The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project is a film about 3 film students that go missing after travelling in the woods filming a documentary about the local Blair Witch legend. The film is filmed through the eyes of the video camera that the group were using to film the documentary, the video camera captures their every move and emotions that they go through.  The film starts off with people finding the video camera and playing it back so they can see what was on the tapes. 

The advertising of this film was very effective because they stuck missing persons posters around, which intrigued people about the film and made them want to watch it.  The individuals included on the poster were actual people and if you searched them on the Internet you would be taken to the Blair Witch page. This page included information of what happened to the individuals, and it also some footage from the video camera they used to document every night. 

During the whole film it was filmed through a hand held camera giving the effect that we are watching the film through the video camera that as being used. The hand held camera was very shaky creating tension as the audience are watching. The film was dark which made it harder for the audience to see what was going on, but it made it more scarier because there so much darkness the audience were left for their minds to wonder instead of being shown what it could be. The darkness also kept you at the edge of your seats because at any point something could jump out and scare you. For my trailer I can use darkness to create tension and to make the audience use their imagination think what could be there when there might not be anything. 

The ending of this film I think could have been better because it didn't have a clear ending, and it again left the audience to think of their own one. There were many possibilities of how it could end because the last scene was of one of the characters facing the wall, but we never saw the face of the characters so it could have been one of them or it could be someone else. 

Questionnaire

I have created a questionnaire for my audience to find out which horror films are their favourites and why, also I have also included a question asking what they expect to see in a horror film. All the questions I have included will help me when creating my horror trailer because, I will then know what my audience would like to see in a horror trailer and apply my knowledge to my own trailer. This will influence my trailer in a positive way because I will be giving my audience what they would like to see. 

I have used the social networking site Twitter to advertise my questionnaire. On my Twitter I have many different people who are old and young, and this would give me a variety of results.

Reception Theory

Horror

Horror is the intense feeling of fear, shock or disgust. 

Horror in films are becoming more popular because people are getting a buzz from getting scared. As more people are enjoying getting scared companies are catching on to the idea and they are using films and real life events to make money and scare the audience. For example Merlin entertainment have used the used horror film and events to their advantage. The Dungeons base the theme of the attraction on Europe's most horrible history, The London Dungeons base the attraction on Jack The Ripper and The Great Fire of London.  In the attraction you will come face to face with live actors, and this whole experience will last for 90 minutes and in the 90 minutes you will laugh, cry, get scared, shocked, see special effects and at the end enjoy themed rides. 

The theme park Thorpe Park is also part of the Merlin Entertainment, and they have used films to influence their rides and attraction at their park. Saw the ride opened in 2009, this ride is based on the Saw films and the ride also features one of the steepest incline drops in the world (101 degrees), at the height of 100ft. After the success of this ride the park decided to open a maze naming it Saw Alive 2012. Saw Alive is the world's most extreme live horror maze, in the maze you will come face to face with live actors in 6 bloody rooms based on the iconic traps from the saw films. 

Horror films that I have watched:

The Others 

Paranormal Activity 

The Fourth Kind 

Psycho 

Scream 

Halloween 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

Case 39

Saw 

What makes a good horror film?

1. Create a story line which the audience can relate to 

By choosing a story line that the audience can relates to, makes it more personal to them and it could scare them more. Researching the different types of horror films out there, I have noticed that a lot of the stories behind the film are either based on a true story or it is based on moral panics. This would be more personal to the audience because if the film was based on a true story then the  audience will feel more tension and uncomfortable because they know that the events in the film have actually happened. I researched into whether horror films scare more younger or older people, and I come to the conclusion that years ago older people were more scared of horror film than we are now. This could have been due to the world war, and other events that have happened around that time. Horror films would have included these events and included links to them in the films. This resulted to the older audience to be more scared of the horror films and it would have affected them more, than the audience now. 

2. Location 

In horror films I think the location is vey important because it sets the scene and I think it also sets the genre of horror for the film. Horror films produced in the earlier years were all quite similar in the sense of location, they were filmed in isolated places such as the woods, abandoned houses and deserted towns. This would create a feel of helplessness because there is no one around to help, and save the characters. More modern horror films are being set in places we go everyday, for example they are being set in houses where lots of people live around. This creates a new sense of fear because the films make you wonder who could be living next to you and also if your friends are who they say they are. 

