the accents of the characters, regional audiences could lean towards our film. A northern audience might like it as they could relate to the characters and the places involved in the film, but it could entice other regions to see what northern life is like, even if it is horrific and far-fetched.

People who are interested in different slasher films such as Friday the 13th and the Halloween films would probably go watch our film for the same gory thrill. Also our film is slightly similar to the Scream franchise so anyone who enjoyed those would enjoy our film.

Classification

I think that our film will have a classification of 15. This is because we have graphic scenes with knives that could disturb a younger audience in such a way, also that they have some gory scenes that will be shown throughout the later film. We can even use language like 'f**k'  when the characters get scared or to emphasise how scared they will be during this encounter/s. 

What makes a rated 15 film: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15 

First Two Minutes of Chosen Idea in Exact Detail - Horror

   Alexandra is running through the woods at night from an unknown entity. She is wearing casual clothes and “surprisingly” suitable shoes for running. She stops suddenly, feeling a hand on her back and spins round. To her relief, her best friend, Samantha, is stood there, at first smiling but her look turns grim. Alexandra then screams and begins to run again as blood begins to pour from her friend’s mouth and she collapses to the floor with a knife in the centre of her back.

   As she is running for her life, she glances to her right and sees a cloaked figure running along side her on the other side of the trees.

   Once home Alexandra finds her mother lying on the floor face down in the living room, a knife, again, in the centre of her back, blood about the room. Alexandra notices a smeared hand print across the mirror, she gasps. Terrified, she runs upstairs to her bedroom, dives on her bed, throwing the cover over her head (covers over the camera). (Screen is black showing the main title).

   An alarm sounds (light fills the screen instantly), Alexandra sits up in bed, panicked and sweaty. She turns off her alarm, the camera holds the shot of the bedside table with the alarm clock, a lamp and a picture of Amanda on it. She checks round her to make sure she is alone.

   She wanders downstairs, finding her mother in the kitchen, happy and unaware or the horrors her daughter had faced during the night. She gets herself some toast and spreads on some butter, then disappears back upstairs to get ready for college.

   She goes through the motions of her day; (school day in 20 seconds, short clips) goes to school, three lessons – she tells her friends about her dream that night – and then goes home - but a figure blocks her path as she is taking a shortcut. She remains calm, continuing to approach the figure, who doesn’t move.

   As she passes, a hand reaches out and grabs her wrist.

Character Profiles

Female character (Alexandra)

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Occupation: College

Interests: Dancing, Horse riding, hanging with her “girls”, make-up, hair, Shopping.

Personality: A bit of an air-head, snooty, bitchy with

everyone apart from her best friend and her    mother

Appearance: Dark hair, pale complexion, 5’1’”, wears the height of fashion.

What is their function in the film? Main character, first main target of “The Figure”, dies.

“The Figure”

Age: Unknown

Gender: Unknown

Occupation: Unknown

Interests: Kills people for fun

Personality: Angry, Insane, Sinister,

Appearance: Unknown, only seen in a black cloak.

What is their function in the film? To kill everyone.

The Old Town.

Detective Genre Ideas (Individual)

Female character is a detective that has been adopted by foster mother and father since a young age, and is now a teenager. Has been involved with crimes when she was little. Can see into the victims and suspects minds. Has a vision one day and sets off on her normal day of detective work. She arrives in the office to find that nothing is in there. Her office has gone, her colleagues. Everything. She sets off on her work with all of her tools and contacts, apart from colleagues. Including fingerprinting, interviewing, checking cameras. To find that nothing was there in the first place. She then has a flashback of a vile man looking at all of her colleagues tied up somewhere with ropes over their hands and tape over their mouths, unconscious. She finds that there has been a duplicate town of the one that she is in now where people can't find their way round, or remember anything. She finds her way to a newspaper journalist who is trying to find someone who was his colleague. She knows that she is not going mad. She goes on a rampage with the journalist to find clues to the identical town. They obviously get lost on their way, not knowing whether they are in the real town or duplicated one. They find out that the duplicated town is the old town and is historically hidden because of the wars that were going on. When the female character finds the old town, she finds all the remaining bodies of who had been staying their for safety. She is then lead on a new case for the next film. She find the baddy that had kidnapped the colleagues and finds out that he is they mayor of the old town and has been holding everyone captive. What happens next?

