The forest: from fairytales to horror films: Guardian Article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/29/forest-fairytales-horror-films

The article above is about how the audience see a typical convention of horror- Forests. Some say that it relates to, and has originally come from fairytales. However instead of been interpreted as both a magical real and a place of danger it has developed to be a ‘threat in our culture’ (says Peter Hutchings). ‘It represents an older, pre- modern world that we have pushed aside’

Horror films have taken the use of dark forests to indicate ‘dramatic impact’. It gives off an excellent effect in terms of playing in the convention of dark, open places.

This article relates to my production of my teaser trailer, as it is based on the film Snow White but changed into a modern horror interpretation. I tend to be filming some scenes of the trailer with the surroundings of trees- almost forest like. As it states in the article I hope that it will have a dramatic interest on the trailer. As it is based on a fairytale the trailer will contain hidden dangers within the forest scenes and less of an essence of being a magical realm and more of a place of danger.

Film Synopsis - Victoria Lake

At the start of the film we see Victoria Lake (Vicky) sitting in what seems to be a psychiatric hospital. She is talking to someone (we don’t see their face, just hear their voice). She is asked about her earliest memory.

We see Vicky at eight years old being read the book snow white by her mother before she and her husband (Karl) attends a business party. We see Vicky re-reading the book underneath her duvet with a torch but while this is happening we see her mother being chased by a mysterious figure in the woods. The next morning and it is revealed that she has been tortured and brutally murdered.

Its ten years later and Karl has remarried and Vicky has been mainly brought up by her Stepmother (Henriette) as Karl is now a major CEO at an insurance company.

The psychiatrist then asks her if she could tell her about the previous three weeks.

Vicky comes across as quite reserved and an outcast from most of her peers at school. She reads her report on the Brothers Grimm out to her class at school and they make a mockery of her. Jacob is the only one to stand up for her. Later on in the cafeteria most of the students are talking about the missing five female students from their year. It is known that Jacob has had some sort of interest in them before they went missing. One certain girl starts to make rumours and make a mockery of Jacob when he walks in. Vicky stands up for him and then the whole cafeteria tease her about liking Jacob amongst other things. She then rejects what they say and starts embarrassing him along with everyone else as they throw their apples at him. That same girl who fired things up in the cafeteria has to stay behind after school in the art department to finish off some work, but it seems like she’s not alone as there are mysterious noises and shadows about. We don’t see a face but the figure attacks the girl with a knife and is seen taking art supplies and using them for something.

In the school car park Jacob gets in his car but before he can drive away Vicky comes to him and apologises to Jacob. Even though he doesn’t want to he accepts and they arrange to go to a friend’s party later on.

Later on at home Vicky prepares to get ready to go out but then her stepmother tells her she has to go to one of her fathers friends party. Through much arguing between her and the two parents she reluctantly agrees to go, forgetting all about Jacob, leaving him to be humiliated by everyone.

Halfway through the business party and Vicky is on her own and bored. She decides to go and look for her Dad. She then finds him outside but he’s a bit far away and with two other men. Assuming that it’s probably discussing business she waits for him to finish but manages to listen in their conversation. What Vicky discovers is that her father is in a highly illegal deal.

After one of the men leaves Vicky goes to talk her father and he tries to get himself out of the situation. Vicky doesn’t back down and her father becomes impatient and annoyed. He then reveals something about her mother and this raises awareness for Vicky in thinking he had something to do with her death. Vicky gets scared by her father’s anger and worried that he has revealed too much he tries to talk Vicky into going for a drive. She doesn’t like the idea of it and runs in the direction to the woods. Karl sends his right hand man (Jon) to ‘take care of her’ and he follows her into the woods. Jon chases Vicky through the woods but loses sight of her. In the need to bring back some evidence for his boss he spots to police men that are searching the area and chops them up with his axe and takes the necessary pieces back to Karl.

While Vicky is still running in to the early hours of the morning, she bumps into a man with a white mask. She turns around and there are seven of them. She is made to become unconscious and they take her to an abandon shelter deep in the woods.

