Class Research: Favourite Type of Horror

My personal favourite genre type is psychological horror. My reasoning for this is I am not a huge fan of watching a film that is highly unrealistic, however psychological horrors tend to be much 'scarier' due to the fact that they often deal with things that could potentially happen and they tap into basic human fears, for example paranormal activity, and emotional instability to build tension. Psychological horrors excel at allowing the viewers mind to create the horror effect for themselves, where as action and particularly gory horrors try to make the effects for you which i find tedious. I don't find body horror extremely effective as in some cases it can look very fake which ruins the illusion.

Film Trailer Synopsis

The narrative of our trailer begins with a boyfriend, Ben (Sam Lee) going to visit his girlfriend, Jess (Mia Zandi-Amarloei). He is fiercely jealous of her, and suspicious that she may have been cheating with another man… even though she hasn't.  He confronts her demanding an explanation and she asks that they break up from each other. This makes the boyfriend fly into a rage and she begins to strangle her. Ask she whispers: “I haven’t cheated on you…  I haven’t cheated on you…” he strangles her until she collapses to the ground. She falls to the ground, near death, and whispers “I love you… I still love you.” Shocked by his moment of rage, the boyfriend leans over and shakes her. She’s now dead. He kisses her on the forehead, tears running down his face. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” He panics and rushes to the garden. Looking around frantically, he sees a shovel resting against the shed. He begins to dig the hole that he will bury her in…

He sobs by the graveside, but manages to get away with the crime. However, Ben is haunted by the memory of his girlfriend. He suffers nightmares during the following weeks, waking with the memory of her imprinted in his mind. To try to find some solace, he visits a tarot card reader, Maya (Seraphina Woodrow). The first card Maya turns over is “death” and he shudders, feeling that he may have been discovered. The next card she turns over is the card of “justice,” suggesting that his crime will soon be exposed. The last card she turns over is “the fool”. Without saying anything Maya looks up at him and stares at him intently in the eyes before he knocks his chair back and storms out of the store. Ben's guilt overwhelms him.

He goes home and starts to drink. He gingerly takes the first shot, but continues to drink with increasing speed. By the twelfth shot he staggers around and falls onto the bed, and suddenly his girlfriend is lying next to him.  She whispers “I still love you.” He blinks his eyes and she disappears. He blacks out.

In the morning he calls his friend, Michael (David Cossey), and angrily tries to explain to him that ‘someone’ was there with him in his bed last night. Michael dismisses Ben's cry for help, making his despair into a joke, “Mate you’re crazy” and he hangs up.

Ben goes to the shower. We hear the sound of the shower and the bathroom mirror starts to steam up. In the mirror, the words “I used to love you” are animated into it.  She appears behind him again and places her hands on his face as though to go and kiss him, but slowly digs her nails into his face, drawing downwards leaving bloody scratches. He looks at her, shocked, crying. The ghost of the girlfriend disappears as he turns around frantically looking for her. Suddenly she appears again right in front of his face, “But I hate you now.” She screams. Hysterically, he runs around the house, entering every room. However with every room he enters she’s standing there in front of him each time getting closer to him. Finally when leaving a room he sees her at the end of the hall and stops. They share eye contact as she slowly moves towards him. Then, with her point of view shot we see her hands shoot for his neck. This is where the trailer will end, leaving the audience wanting to see more and wondering whether she killed him, whether the fight goes on for longer, or just questioning in general what happens next.

In the actual film, the fight between Jess and Ben will be prolonged, and she will haunt him leading him into a strong alcohol addiction and initially will drive him to insane by haunting him nightly and turns his life into a living nightmare. The film ends with Ben kneeling above Jess's graveside where he shoots himself in the head. We hear the gunshot. The image cuts as the gunshot happens to black and white. We see Ben's face as the life drains out of him, but suddenly he opens his eyes. We know don't know whether he is dead or not as we questionably enter a 'spiritual world' of 'life after death'  He looks around unaware as to what is happening. Ben looks at his hands, there is no blood on him and no gun to be seen. He becomes increasingly confused. He looks down at the grave in front of him where lots of hands, of the bodies of all of his ex-girlfriends that he has killed before, clutch hold of him and begin to drag him down into the soil. 

This leaves our film will a generic horror convention of an open ending as anything can happen from here. We leave the audience wondering whether Ben is alive or dead and questioning what is going to happen to him now. 

'SCREAM' horror magazine analysis

Scream is a weekly British comic magazine with a horror theme. The cover page above is highly stereotypical and fits most horror genre conventions. Firstly, the masthead is placed in the top third of the page, conventional for most magazines in general, however what makes it more horror related is the font used. The font is bold and eye-catching and appears to look although it’s ‘dripping’ as it’s supposedly meant to be viewed as though it’s written in ‘blood’. This fits well with the ‘slasher’’ genre and connotes the body horror we see within gory horror films. It is outlined in yellow which usually connotes sunshine and ‘happiness’ however on a horror magazine cover it connotes pus and maybe even vomit. Although the title is ‘dripping’ it’s still very clear to read and conventional as its red, connoting danger and blood. The main image takes up most of the cover page. The image itself is spooky and of course connotes death as it’s a skull, however skulls don’t normally have eyes and therefore it symbolises the idea that the dead are still around to ‘haunt’ us or ‘watch’ us. The eyes of the skull act as a direct mode of address as they are looking directly at the audience which creepily invites us in as we feel a sense of interaction. The skull stands out tremendously against the black background. The colour black itself connotes death, mystery and also usually represents evil against good (which is portrayed through the colour white). The tagline ‘Blood, Guts, Gore and More’ describes to the target audience what the magazine holds for them inside making them feel as though they want to read/see more. The typical audience for this gory horror magazine is adults between the age of 18 and 50. Scream is a nostalgic magazine for horror fans to look back to films that they loved from their youth; this is shown from the words ‘Trilogy Examined’. The cover lines down the left hand side indicate the films that are going to be reviewed in the magazine, and the writing at the bottom does the same thing, it’s also draws in fans of the films or people advertised. The cover lines down the left hand side are presented on a ‘film reed’ which is in a deep red. The fact that the film reel actually has blood spots around it highlight that its meant to represent blood and gore which fits perfectly with the magazine genre. Scream has mentioned ‘A Serbian Film’  which highlights that this magazine is for a mature audience as the film is so gory and controversial that it  has been banned in Spain, Finland, Portugal, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand,  Malaysia, Singapore and Norway and temporarily Brazil.