Genre Research: Horror

Semantic and Syntactic

Semantic

The conventions of the genre that communicate with the audience.

• Costume - Dark/ washed-out, worn out, plain.

• Props: Weapons – knives, chainsaws, baseball bats, guns.Candles, religious items.

• Colours – Blacks, whites, pale/washed-out, reds.

• Characters – Antagonist, Protagonist.

• Sounds – High pitched screeches, eerie music, screams.

SyntacticThe relations between the

elements and the structure of narratives in genres.

A woman goes from being to perfectly well to feeling slightly ill. She then gets worse over a rapid period of time and starts to act differently until others around her realise she is possessed.

A group of teenagers go on a camping trip in the woods and then a murderer comes for them one by one.

When an audience watches a trailer they expect to see something scary and be able to understand the narrative.

When they go to see the film they expect it to be scary and be more than the trailer, but understand the entire narrative.

Each genre has a repertoire. These are aspects of a genre that everyone expects to see in the movie.

All trailers aim to create an Enigma, which is a sense of mystery, so the trailer needs to give enough information to entice an audience, without revealing the twists in the plot.