The four of the seven men tie her up and torture her for almost three weeks. Soon after, the other three take her out of the shelter and somewhere else during the night. However they meet Jon on their way and he aims to kill Vicky but ends up murdering the masked men. As Vicky struggles to get out of the woods she realises she can’t out run Jon so she hides behind a tree and waits for him to come. That is when she kills him with a tree branch. Once he’s dead she can see the four other men in white masks coming after her so she takes the axe and starts running. While looking back to see if they’re gaining on her she collides with Jacob. Thinking that he’s on her side and willing to be her help get away from the men, she wonders why he’s just staring at her. Jacob then reveals how he feels for Vicky and how he felt when she ‘abandoned’ him. He then tells her that she needs to learn her lesson. Before she can runway, Jacob grabs hold of her and knocks her out unconscious. When she wakes up she screams as she is on top of six dead bodies. She soon discovers that these were the girls that went missing from school.

Trying to figure out where she is, Jacob has now handcuffed them together and makes out that it is their new home together. While he is talking about this she sees the axe lying on the floor and a ladder leading upwards. She makes a grab for the axe and aims it at his head killing him. Unable to find a key for the handcuffs she makes it up the ladder but the latch door gets caught on her hand resulting in her having to chop her hand off as she has been spotted by the men in the masks and needs to get away. She finally makes it out of the woods and she spots a police car. Nobody is there so she gets in and tries to contact someone but no one is picking up. Just then the four men come up to the car. Panicking, Vicky searches for something and she finds a gun. She shoots two of them in the head and uses the axe in one of the man’s back. As the last one is behind the car, Vicky reverses back and knocks him into a tree.

Soon after there are police cars coming to the scene. Vicky assumes that they are there to save her but they aim their guns at her and she faints on to the floor.

When she wakes up she finds out she’s in a hospital and is being charged with the murders of all the recent people that have been killed.

Vicky is now at the police station and she tries to tell them her story but they don’t believe her.

The film now goes back to Vicky finishing talking to the psychiatrist and then she leaves. An unexpected visitor arrives and it happens to be Vicky’s father. She screams at him to leave but he doesn’t. He tells her how he managed to frame her. There are flashback scenes in how he does it. Karl then leaves but puts and apple in her hand. That night someone is shown breaking into a house. That someone is shown walking up the stairs and opening a bedroom door. The person jumps on the bed and starts using an axe on Karl and chopping him up in order to rip out his heart. It is then revealed that it’s Vicky. Her stepmother walks in as Vicky takes a bite of an apple. At the psychiatry hospital there is a breakout shown and an empty room which happens to be Vicky’s.

When the police arrive at the house they find that Henriette as well as Karl are dead their hearts been replaced with apples. Vicky is then seen getting in a car with the axe then driving off down the road

Guardian Article: Fear Be My Friend (1999) - Short Review

This article on 'fear bed my friend' is mainly to promote 'The Blair Witch Progect'. it does this by looking at horror on a wide scale and analysing why people love horror so much and how it appeals to them.

The article it's self cleary states that we, the audience, engoy horror films and no matter how much one scares us we still want more. " As human beings we like being scared. Or, put it in another way, we can't resist the draw of something that cludes us, something beyond the human, beyond interpretation. That's the lure of the horror story, that when it works it evokes, it doesn't create, something we don't understand and which we call fear."

We are told from this that horror is a part of what we need from reality but yet we don't actually want it. " In movies or in books, we don't pay the price for our fear. We are safe". we engoy being scared within films and books but when it is in real life we are truly scared. Horror molds are reality into the society we live in. If we see something in a film that scares us, it will frigten us within reality. "Fear is designed to protect us, to make us runaway". For example, if horror films didn't have the typical conventions such as graveyard, the woods, strange noises (sound of the door creaking) e.t.c we wouldn't be as frightened and uneasy about them outside of the film and in reality.

It could possibly be said that horror films have constructed our society and us as individuals in the way we interact with everyday things and people."Horror is there for a reason- for something it tells us our limits, or what the threat is, what it is that is not understood". Horror as been around for generations and each time has helped form the conception of what each person has.

When creating my film i have to take in to consideration important points that this article has stated. One of the most nesscessary things that I need to think about is the target audience, who is it aimed at? "Everything you do in a horror film has to relate to an audience with a median age of 15-25.'