3. Music

If horror films didn't have music I don't think they would be as scary. Music adds tension and builds up a really scary scenes. Having silence also makes the films scary as well because, because when the characters go silent then it tells the audience that something bad is going to happen, and the silence is always broken by loud jarring sounds, that result into making the audience jump and feel scared.

4. The killers appearance

The older horror films had more killers such as: Halloween, Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All these film has a clear killer and the audience could have either guessed who it was or the film revealed who the villain was. The three killers in the film has masks which made them look more scary, and because their masks were so iconic the audience is more likely to remember what they look like and it would scare them because they will always remember who they were. Nowadays horror films are based around the unknown, and supernatural. The audience are more likely to question the films more because they don't what is killing people and what is the villain. This scares the audience more I think because they are not left with a clear ending and they are left questioning everything that happened in the film. 

   

Masked Killers

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 1974 

Halloween - 1978

Saw V - 2008

The Strangers - 2008 

Scream - 1996 

Your Next - 2001 

Hannibal - 2001 

Postmodernism

Postmodernist films attempts to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterisation and destroys (or, at least toys with) the audience suspension of belief. Typically, such as films also break down the cultural divide between high and low act and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narrative expression. 

Audience Theories, Moral Panics

" The media are responsible for a range of social problems"
I do and don't agree with this quote because the reason why I agree with this is because I think the media could advertise more about drugs and hows bad it is, and also advertise support for children who are involved with it. I don't agree with the quote because although the media could do more to advertise things and try not to glamourise things such as drugs and sex. In our area we have the highest teenage pregnancy, but I do not blame the media for this because, although there is a programme dedicated to this subject it doesn't glamourise teenage pregnancy. The programme shows how hard it is to been a teen mom, and it also shows that it sometimes doesn't end in a happy ending. Some people would agree that it does promote teenage pregnancy because most of the girls get help from their parents and at times being a teen mom doesn't look hard. After everything the girls have gone through they all would say that it has been the hardest thing they have ever done.

Social Problems 

• Lack of role models 
• Social integration
• women/men inequality  
• Gang Crime 
• Crime - London riots 
• High teenage pregnancy 

Hyperreality - is to be able to differentiate between what is real and what is not. 

Moral panics - describes as a condition, episode, person or group of persons which emerge to become defined as a threat to social values and interests (Cohen 1972)

Classic Structure

Concern - that the behaviour of the group or category in question is likely to have a negative impact on society 

Hostility - towards the group in question increases and they become 'folk devils'. A clear division forms between 'them' and 'us' 

Consensus - a widespread acceptance that the group in question poses a very real threat to society

Disproportionally - the action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group 

Volatility - moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as quickly 

Mulvey's Theory

"Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." 

John Berger 

From this quote I can see that it is said that men work more harder than women and women just appear and look nice. I do not agree with this part of the quote because men do work hard, but women also work hard. Nowadays I think women work even harder than men but do not get the credit for it. There has always been a divide between women and men, and men are seen to be more superior than women so they would get more money and promotions quicker. 

"Women watch themselves being looked at." This sentence explains that most films are shown through the male gaze, and it shows the audience how men see women. Also it says that us women just watch ourselves being looked at on the big screen. 

Laura Mulvey theory discussed that we watch a film through a males point of view. The male gaze shows women to be of the status of objects, and not people. Films normally have women wearing less clothes showing more flesh than men, and the camera also lingers on places such as the bum and chest area. 

For feminists it can be thought of in 3 ways: 

• How men look at women 
• How women look at themselves 
• How women look at other women

The Female Gaze

The female gaze is about the way the work is presented as from a female perspective or reflects female attitudes.
Female faze is mainly found in works that are exclusively for women for example in soap operas, chick flicks and personal works by women creators.

This is an example of the female gaze advertising perfume. The advert uses sex appeal to target the female audience, also the advert makes the male the centre of attention and the focus is all on him.  The male model is looking straight at the audience addressing them personally and making them feel involved. 

The Male Gaze

The male gaze describes the male point of view. The obvious results of male gaze is the way the directors and camera man (usually male) film females in films.
For example the women would wear less clothes showing more flesh to the male viewers. Also the camera man would leave the camera on the legs, bum and boobs for longer.

