Genre Research Task

Genre Research Task: Horror

There are many repertoire of generic elements in the genre horror. One example is its settings, if it was a vampire horror it will be typically in a castle setting, on the other hand in a slasher film, it would be set in a low populated place like a random camp in the middle of no where (usually isolated). Also there is the generic element where in slasher films, the killers tend to kill the teens that are doing sexual activities and are sexually active. The one that tends to survive or beats the killer is often the one female main character that happens to be a virgin or isn't part of any sexual activities or is sexually active.

It has the typical character types in the films, antagonist with supernatural powers and the teens or young adults always trying get in bed with the popular female. 

Also, horror films tend to have the same themes, for example its always evil or some sort of revenge, like the antagonist coming back from the dead to get revenge upon the people or person that has put him down before.
There are many typical horror films out there. For example there is Halloween, this is a typical horror slasher movie along with Friday The 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street, these are typical slasher movie's where the Antagonist brutally kills people with new and inventive ways every time a sequel appears. Some other typical horror movies are zombie apocalypse films. They all contain zombies that infect other people turning them into zombies, repeating the cycle each time. Some examples are World War Z, where the zombies run super fast but can now climb on top of each other, Shaun Of The Dead, its a typical zombie comedy film. Dawn Of The Dead, just another typical post apocalypse film.
There are some sub genres of horror like horror comedies and horror action. Some horror comedies are Shaun Of The Dead and Scary Movie. Some horror action films are Resident Evil and Predator Vs Aliens. Also horror films do well with sci-fi, for example, alien is a horror sci-fi, it contains all the typical jump scares, blood, gore and death juts like a horror but also contains what a general sci-fi would contain like space, spacecrafts, aliens and all sorts.
This Genre has achieved repetition and difference, there is plenty of repetition, films repeating the whole slasher killer going around murdering everyone and eventually meets the main character that temporarily puts the killer down for him to appear in a sequel. It does have some difference in the genre but not much compared to the repetition, there is some difference like in zombie films, instead of slow zombies, its fast running zombies that are more deadlier. There is also the first Friday The 13th films, the killer is the mother, however in the sequels the killer changes to the mothers son. 

The historical development of horror has changed over the years, throughout the 70s and the 80s, the slasher horror films were extremely popular with them having sequel after sequel. However nowadays, the slasher horror genre isn't as popular as it used to be, this might be due to the fact that they have nothing new to show. 

For the film to be successful there needs to be a balance of repetition and difference. For example the repetition will have to be blood, gore, death and killing since thats what all the slasher films are like, however there needs to a balance of it with the difference. For it to be different it needs to have something different compared to it in the prequel, like in the slasher film "Friday The 13th", the difference in the films are how the deaths occur, different ways of someone dying or getting killed or even different characters with odd powers just like in one of the Friday The 13th films where the main character has psychic powers and somehow prevails against Jason Voorhees (the killer/slasher)
Balancing out the difference and repetition is essential for any film, if there is too much repetition, the film will just be bland and boring while if there is too much difference, this may change the entire film making it lead off with the main plot of the film.