Week 1: Research

 Horror as a Genre:

    Horror is a film genre that aims to invoke psychological stress or fear into its audience. Horror films tend to explore darker themes like murder or death, typically featuring demonic or monstrous entities. The book The Film Experience: An Introduction defines horror as a genre with origins in Gothic literature that seeks to frighten the viewer. Various subgenres of horror stem from this, mirroring the many ways fear and suspense can be created in media. Psychological, supernatural, slashers, and more all aim to invoke a fearful emotional response through the audience.



Psychological Horror:

    Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror that focuses on mental, emotional, and psychological response and caters more towards disturbing or unsettling the audience rather than making them scream out of terror. This subgenre often utilizes characters with unstable or unreliable psychological states to enhance mystery or paranoia of the setting or plot. Psychological horror uses relatively common vulnerabilities and fears to create discomfort or dread and reveal the darker, more twisted parts of the human psyche that we usually repress or deny. 

Supernatural Horror:

    Supernatural horror combines aspects found in supernatural films and horror films, featuring paranormal occurrences like ghosts, demons, or other monsters. Common themes throughout this genre sometimes involve religion, such as demon possession, the devil, and the afterlife. While having similar aspects of psychological horror, they're quite different.  According to Mathias Clasen in Why Horror Seduces, "Supernatural horror involves some kind of suspension or breach of physical law, usually embodied in or caused by some kind of supernatural agency such as an uncanny monster or a ghost... psychological horror, on the other hand, does not involve violations of physical law, but features naturalistic (if often implausible) menaces and scenarios." 

Slasher Horror:

    Slasher horror is defined by an anonymous, typically masked, killer systematically murdering and/or stalking a group of people. Slashers are filled with suspense, usually graphic scenes, and often formulaic scenarios. These films rely heavily on jumpscares and graphic imagery to invoke fear and disgust within the audience, some films going so far as to make people vomit. 

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