Mise-en-scene:
- Location - Characters are placed in a location that lacks easy access and out of the way with no one around to help. For example the woods, a summer camp, an isolated house, an abandoned town or amusement park.
- Night time/Darkness - A large majority of the film takes place at night or is filmed in the darkness so the characters are more alert making the audience more on edge.
- Props - include weapons such as guns or in a slasher films - a knife/machete. There is also often a use of paintings/antique or something ancient of some sort used to create a sinister atmosphere. Many paranormal horrors use bibles and crucifixes as a sign of religion and symbolising the devil and us used to anger the thing that is haunting the characters causing more violence and horror.
- Colours - The colours red and black are often used as a popular connotation of both are danger and death.
- Lighting - There is often a use of shadows as this helps reveal the villain without the audience seeing their actual face or body. A feature that's often used is the flickering of lights which causes the audience to feel nervous and scared as the characters do.
- Costumes - The stereotypical girls are usually 'slutty' have blonde hair and wear short skirts and dresses.
Sound:
- There is often a use of exaggerated diegetic sounds which creates a lot of tension.
- The music becomes more tense and fast paced as it leads us to an intense scene for example the shower scene in Psycho which makes the audience jump.
Characters:
- The Blonde - who usually dies first and has the 'slutty' costume for example in Halloween, Mike Myers kills his sister who is blonde and up to no good with her boyfriend upstairs.
- The Athlete - the other characters tend to look to him for guidance and tries to be the hero figure.
- The Virgin - is always the character that survives as they are pure and not affected by evil.
Iconography:
- The fear of the unknown has become more popular in recent films, more specifically in psychological/paranormal horrors. As the characters fear the unknown this leads the audience to also be scared.
- Paranormal films tend to have ghostly symbols, dark places, unusual things happening for example swinging lights and slamming doors.
- There are jumpy scenes where things tend to pop up in front of the screen with loud sounds such as wind or unexplained noises.
- Typically there is a character that doesn't believe in any of the horrors taking place so they contact a priest or such to help but anger the villain more creating more trouble.
- The theme of Good vs Evil has always been a huge part of most story-lines as their is usually a problem between the protagonist who is good then the antagonist who is bad.
In my short horror film, I will by fault use some of the conventions as they can't be avoided and it wouldn't be a horror film without them. The conventions that I will most likely be lifting will be psychological/paranormal ones as I am making a psychological film. I'll use the typical good vs evil theme as it just wouldn't be a horror film without it. In terms of location I will potentially base it in the woods/forest as it creates isolation and an eerie atmosphere as nobody is about. My characters will most likely be teenagers with a lot of curiosity which is a theme featured in several horror films. A convention that will be very influential on my piece will be the fear of the unknown as I plan to not reveal or show a lot of the antagonist and this is popular within the psychological genre.
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