This is an example of the male gaze which is used in a poster for shower gel. We can see there is a lot of skin being shown such as her legs and her boobs. We can tell this is the male gaze because this is what most men would like to see and this could draw them in to buy the product. 

Mulvey's three types of 'looking'

Levi-Strauss

Strauss believed that the way we understand certain words depends on understanding the difference between the word and it's opposite or as he calls is 'binary opposites'.

For example for us to understand what is sadness we will have to know what happiness is before and then we can find out what sadness is. Many horror films include Strauss's theory in the plots. The most common opposites are good and evil, human and supernatural and sane and insane.

An example is in Harry Potter 7, in this poster we can see that the binary opposite is good and evil. Harry is the good character because he wants to stop the villain from harming people and doing bad things, where as the villain is the evil because he is causing trouble and wants to kill Harry.

Insidious 2 Poster Analysis

• The colours used in the poster are really dark setting the mood for the film. Also because the background is so dark it is making harder for the audience to see what the little boy is looking at. The only colour used in this poster is in the title of the film. The colour they use is red, this could represent the devil and hell fire. Also the date when the film is being released is in red as well so it stands out from the background. 
• The poster is simple and limited. There is a young child in a walker in the middle of the room, and he has his hand reaching out as if something is there. This gets the audiences minds wondering because although we can't see anything there still is something there. The child in the walker has his back towards the audience so we can't see his face, this would make the audience curious, and wonder if the little boy is good or bad. 

The Conjuring Poster Analysis

• The wall in the background looks like it has been scratched and it is also dirty. This matches the dark theme in the film and also the colour black is linked with death. Also the room in the poster looks like it is in a abandoned place where no one visits making it more scary. 
• The rocking chair in the middle of the room makes the poster look creepy because rocking chairs are seen as scary objects to use in horror films. Also the doll sitting on the girls lap is looking straight at the audience addressing them personally. Dolls have been becoming more common in horror films because they are linked with children and some of them look scary. 
• The girl sitting on the chair has her back towards the audience, this is a good way to make the audience feel more curious about who she could be and what she looks like. 

Saw 3 Poster Analysis

• The saw at the top of the page could be giving the audience a clue about the weapons that are going to be used to kill the victims in the film. 
• The colours used in the poster are dull and quite dirty, and matches the theme of the film well. By keeping the colours simple they do not take the attention away from the objects on the poster. 
• The teeth are used to show that this is the third Saw film. I think this is a very effective way to show this because it is very creative and also stands out more presented like this, than just writing 3. The teeth also represent what the film is about because the villain hides the keys in places in the human body and also the teeth could be part of a trap. 
• The sentence underneath the title of the film links to the teeth because it says 'this halloween, he's pulling out al the stops'. It links to the title because we pull out teeth making it more gruesome for the audience. 

Objective and Subjective treatment

Objective Treatment - The 'objective point of view' involves treating the viewer as an observer looking at what is happening in the film.

For example in this clip we are watching on what is happening and we are also not involved in whats going on in the film.

Subjective Treatment - The 'subjective point of view' is when the viewer is treated as a participant.

This is an example of subjective treatment because the filming makes the audience feel that the camera is one of the characters eyes, so we see everything they see. For example the person would be looking at the girl so we can see it as well.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Analysis

• The slogan at the top of the poster makes the film sound like a game. The reason why I think this is because 'who will survive' tells the audience that the villain is going to kill people who are in a grounp 'what will be left of them' this suggest that the villain could torture the victims by cutting limbs off. Also the quote 'who will survive' suggest that there could be a survivor in the film but who would it be. 
• 'What happened is true. Now the motion picture that's just as real' tells the audience that the film could be based on a true story, and the events in the film have really happened. By including this in the poster I think it makes the film more scary because people get frightened if the film is based on a true story because it actually happened and it's not just made up.   
• There is a girl in the background behind the masked villain, she looks like she is tied up and is screaming for help from the position of her head. The masked villain in front of her looks like he is going to kill her with the chainsaw, and the way the villain is holding the chainsaw looks like he is enjoying what he is doing. The mask the villain is wearing makes the audience curious because they don't know who the villain is and it will make them want to watch the film. 
• The colour of the title of the film is in red which could relate to the colour of blood and evil. By using the colour red for the title of the film makes it stand out the most from everything on the page. 