Video Clips and Posters For Science Fiction Research

Video Clips

This clip is from the first version of The Thing. and is a great portrayal of the science fiction genre. It includes an alien taking over a dogs body, turning the dog into this strange creature. The practical effects are quite good to say the film is from the 80s, and it includes blood and guts which are also conventional to a horror film.

Film Posters 

 I have noticed in my research that the majority of posters used for sci-fi films have a lot of the colour blue in then, and i think this relates to the fact that blue/silver/grey can be related to technology, and a lot of futuristic technology is normally used to create and within science fiction films.

Science Fiction Individual Story Line Idea

Science Fiction Individual Story line Idea

Female characters grandfather and grandmother are survivors of the holocaust. She is super smart, and knows how much her grandparents went through when they were a part of the holocaust, so decides to find a way to go back through time. She spends all her time either at university or trying to create time travel, and doesn't succeed for some time. When she finally has a break through, she starts to improve it until she can create a machine to travel back in time and kill Hitler. Suddenly her grandfather has a heart attack and is on his death bed in the hospital, so she goes to tell him her great news before he passes. When she gets to the hospital and tells him the news, he gets so excited that he feels he may have only minutes left, so decides to tell her more of his stories about the holocaust, including the story of how her grandparents met in a concentration camp and escaped together. This was her all-time favorite story as a little girl, and it was emotional for her to hear this for the last time, knowing that her grandfather would die in a matter of minutes. Just before he passed, he asked her to ‘Make the past wrongs, right’ and from that moment on she decided to make it her life mission to go back in time to kill the man that made part of her grandparents life hell. After she has perfected her machine, there were so many settings that needed to be set before a person could travel back or forward in time, which was the time, date and location. To try it out, she sets it for a couple weeks ago at the same time, outside the hospital room her grandfather was in, to see him one last time. When this works, she decides that this is her chance. Once she is trained and has decided on her plan of attack, she goes back in time and successfully kills Hitler. When she decides it is ‘Mission Accomplished’ she goes back to present day to carry on a normal life. But, when she gets back, no-one knows who she is or where she has come from, and it seems that by killing Hitler, she has stopped her grandparents meeting each other which means she doesn't exist in the present day. What will happen to her now that her parents and grandparents do not know who she is? Will she go back in time to stop herself from killing Hitler, or will she except the consequences of her time travelling…? 

Horror Research - Continued

Examples of Horror Films:

The Ring

       A young journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it.

      A Nightmare on Elm Street

      In the dreams of his victims, a spectral child murderer stalks the children of the members of the lynch mob that killed him.

      The Shining

      A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

      Paranormal Activity

      After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

      Dead Sno

      A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies.

     
      Dawn of the Dead

      A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

Horror Research

Full Film Idea - Horror - Individual Idea

Main female character is running from an unknown entity. She stops suddenly and, to her relief, one of her friends is stood there, looking grim. The girl then screams and begins to run again as her friend collapses to the floor with a knife in their back and blood pouring from their mouth.

   Once home the female finds her mother lying on the floor, a knife in her back. Terrified, she runs upstairs to her bedroom, dives on her bed, throwing the cover over her head. Darkness.

   An alarm sounds and light fills the screen, the female character sits up in bed and turns off her alarm. The camera holds the shot of the bedside table with the alarm clock, a lamp and a picture of Amanda on it. The female character checks round her.

   She wanders downstairs, finding her mother in the kitchen, happy. She gets her breakfast then disappears back upstairs to get ready for the day.