This is what has been taken into account, since my film is based on a modern day Snow White but with a horror twist, the target audience is all up for horror movies but yet they still get to reminisce with there childhood memories of the film. Also the artical states some important features of making a horror film. "Horror is cheap to make- all it requires is a small cast, a forest at night, and a looming house- which is why it's a genre so beloved of independent film makers'.

I don't have a lot of resources or equipment to make a hollywood esque horrom movie teaser trailer but as it states 'simplicity is the key', plus I would be more successful in trying to get and independent film company to distribute my production.

When considering how to make my trailer stand out and grab the audience attention, I came across what Myrick and Sanchez said in the article " We did everything wrong, we broke the rule, both in the way we made it and in the way we marketed it". The key is to make something that is different from traditional horror teaser trailers and attract the audience but still relate it to them.

Compare and contrast the ways that ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’ create horror. Do they use or play with typical conventions.

Over the years horror based films have become more and more popular with the audiences. From the early years of the 20th century with Nosferatu (1922) to later on with Night of the Living Dead (1968). Both are notable horror movies that are filled with similarities and differences of how they use the conventions.

Both these films and other horror movies have become so popular because we, the audience, seemingly can’t get enough of watching the fear of our own death. The fear comes from the ‘what if’. What if this actually happened? What if zombies and a possessed little girl are real and come after me?

Nosferatu is an early 1920’s horror film. With the directors approach to the film, there is no ‘blood and gore’ unlike Night of the Living Dead. It is more of a psychological horror. Nosferatu creates fear through music/sound and creating suspense. As it is a silent movie, what is spoken is written on the screen. When this happens it still plays into the conventions of the horror genre as what is written is in a gothic font style. The words that are used creates a sense of the shiver; for example, ‘And now, gentlemen, here is another type of vampire a polyp with claws...’. With the music playing along with this sentence, an eerie atmosphere lurks around with the sound of violins and blowing wind.

Nosferatu builds tension and suspense in the film with music and sound throughout the film, even when nothing bad is happening there is still the sense of something is going to happening. For example, when Hutter’s wife is just standing around, looking at the flowers, a xylophone is playing in the background like the sound of light raindrops, but there is also the sound of wind blowing which suggests that there is an unwanting presence about.

The film Nosferatu, even though is horror, still has its ‘happy’ moments. With the music that is used, you can say that there are pleasant moments but still have the edge of uncertainty. However this cannot be said for Night of the Living Dead. Throughout the film you always get the feeling of the unknowing about to happen, the fear of knowing something bad is hanging about. Within the first five minutes of the film, we already get the feeling of something horrific. First of the first setting is at a grave yard which brings up suspicions of something haunting is around. Plus before Johnny gets out of the car, there is a radio broadcast that sounds important and when Johnny turns it off there is a sharp piano sound which may indicate that he done a wrong move which may later lead them into trouble.

Night of the Living Dead, like Nosferatu, also creates suspense and fear from the use of music and sound. We mostly hear a violin playing either fast or slow. Either way we as audience have our hearts pumping for when someone dies or zombies are attacking.

The audience sophistication has grown over the years since Nosferatu and keeping the audience on edge is a well known convention of horror. In other words the audience already have an idea of what will happen so it’s important that they don’t expect the unexpected. For example at the end of the film we would all think that at least the main guy would survive. Even though he survives the zombies he is shot down.

We get a different sense of horror from Night of the Living Dead compared to Nosferatu. In Night of the Living Dead we see more blood and gore, zombies eating the remains of the human’s body and organs, and the actual killing of the mother by the daughter. In Nosferatu we just see the bites of Hutter’s neck (not the biting process). When the vampire, Count Orlac, over shadows Hutter, the scene ends and we don’t see any of the action. It’s all created in our own minds.
Both films have similar narratives. Hutter’s wife and Barbra are both damsels in distress. They both need a hero to save them. However it is actually Hutter’s wife who destroys Count Orlac and when the zombies are attacking the house, Barbra gets out of her unstable mind and helps Helen get rid of the zombies on her.