Halloween Poster Analysis

• Black background represents bad and the evil that could be in the film. Also the colour black makes the brighter colours on the poster stand out for example the pumpkin mask with the hand holding a knife. The image on the poster stands out a lot from the black background, this could be also a way of attracting the audience to the film. 
• The mask I think is made out of a pumpkin because it also links to the title of the film because it is halloween and in halloween people carve out faces from it. The mask is also holding a knife this could mean that someone is either going to get hurt or killed in the film. The hand holding the knife looks like a males hand because it is bigger and muscular. The colour around this area of the poster is an warm orange also linking to the  idea of halloween. 
• The pull quote 'the night he came home' suggest that the villain lived in an area and moved out, and the film will be about the night he came home. From this I can tell that the night he came home something horrible is going to happen. Also it states 'he' which tells the audience that the villain is male. 
• The text on the poster is white which is a neutral colour and the white stands out from the black background and draws the audience in.  

The horror genre, exploring the conventions

Mise-en-scene 

• Isolated setting or domestic settings 
• Bad things often happen in the night time
• Dark atmosphere, created by expressionistic lighting, shadowy lighting 

Camerawork and editing 

• Crosscutting for suspense sequences 
• Faster cutting for violent action 
• Point of view shots for those being watched 
• Hand held shots for chase scenes 

Characters 

• Hedonistic teenagers 
• Innocent girls 
• Victims become heroes 
• Monsters 
• Final girl 
• Psychologically damaged adults 

Icons

• Blood 
• Gore
• Knives
• Shadows 
• Darkness 
• Masks 
• Ghosts 
• Deformities 

Music and Sound 

• Heartbeats 
• Atmospheric suspense music 
• Psycho strings 
• Loud bangs and crashes 
• Screams 

Narratives based on issues/themes emerging

• Good triumphing over evil 
• Conflict played out as a battle between good and evil 
• The supernatural haunting an individual 
• Unfinished business with a villain coming back for revenge 
• Confusion with identity 
• Unsolved murders 
• Unexplained events 

Narrative structure 

• Conforms to Todorov's equilibrium, disruption, restoration of equilibrium 
• Propp's character theory 
• Binary oppositions between good and evil, life and death, supernatural and natural - leading to resolution of those conflicts but often with a twist at the end suggesting all is not well
• Victims using their skills to solve the crime and reveal/overthrow the murderer 

The Final Destination

Out of many films posters this is one of my favourites. The reason why it is one of my favourites is because it is eye catching and cleverly thought out. Skulls are quite common in horror films because it symbolises death, and this is a common theme in horror films.

The colours in the poster match the film theme very well, they use dark colours such as different shades of blue, white and black. Although these colours are quite calming there is also a dark side to them as well, because normally dark colours represent sad things and death. This film is about death and if you can cheat death so I think the colours go very well, this also links to why people wear black at funerals because they feel black represents sadness and loss.
From looking at the poster you can see that it is well thought out and attracts the audience. The cracked glass represents what happens in the film and how the characters die in the film. Also within the cracked glass we can see that there is a skull which again represents death. From the front cover we can see a strong theme of death running through it giving the audience a clue what the film could be about. The cracked glass also shows clips form the film drawing the audience in.
 Everything on the poster goes very well each other because the pull quote at the top 'Rest In Pieces' is shown through the cracked glass. Also from the pull quote we know that people in the film are going to die because normally we say 'rest in piece' but instead it's 'rest in pieces' which could mean the way the people die could leave them pieces.

Creating scary text in Photoshop

To create this scary text font in photoshop. I first typed the word that I wanted which was 'scary' and then went to filter and then stylize wind. This created the effect that the text is being blown from the left and right. I think this effect is very effective because it makes the text look scary and haunted. This technique can be used in either the film poster or magazine front cover. 

Analysis Of Psycho Film Poster

The photo used in this poster, makes the poster look more like horror film than any other genre. We can see that there is a female in the shower and she looks trapped because she is behind the glass. Also as the audience it makes us feel that there is just one thing stopping us from helping the girl which is the glass. The girl in the poster behind the glass has her hands up linking to the fact that she is trapped and that she needs help. Running down the shower looks like blood which could mean that the girl is either going to get killed or someone wants to harm her. The black borders on each side of the shower makes the audience feel that the girl is trapped and can't get out. 