   She goes through the motions of her day; goes to school, five lessons – she tells her friends about her dream that night – and then goes home - but a figure blocks her path as she is taking a shortcut. She remains calm, continuing to approach the figure.

   As she passes, a hand reaches out and grabs her wrist. She panics and swings out her arm out, catching the figure in the side of the jaw, and starts to run, as far away from it as possible, the shortest shortcut; the woods.

   She continues to run, pausing to catch her breath every so often. She stops when she hears a scream, looking round her. She sees her friend, she shouts at them to run, but they collapse to the floor, blood pouring from a hole in their back.

   Horrified, she starts to run again, she needed to get home, the only place that would be safe.

   She gets there and bursts through the door, screaming for her mother. With no reply, she runs round the house, checking every room and finally making it to the living room. Her mother over sprawled over the coffee table, a large knife protruding from her back.

   She runs for the kitchen, towards the back door. A figure is filling the frame so she backs up and hears a voice. It’s the next-door neighbour. She tells them to leave, to get away, but its too late. A metal blade slides through his chest and he splutters blood, the life leaving his eyes. The dark figure is now filling the doorway to the kitchen. She turns and runs out into the back yard, looking for something to defend herself with. She yelps, finding nothing and hides behind a garden chair.

   There is a deep voice telling her that she can’t hide, nothing and no-one will save her. A shadow looms over the female character and she screams.

   It cuts to the morning after, large writing covers the front of the female characters house “You are next” it reads in blood, with a severed body nailed next to it. Police are standing around, looking concerned, forensics are searching the scene and neighbours are crying.

   Cut to evening, in the police station. There is an image of Amanda pinned to the wall. Two high-ranking officers are discussing Amanda's death, saying how they still haven't got a lead on the case, when another officers pops her head round the door and says “It’s happened, a young boy this time.”

   More murders happen in the same way, with each message on the wall slightly different, giving the police subtle clues. 

   A new character, a tall young male officer, approaches the sergeant and tells him that he received a note the night before saying exactly who was going to die next, as well as where and when.
   The police are one step ahead. They prepare and lie in wait. The figure appears and grabs his victim. A single officer enters the scene. Another figure appears. Then another and another until there are ten figures.

   The police move in and a huge fight scene begins. After the fight, there are many officers dead. The sergeant shouts out to the last remaining figure, "Why are you doing this?" With which the figure responds by dropping a photograph, then walks away, stabbing an injured officer through the eye socket as he goes. The sergeant picks up the photograph, groaning with the effort and sees that it is a picture of Amanda. He lets the photo drop, realizing the connection between all of the victims, including the police officers, and who the murderer is.
   The next day, banging on Amanda's Father's door. They arrest him for countless murder's and put him behind bars. But when they go to collect him for his trial he has simply disappeared, leaving only a simple note "You are next."

    Cut to end credits.

Detective Genre

Clip from Scream 4

This scene creates suspense, but then at the end, when Kirby is stabbed, the true gore of horror comes through. Scream 4 is a film with lots of blood, gore and people being murdered, all these things are typical of the horror genre.

Examples and History of Science Fiction

Genre Research

SCIENCE FICTION

Examples of ...

• Predators
• Resident Evil: Afterlife
• Apollo 18
• The Thing
• Dredd
• Prometheus

History and Background

The definition of science fiction is a make-believe story, usually in the future, where their are technological advances, or huge environmental or social changes. Mostly involves something about time travel or the portrayal of space and life on other planets.

Science fiction is very diverse, as there are so many different routes that can be taken using subgenre, like sci-fi/horror, sci-fi/romance, sci-fi action etc. etc. 

Image found on the Internet, showing the different areas Science Fiction can take.

Even 50 years ago, Science Fiction was used as a metaphor for present day, for example how the Klingons are portrayed as Russians and Romulans in communist China.