The films also include different conventions of the horror genre. At the end of Nosferatu, the villain dies and the good characters lives, after saving the victim. But in Night of the Living Dead, Ben (the hero) fails to save any of the characters. He gets mistaken for a zombie and is shot in the head.

The audiences growing desire for fear has grown more and more. With Nosferatu, the vampire can die, it has weaknesses. But in Night of the Living Dead, how do you kill something that is already dead? They can go out in sunlight and their one goal is to eat human beings by all means necessary. The monsters and villains in horror movies become more and more difficult to defeat as time goes on.

Typical settings /mise en scene is a must have for horror films. Having a grave yard, haunted castle or abandoned house is what is necessarily defined as typical settings as it is an isolated place where most monsters and villains are more likely to be. Nosferatu has the gothic castle in the middle of nowhere and the deserted woods. Count Orlac is dressed in black from head to toe. Night of the living dead has the abandoned house and the graveyard. Also the zombies have the sunken in dark eyes and the sense of being ‘brain dead’, they also walk slowly. They are dangerous and the victim knows that, they can run and they can hide but the zombie just keeps on coming no matter what. Both enemies in the films are pale faced giving the effect of them coming back from the dead.

Over the years audience sophistication has definitely grown, we now expect what we wouldn’t have guessed many years ago in terms of horror films. Directors for horror movies give the unexpected to what people expect. When Nosferatu first came out in theatres people didn’t expect this type of horror. They hadn’t really seen anything so out of the ordinary or physiologically horrific before and Nosferatu was a start of expectations for this type of genre. Now many people would not see this as a scary film it as not as shocking as the age of horror movies.

We want to be more and more shocked by horror movies, that it why we demand to see them. We love the surprises of the conventions of horror and the fear of dying. Whether it’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), Final Destination (2000) or Paranormal Activity (2007) we will never get tired of wanting to find out different and more horrific ways of ending to the start of ‘what if’

Horror Films I've Watched

Boxes of films (Please Use Full Screen)

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21st Century Horror in Film

The start of the 2000’s saw a quiet period for this genre. However some franchise films made a stand in theatres such as ‘Final Destination (2000)’ marked a successful revival of teen-centered horror. Also films like ‘Cabin Fever (2002)’ helped to bring back the genre to restricted ratings in theaters pleasing many hardcore horror fans.

Some notable trends have marked horror films in the 2000s. ‘The Others (2001)’ was a successful horror film of that year. The film was the first horror in the decade to rely on psychology to scare audiences, rather than gore. A minimalist approach which was equal parts Val Lewton's theory of "less is more" (usually employing low-budget techniques seen on 1999's The Blair Witch Project) has been evident.

There has been a major return to the zombie genre in horror movies made after 2000. The Resident Evil video game franchise was adapted into a film released in 2002. The British film ‘28 Days Later (2002)’ featured an update on the genre with ‘The Return of the Living Dead (1985)’ style of aggressive zombie. An updated remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) soon appeared as well as the zombie comedy ‘Shaun of the Dead (2004)’. This resurgence lead George A. Romero to return to his Living Dead series with’ Land of the Dead (2005)’, ‘Diary of the Dead (2007)’ and ‘Survival of the Dead (2010)’

A larger trend is a return to the extreme, graphic violence that characterized much of the type of low-budget, exploitation horror. Films like ‘Audition (1999)’, ‘Wrong Turn (2003)’, took their cues from ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)’, and’ The Hills Have Eyes (1977)’. An extension of this trend was the emergence of a type of horror with emphasis on depictions of torture, suffering and violent deaths with films like ‘Saw (2004)’, and ‘Hostel (2005)’, and their respective sequels. Finally with the arrival of ‘Paranormal Activity (2009)’, minimal thought started by ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was reaffirmed and is expected to be continued successfully in other low-budget productions.

Mid and Late 20th Century Horror

In the 1950’s there were advances in technology so there was a turn of traditional gothic horror and it shifted to become more relevant to the more current audience. The horror film fell into the two main sub- genres; the horror-of- armageddon. This sub-genre depicts the menace stemming from either nature gone mad or God gone wrathful. Though apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic themes are prevalent in many film genres, when portrayed through the horror medium, the apocalyptic force is typically less religious and more supernatural. A notable example of this sub-genre is George Romero's ‘Night of the Living Dead’. The horror-of-the demonic sub genre was perceived through evil forces undermining the quality of human existence. These evil forces can be portrayed through witches, devils or even demons. The Exorcist is a key example.

