Main Horror Sub-Genres

Horror has quite a specific audience as it has many type of sub-genres within it.

Supernatural

Films within the Supernatural sub-genre of horror include ghosts, demons, or other supernatural presences. Usually, Supernatural-Horrors combine elements of religion into the plot. Common themes in Supernatural-Horrors include the afterlife, the devil, and demonic possession but unlike Religious Thrillers, Supernatural-Horrors are not limited to specific religious elements and can contain more gory violence. There is usually a mediator within the narrative in order for the characters and audience to understand more about the supernatural antagonist. It allows more of the narrative to be revealed in a clear and precise way. Young children as main characters are a main convention of this sub-genre as the innocence of children will be taken advantage of by the antagonist. The locations generally used throughout this sub-genre will be ordinary everyday places emphasising the fact that this could happen to anyone in the audience. Also as the main characters tend to be families it would only make sense to see them in their family home, attending work and school. All begin with a sense of normality and the audience sees little signs that things are starting to go wrong but doubt themselves causing the antagonist to either be angered or want more attention effectively causing more fear and mishaps.

                    

Slasher

A slasher is a type of horror film typically involving a psychotic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner with a weapon that is sharp, deadly and generally looks terrifying. Usually the victims will be teenagers who are acting in a manner considered to be bad or unacceptable in society, for example having sex and drinking heavily. A convention of this sub-genre is the 'final girl' as the survivor and heroine. A slasher film will devote more screen time to murder and terror than most other sub-genres. The antagonist will almost certainly be wearing a mask in order to hide his humanity. They will also tend to be male showing a complete contrast between the psychical strength of the final girl and the male antagonist. This creates a heightened sense of sympathy for the final girl leaving the audience rooting for her as they can relate to her as they would most probably be less prepared to deal with a antagonist. These films will generally be set in a very isolated location in order to create the feeling that no one will be coming to the victim's saviour.

                 

Psychological

A sub-genre that relies on characters fears, guilt, beliefs and emotional instability to build up tension. It also relies heavily on eerie sounds effect and lighting to create a dark mysterious atmosphere. They tend to contain less physical harm because it works mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience than showing them the gory, bloody imagery that slasher films contain. The antagonist usually looks quite ordinary emphasising that it is their mind that is corrupt rather then their form. However a background of the antagonist's life is usually shown in order to explain their strange mental deficiencies showing the audience that they used to be 'normal' and that this could happen to anyone. In psychological films imagery tend to be more distorted, almost to the point where the audience can not see it, showing the distortion of the mind. As the film gets further into the narrative where the terror and fear begins the editing becomes darker and more distorted showing that the characters have been submerged in the world of the antagonist.

Gothic

Gothic horrors mainly include a monster like Frankenstein or a vampire and a damsel in distress who requires rescuing. They usually have a very traditional, old fashioned narrative including mythical creatures such as werewolves, vampires, and zombies. They often don't show a lot of gore but concentrate more of the implications that something is wrong. Gothic films play on our fear of things in the dark and mythical creatures. Even though the audience knows they are not real the victims in the film are ordinary people leaving the audience with that shadow of doubt. Editing throughout genral gothic films tend to be very dark so that they are almost in black and white. Everyone in them, even the victims, tend to be very pale and look slightly ill already creating a sense that something is wrong from the start.