The Horror Of Film Films

This open letter is directed at the directors of Horror films. This letter will discus the over used gimmicks and the lack of creativity on their part. It will be written in a conversational way with the use of pathos of how these movies are faulty with a touch of humor, and rhetorical questions to emphasize certain points of my discussion of this topic. I will also use ethos through my time as a film fanatic who is passionate on all that is film especially horror film which is my favorite film genre, and is the largest genre with so many subgenres within it that have the ability to use so much imagination. I have crafted this conversation to be directed towards the directors of horror films with the use of film lingo that is used for this genre, movie examples they should look at, and a deep analysis of what and how this problem cause movie of today to lack in appeal.

Having Halloween just around the corner the horror genre has been on demand. What is a horror genre? Horror is defined as being “an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust” and genre is defined as being “a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter” according to Oxford Dictionary. Therefore a horror genre is a horror film in one of the many categories in a genre that makes the audience feel fear, shock or disgust. Many of the films that everyone watches today are now called movies. Since scary movies have been requested, Netflix has even added a “Halloween favorites” on its search bar.

The coveted low-budget horror movie script is the holy grail of Hollywood. These movies are cheap to make and come with a with a built-in fan base making these scripts some of the most sought after properties in the industry. Examine the profit margins for movies like Paranormal Activity, Halloween, or The Blair Witch Project and you’ll see I’m speaking the truth here. Paranormal Activity raked in over $193 million dollars in profit worldwide. But did you know it only cost a mere $15,000 to make? This type of net profit generally doesn’t happen in other genres.

Reminiscent of the exploitation films of the 1970’s, Bound to Vengeance is a brutal revenge film that is both gritty and get-wrenching. A young girl, barely in her 20’s, is chained and held captive in a derelict basement in the middle of nowhere. Making a harrowing escape, she ransacks the home she’s been held prisoner in and discovers that other girls like her are experiencing a similar fate. Bound and determined for justice and retribution, she sets her sights on vindication by forcing her captor to reveal the locations of these women so they too can be saved, at any cost.

The movie genre thriller has one main goal in mind and that is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats at each new turn in the movie. One of the first films of this genre was Harry Lloyd’s Safe at Last! (1923). This film featured a character who performed daredevil stunts on the side of a skyscraper. Then Alfred Hitchcock debuted with a film by the name “The Logger” (1927) which proved to set the pace for all thrillers that would follow. The genre was then mainstreamed until Alfred Hitchcock made another revelation in thriller films in the mid 1950’s with the addition of Technicolor (a form of cinematography using synchronized monochrome films each of a different color, to produce a movie of color)

A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the

Among New American Ghost Cinema, one can witness the re-emergence of an interesting sub-genre: the Found Footage Cinema. We can observe this new fascination in many modern horror films such as 2008’s Cloverfield, 2009's Paranormal Activity, and 2011's Apollo 18. Digging below the surface of a literal reading of some of these movies, one finds a genre that can be far more intelligent than what meets the public eye. For example, within Cloverfield, the screams and images of smoke heaving through the city of Manhattan hint at post-September 11th. To understand the growing popularity of Found Footage Cinema and why we discover these political undertones, this paper will examine The Blair Witch Project (1999, Myrick and Sanchez) in the

Horror films are movies that aim to elicit a strong physiological reaction in the viewer, such as raised heartbeat and fear. Three horror films by the names of Psycho, Scream and The Messengers will be analysed and compared to an episode of the popular children’s show Shaun the Sheep. Five elements will be addressed in this analysis, those being camera techniques, Mise-en-scene, Editing, Lighting and Sound.

Why is the found-footage genre still a thing? It’s almost like “fetch” at this point, filmmakers need to stop trying to make found-footage happen. It’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s friend on a plane, it’s dead tired. In all seriousness, I do still think there’s hope for the found-footage genre, but that kind of salvation can only come about when the people backing these films learn to remedy a few of the more problematic elements that have long plagued the genre.

Genres are malleable; though they have the same key characteristics, genres change with the time and setting. A movie can be part of more than one genre. The lines separating one genre from another are not concrete and taking bits and pieces of genres can create a well-respected movie. As society changes, a genre changes with it. One can observe what was once important to society and what interested society using the genres that were popular at a specific point in history. The audience changes as time goes on and it is the audience that influences filmmakers. Films need to stay with the times in order to maintain popularity. This paper will explore the changes within the crime genre, more specifically, the “couple-on-the-run” genre using

Last month I attended Professor Farrell’s speech on Universal Studio horror films at the library in Mauldin. The purpose of this speech was to entertain his audience by using visual aids to speak on Universal Studio horror movies from 1931 to 1945. The speech included many versions of films such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Invincible Man. Professor Farrell did an incredible job entertaining the audience and speaking on the differences between each version of films. I’m going to take the seven steps of the Shannon –Waver Model to critique his speech. The Shannon-Weaver model was designed to improve communication and includes specific concepts such as sender, message, channel, Receiver, feedback, noise and context.

The film industry has continuously changed since its inception due to rapid technology advancements. Camera technology has been a key factor that has influenced the growth of filmmaking. The first motion picture in the world was produced in the early 1880s, and the first public screening occurred ten years later. It didn’t take long for the quality of films to improve as new filmmaking equipment emerged. Ever since the first movie was produced, the film industry has been continuously changing in response to emerging filmmaking technology. Introduction of digital photography and digital data storage along with the development of internet significantly influenced the film industry (Barsam, 2015). These technologies contributed

Insidious, a 2010 horror film that is based around a paranormal idea of astral projection and the astral dimension was targeted towards older adolescents and adults that enjoy the horror genre. Due to Insidious being reliant on the sound, editing and camera shots and angles to create suspense in an attempt to scare the audience, this film will be targeted towards people who enjoy suspense in a horror

Imagine browsing your Netflix or Amazon Prime account looking for a good horror flick before settle on something that vaguely sounds interesting as you plop onto your chair waiting for chills and spine tingling excitement. The opening scenes pops up, a man in a peter pan hat is running through the forest pursued by legions of little evil looking creatures wielding fake plastic spears. Soon, the man collapses out of breath, when suddenly a beautiful woman appears, holding a bowl of green goop. The man wordlessly eats the chlorophyll looking soup and, as the woman laughs manically, the man is transformed into a radish and devoured by the little creatures. At this point you might be inclined to check to see if this movie is a horror film or a

As the lights dimmed before the start of Monster House, my daughter and I sat down with a bag of popcorn and our 3-D glasses on. As the movie started I saw her reaching out toward the screen to try to touch the images that looked like they were coming right at you. She seemed enthralled, while I had a smile on my face. This made me ponder as to the future of films and the development of new technological advances as the movie business moves toward the future. Movie production is a costly process which only increases in costs as “better” or newer technology is used, famous directors are hired, and actors with name recognition are cast. Today’s movies are so expensive to make simply because of the principle of supply and demand, where audiences