Horror conventions

• Suspense is created through sound e.g silence or ambient noise.
• Isolation with characters or a location often makes people vulnerable and puts them in jeopardy. Innocent children are more vulnerable.
• Pathetic fallacy sets the mood often eerie fog or rain.
• Climax however not having closure, creates mystery.
• Dark or neutral colours create a blank canvas, emphasising when bright colours enter a scene e.g red (blood).  
• Close escape  
• Sexualised victim
• Unpredictable events
• Sudden, dynamic changes
• Deformed antagonist
• Various props can be used in order to create a sinister setting e.g antiques, weapons or anything that could symbolise past life and death.
• Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. In many horror films the cross is used to protect people from paranormal activity. However it is stereotypically known that these props tend to aggravate any paranormal creature resulting in more violence.
• Lighting is also effective in horror films as the dark can hide things creating mystery and the fear of the unknown. Shadows also create mystery as you never know whose shadow it is.
• Often in horror films, innocent objects, people, or songs are warped to create a sense that you are never safe. For example clowns are now associated with fear not happiness.

For our main brief we aim to include silence in order to create suspense, we also aim to include a child as they are vulnerable and innocent making the audience want to find out whether they survive the possession or cursed events. We also aim to include sudden, dynamic events which will scare the audience as they will not be able to predict them!