Why we veered away from Horror.

We decided to veer away from Horror as we became more interested in the mysterious and technology aspects of Thriller and therefore looked more closely at Psychological Thriller. The main aspects of Horror films is to make and audience jump and to disgust or panic the audience, which after discussing the intentions we wanted our trailer to convey decided that Horror did not match the expectations we had.

We felt that a Psychological Thriller would be more challenging as we incorporated more modern Thriller aspects such as Political and Technological. After researching into political broadcasts, we discovered that the politicians always talk directly to the camera hence talking directly to the audience which is what we intended for Lauren's speech at the beginning of the trailer.

History of Horror

1900s

At the beginning of the 1900s came the first monster to appear in a horror film. Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame who had appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, "Notre-Dame de Paris" (published in 1831).

 

1910-1940
Hollywood was influenced by the era of German Expressionist film during 1910-1920 where German film makers created many of the earliest feature length 'horror films. In the early 1930s American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., successfully made horror films popluar. They used Gothic features such as: Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Some of the films were science fiction as well as Gothic Horror for example James Whale's "The Invisible Man" (1933)

1940-1960
Universal's success with horror film carried on into the 1940s with "The Wolf Man" (1941) which was the most influential werewolf film even though it wasn't the first. Horror films mostly have low-bugets. During the 1950s there were a lot of horror films that featured humanity overcoming threats from aliens and deadly mutations of people, plants and insects. This was most noticeable in Japanese films as there society had clear knowledge of the effects of nuclear radiaition. In 1957 "The Incredible Shrinking Man" from Richard Matheson's novel become one of the most well-known films of the 1950s.

1960-1980
Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) is one of the first American examples of the horror-of-Armageddon sub-genre. In the late1960s George Romero's film "Night of the living dead" (1968) became influential, it was direscted and produced by Romero. The 60's horror films influenced the 70's as the youths began to explore the medium.Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) recalled the Vietnam war.
 

• John Carpenter created the Independent film Halloween (1978) which became a instant success.

• Sean Cunningham made Friday the 13th (1980). 
• Among the popular English-language horror films of the late 1990s, only 1999's independent hit "The Blair Witch Project" attempted straight-ahead scares.
• Japanese horror films, such as "Hideo Nakata's Ringu" (1998), also found success internationally.
• An updated remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) soon appeared as the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004).
• In 2009 "Paranormal Activity" another low-budget production became successful and received good reviews.

WHAT IS A HORROR?

Horror films are films literally made to scare people - to invoke our worst fears, to make us jump, incite panic, dread, alarm, disgust, fright, captivating us with tales of the forbidden, the hidden, the unknown, the unthinkable. What repels some from the genre of horror, is what attracts and enthralls others.

Many overlap into the thriller genre - that ability to makes us jump, and hybrid with several other genres - supernatural, fantasy, science fiction, making it an incredibly versatile genre and perhaps the most personal too. The horror films that scare us the most are the ones that most directly affect us, dealing with our own personal fears, what genuinely frightens us as people, not only viewers.

The conventions of horror and literally all the things you think when told to think of horror: blood, death, murder, evil, ghosts, torture, violence, screams, vampires, werewolves, curses, gore, zombies, disease, cannibals, demons, just to name a few.

As the horror genre has progressed, the more aggressive the genre has had to become to scare a seemingly unscareable generation of horror viewers. The Silence of the Lambs, Jaws, Psycho and Seven were all previously horror films but are now thrillers due to a want from the audience for more gore, supernatural and jump scenes. Newer horror films have to try harder to get that scare, leading to the creation of darker, more inventive and gory horror - Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the Saw films, The Strangers, The Ring etc.

TRAILER: Saw III

WHY IT WORKS:

This trailer is literally a 'tease' - it gives away none of the narrative of the film, but like ours will hopefully, interacts with the audience on a personal level, creating a feeling of attachment to the film through the trailer and building hype. This trailer obviously relies on a loyal and vast fanbase and an inside knowledge of the first few films, therefore not needing to reveal masses of the narrative to hook in fresh, new viewers. I think that personability of the trailer is what makes it so scary, having Jigsaw talking directly to you and that line of 'you are being watched,' taps into the very current fears of the public of constantly being watched, CCTV, government, terrorism etc. Also having shots of the video being played on a TV and mentioning the words 'YouTube' makes it very real as they wouldn't be eluded to in the movie itself and again make it all the more personal.