Horror Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fDzdDfviLI

The best way to categorise a film genre is into its main Genre Paradigms. These are Props, Characters, Settings, Narrative and themes. 

Starting with what a paradigm is. A Paradigm by definition is, a typical example or pattern of something. This means in film terms the most commonly seen patterns and stereotypes in a particular genre. 

So what are the paradigms of the props shown in Horror? These can be as simple as blood splatters, to murder weapons, a flickering light, masks, haunted mansions and even voice vocoders. Everyone who's seen any horror movie will know these are all fairly clique items which we see in almost every horror movie. They are what we expect to see as audiences in these films and so the directors add them in, not only to appeal to our stereotypes of what makes a horror film, but also to make it far more attractive to thrill seekers. I mean, would you go and see a horror film based on pixies and unicorns? No, of course you wouldn’t as it doesn’t full fill your ideals of what a horror movie should be about.

Characters; In every horror movie it seems, you always have three types of characters. You have the dumb blonde woman who is usually rather bitchy and always ends up being killed in the story. I’m referring to both Scream and Carrie, and Lights out. A piece of gaffe tape! Seriously?

You then have the boffin of the story, the one who always knows what to do and always has a rational explanation for everything. This is the character you always secretly root for but know he will eventually be murdered in some tragic manner. 

Then of course there is the main character, the one who solves it all and generally resolves the situation and nearly always survives to the end of the film. 

Settings; as we said before, the settings of horror movies tend to all be the same, haunted mansions, creepy hollows, urban rough areas etc. Places which many of us associate as being creepy  and dangerous. So bringing it back to Lights out, its based in an urban environment, a rather tatty old flat, seen a lot of history. It looks like a place which certainly I wouldn’t want to live. Basically anywhere that gives me the shivers….

Narrative, this is basically the same through many horror movies. There comes a mysterious happening within the film to disrupt the equilibrium, be it a mysterious disappearance or appearance of something or someone which encounters the main characters of the film and thus we are set to discover all about this mysterious apparition and the deadly intensions it holds! With reference to the short ‘Lights out’, the phantom is obvious with the dark shadow in the corner slowly closing in on our main character before it finally gets her! *Evil Laugh*

Themes; there are 6 main themes that horror movies can follow. They include the fake documentary horror films with supposedly real life situations being reported on by newscasters, the exorcist for one example. The mass infestations of zombie movies with films like ’28 days later’ and ‘The crazies’ still have us cowering behind the sofas. The unknown terrors, with films such as ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’ rely mainly on jump scare techniques where the monster generally makes a nuisance of itself until it finally reveals itself at the end of the film, much like ‘Lights out’. The overwhelming gore explosion films such as the Saw franchise, films displaying larger than life gore and generally provide real gross out films which have audiences flinching in their seats. And finally the serial kill fest, shown in films such as the Scream franchise which rely on a mysterious killer recking havoc in a predominately small sub-urban town. Definitely the most popular theme with audiences.

So then how does this all relate to our source material, ‘lights out’? Well lets start with the Mise-En-Scene of the piece. We begin in a urban flat and theres a woman preparing for bed. Normal enough so we the audience begin to trust and relate to the scene. The lighting of the piece is very high key, very bright and we grow to associate it with safety and security. Turn the lights off though then comes that human assumption that evil things lure in the dark! and that is in essence how the film builds up that fear factor we feel when watching it. The lighting is actually key to our understanding of the piece. When its bright its safe, when its dark its not safe, and as the film draws us into this method of thinking, it then sets up  a false sense of security when we think the monsters gone but actually, its right there. Though seriously, how long did it stay in that position just so it could turn off the light at her? 

There is not one handheld shot throughout the entire film, meaning the director is very keen for us to be fully concentrated on the action. This then allows us the audience to be fully concentrated on the action of the film and all the scary events which go on within it! The film also seems fairly obsessed with close-ups of characters and furniture. This would then be for the same reason, to make us more focussed on what the camera is showing. Cinema is as much as what is in the frame as whats out of it. And of course the whole point of a horror is to feel the same as the characters, so showing them in close-up makes it obvious to us how they’re feeling and so we can relate even closer to them. 

Sound is perhaps the most important aspect of not only this film but any horror movie. If you watch a horror movie in mute its far less scary than it is un muted. Thats because the soundtrack within many horror movies are what makes them so scary! Oh, its those strings again! 

And even beyond the soundtrack, if you take out the footsteps, the creaking floorboards, flickering lights etc it makes it far less scary. Its these foley sounds which really make any film and tell us far more about whats going on in a scene than what the picture is. Audiences are far more likely to watch a video with great audio and awful video quality compared to fantastic video quality and awful audio. So these foley sounds really add to our relation to the film and the events taking place.

The editing of the piece is also specifically designed to build tension and generally set us up for the big jump scare at the end. With comparatively far longer shots, the director wants us to soak in the shot being shown and add to that sense of anticipation for that jump scare which has us cowering under the covers. All these shots are far longer than they would normally be in any other genre and it is for that reason why it has been edited in that way.