Horror: Tricks of the trade

Horror movies have evolved over time to become more and more frightening as the quality of special effects and cameras have heightened. The genre started off quite simple and has now produced some of the most psychologically damaging plot lines to date, added with some clever camera angles and sounds, modern horror has never been so debatably frightening. Horror films are based on the fears of the public at the time it was made. There are many different types of horror so don't be quick to generalise; from psychotic murderers to the supernatural, anything you fear could be found in some sort of horror film. There is just something about being scared that an audience seems to crave. People sometimes even begin to idolise certain horror movie icons, for example, you could go into any shop near Halloween and you could find the iconic hockey mask in the Friday The 13th and the Ghostface mask from Wes Craven's cult classic, Scream.

Horror started off with classic films like Alfred Hitchcock's 'Pyscho' where although the plot and filming technique were slightly poor, the audience were still scared and entertained because they knew no different; everything was new and exciting to them. Films like 'Pyscho' were known for using the same sort of background music and diegetic sounds to create an eerie atmosphere. The rapid high pitched style music that was used kept the audience on edge and showed how the character was anxious and fearful. 

'The Blair Witch Project' is known as a 'found footage' film. So like 'Paranormal Activity', it is claimed to be shot by the protagonist of the story. These types of films include the audience more and opens up new opportunities for jump scares as it is a P.O.V. The odd thing about this movie though is that it is based on a true story, yet another thing to scare the audience, throughout the film you never seem to see anything supernatural. Yes there are some creepy noises and events but you never physically see the 'Blair Witch'. Depending on the viewer, they will either see it as a wast of time or something that will make them never want to go camping again. 

The popular horror franchise 'Saw' does not use pyschological horror such as 'The Blair Witch Project' to frighten it's viewers, instead producing straight up gore. There is nothing more toe-curling that seeing someone be slowly tortured in high definition close ups with disgusting non-diegetic sound effects. Only a certain few gorey horrors can pull off this sub-genre as if the special effects are not good enough then the illusion is ruined. The problem is that the majority of people now are so desensitised to gore now that writers are constantly having to come up with cleverer torture methods. 

There are certain films like 'Sinister' and 'Sinister 2' however that manage to show off a certain amount of gore whilst still keeping that supernatural element added to a deviously clever plot line. It is these kind of films that manage to terrify the audience as the use of tracking shots and mid-shots make the viewer have to watch the background for whatever goes bump in the night. The majority of movie ghosts and demons are CGI but the demon 'Baghul' from the 'Sinister' franchise is fully human, therefore creating more of an impact on the audience because of how real he appears. 

Although the horror genre has changed drastically over the years one thing is for certain... There will always be a way to inject fear into the public.