The title of the film is created out of the dripping blood, I think this is a creative idea and it's different from many other film posters. Also the word psycho is split into two, this could be representing one of the characters in the film and it could mean any character has a split personality. 

The text at the bottom of the poster is written in white so it can stand out against the black and background, and the release date of the film is presented in bold red text. This makes the date stand out from the other text and it draws peoples eyes to that  section first. 

The pull quote at the top of the poster reads 'Check In, Relax, Take a Shower' this gives the audience a clue. The words 'Take a shower' tells the audience that something is going to happen in the shower and keeps the audience at the edge of their seats during the whole film. 

Why People Watch Horror Films?

Scary eye in Photoshop

I was experimenting in Photoshop to create a scary eye photo. The ideas that I am creating can be either used in the film poster or magazine front cover. I used a macro lens to photograph to eye and then  opened the photo in Photoshop where I added a tree texture to the eye, then erased the pupil area. Once this was done I turned the whole photo to black and white, which in my opinion made the photo dark and created a scary feel to it.

Comparing The Exorcist 1973, Jaws 1975 and Halloween 1978

In each of the opening scenes in the horror trailers, each of them opened with a voice over explaining the background of what the film is about and also the voice over sets the scene. For example in the trailer for Jaws the opening scene is a camera panning through the water and the voice over is describing the beast, which was unknown and only now it is starting to rise to the surface. In the trailers for The Exorcist and Halloween the voice-overs sets the scene and introduce the audience to their worst nightmare. In both trailers the voice-overs are used on an establishing shot, this shot introduces the audience again to where the film is going to be set.

The main convection I noticed in each of the trailers was that they never showed the villain in the film. For example at the beginning of The Exorcist trailer the mother walked into the girls room and displayed a shocked face but the cameras never turned to the girl revealing who she is. Also in the Jaws trailer the voice over talked about the beast and still it was never shown in the trailer, the attacks in the trailers were shown from above the water not revealing the identity of the beast. Halloween used the same technique during the whole trailer, the victim was always running away or being chased by the villain but again the identity was not revealed, the villain was mostly lurking in the darkness. The technique being used in horror trailers I think is very effective because by not revealing who the villain is it makes the audience more curious about who it is and makes the want to watch the whole film to find out. Also if in the trailers it showed who the villain was then it will be giving the main story away and the film wouldn’t be as scary as not knowing who it is. 

Music played a big part in each of the trailers; the music started off calm at the beginning and built up towards the end. Also when something bad was going to happen the music started to get louder which gets your heart racing because the music becomes intense and the audience knows that something is going to happen but they don’t know what. I think if trailers and films didn’t have music it wouldn’t be as scary, because for example if something jumped out at you it wouldn’t be as scary as if someone jumped out at you but music was played with it. 

The Fourth Kind Review

The first kind sighting,

The second kind evidence,

The third kind contact,

The fourth kind abduction 

It all started in a small town in Alaska where abductions were becoming more common. The fourth kind switches between re-enactment of the found footage, and the actual footage of interviews where each of the patients have the first, second, third and fourth kind. The screen is split so you can see both the re-enactment and the raw footage. All patients have one thing in common an owl. Never look into the eyes of an owl. The psychologist Dr Abigail Tyler uses hypnosis to uncover memories from her patients of their alien abductions. Also along side the main story lines of alien abductions there is the mystery of the death of the psychologist’s husband.

The thriller uses music and the found footage to make the audience feel on the edge of their seats during the whole film. The music is used to emphasis drama and frightening scenes of flashbacks. As much as the high impact scenes stunned the audience, the directors and producers used the tool of silence which was equally effective because it left the audience to question what they have just seen and whether they believe it or not. Whether you are a fan of science fiction thriller or not, the fourth kind raises issues and morals about whether we are really alone on earth.

As a person who is generally fascinated with conspiracy surrounding aliens and other human life forms, this film raises a lot of questions regarding human contact with the extra-terrestrial. What makes the film different to other similar films is that they leave the viewer to make up their own mind where they believe in aliens or not. Also I found that the technique of using found interview footage resembles a documentary like feel adding a sense of realness to the film.

Fear

Carrie 2013 Remake