Horror key concepts
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The document discusses key elements that are often present in horror film synopses and plots. It outlines common settings in small towns that trap characters and suggest they are being killed by someone known to them. It also notes that orphaned or troubled children are frequently featured as icons to elicit unease, as seen in the example of a couple adopting a mysterious young girl with a troubling past. Finally, it explains that protagonists typically have some past trauma and try to uncover the truth about the threat, though others ignore their warnings, leaving them without control of the unfolding sinister events.
Horror key concepts
- 1. Investigating the key elements of a Horror film synopsis: Settings Icons Protagonists Stock characters/ stereotypes Stock situations/ plots
- 2. Often the main characters in a horror film have had a Orphan: negative experience in their past which is holding them back, for Kate it is the loss of her still born baby. Kate and John Coleman are rebuilding their troubled marriage after suffering the loss of a still born baby. Kate had a drinking problem, but is in therapy and doing well being sober for one year. The couple decide to adopt a child & when they meet the nine-year- old Russian girl, Esther, at the St. Marina Orphanage, they immediately fall in love with the young orphan. Their young son, Daniel, is hostile towards his new sister; but their deaf-mute daughter, little Max, is enchanted with her - at first. Eventually, Kate begins to feel that Esther is manipulative and possibly even psychologically disturbed. John refuses to listen to his wife's misgivings, and the wounds in their marriage reopen. Kate calls Sister Abigail at the orphanage, and the nun informs her that Esther has a troubled and mysterious history. Kate delves further into Esther's past and discovers she is not at all who she pretends to be. Its very common for the protagonist Young orphans/children feature in many horror to figure out the truth, but then be films as a negative connotation. They have foolishly ignored by the other become an icon, & the thought of an evil child is characters. chilling and sick.
- 3. Death or the grim reaper is one of Final destination 5 the biggest icons within the horror genre. It comes in many forms and is very effective as it relates to the fear In this fifth instalment, Death is just as many people have of dying omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of co-workers In horror films from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But phycic premonitions are this group of unsuspecting souls was never common, they supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race mostly belong to against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries the protagonist and often come to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister true. agenda. Death has all the power, the characters have no Escaping death is almost always control over the situation. This is a common the main aim for the characters factor in horror films, the main characters always in a horror film. have no control over what is happening, this is what makes them vulnerable.
- 4. Scream 4 Sidney Prescott returns home to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour. There she reconnects with Sheriff Dewey and Gale, who are now married, as well as her cousin Jill and her Aunt Kate. Unfortunately, Sidney's appearance also brings about the return of Ghost face, putting Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, along with Jill, her friends, and the whole town of Woodsboro in danger. When Sidney's cousin Jill's life is threatened, and her friends are being picked off one by one, Sidney, Gale and Dewey need to figure out who's reinventing the deadly game before it becomes too late. The different stereotypes of the Ghost face is one of the biggest stock character are very icons in the horror genre and common within slasher horror has a negative connotation: movies, e.g, the jock, the popular girl, Most horror films are set in small towns such as Woodsboro. This emphasis the fact that the characters are trapped, and suggests that they are being killed by someone they know.