Around this century Hollywood co-opted the popularity of the horror film and so the producers and directors found new opportunities for audience exploitation with gimmicks such 3-D glasses.
Some directors of horror films of this period managed to channel the paranoia of the Cold War into atmospheric creepiness without resorting to direct exploitation of the events of the day.
Filmmakers continued to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. One of the most notable films of the era was 1957's “The Incredible Shrinking Man” During the late 1950s and early 1960s; production companies focused on producing horror films, including the British company Hammer Film Productions. Hammer enjoyed huge international success from full-blooded technicolor films involving classic horror characters.

An influential horror film of the late 1960s was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. It was produced and directed on a budget of $114,000, it grossed $12 million domestically and $30 million internationally. This horror-of-Armageddon film about zombies was later deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". It blended psychological insights with gore; it moved the genre even further away from the gothic horror trends of earlier eras and brought horror into everyday life In the 1970’s ‘Evil children’ and reincarnation became mostly popular within horror films. Plus Satanic horror were also popular Invincible to human intervention, Satan became the villain in many horror films with a postmodern style and a dystopian world view.

In the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued many of the themes from the previous decades. Two main problems pushed horror backward during this period: firstly, the horror genre wore itself out with the proliferation of nonstop slasher and gore films in the eighties. Secondly, the adolescent audience which feasted on the blood and morbidity of the previous decade grew up, they expect what is of horror films and are not as easily surprised as before. This is called audience sophistication. Also the replacement audience for films of an imaginative nature was being captured instead by the explosion of science-fiction and fantasy, courtesy of the special effects possibilities with computer-generated imagery.

So Horror became more of a self-mockingly ironic especially in the latter half of the 1990s.
For example ‘Scream’(1996), featured teenagers who were fully aware of horror movies and often made reference to the history of it and previous horror movies. It was also mixed with ironic humor and shocks.

History of Horror Films

Since even before the 20th century, man has always enjoyed the thrill that goes with the sudden shock and prolonged anxiety experienced when we're afraid. From the tales of the ancient world to modern day urban myths, the audience willingly offer themselves up to sadistic storytellers to be scared witless, and they are happy to pay for the privilege of it. We constantly ask the question as to why this is so; do we derive basic thrills from triggering the rush of adrenalin which fear brings, or do horror stories serve a wider moral purpose, reinforcing the rules and taboos of our society and showing the morbid fate of those who object?

With all given thought, the origin of horror films comes from horror within literature.
The genre has ancient origins which were reformulated in the eighteenth century as Gothic horror, with publication of the ‘Castle of Otranto’ (1764) by Horace Walpole.

Supernatural horror has its roots in folklore and religious traditions on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and the principle of evil embodied in The Devil. These were manifested in stories of witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts.
The eighteenth century Gothic horror drew on these sources within such work as The Italian (1797) by Ann Radcliffe. A lot of horror fiction written in this era was by women authors and this gothic horror tradition carried on through the 19th century when Mary Shelly wrote the T first great horror classic ‘Frankenstein’ (1818).

H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James are classed as two of the great gothic horror writers of the 20th century.

One of the first interpretations of horror films was created by Georges Méliès (1896) with his silent short film ‘Le Manoir du diable’ ("The House of the Devil"). This film starts off with a large bat flying into a medieval castle. Once in, the bat circles slowly while flapping its monstrous wings before suddenly changing into Mephistopheles. After preparing a cauldron, the demon produces skeletons, ghosts, and witches from its bubbling contents before one of the summoned underworld cavaliers holds up a crucifix and Satan vanishes in a blast of smoke. The film contained many traditional pantomime elements and was intentionally meant to amuse people, rather than frighten them. Nonetheless, it is considered to be the first horror film.

The 20th century brought more milestones for the horror genre. Many of the first feature length horror films were created by German film makers in 1910’s/20’s. For example ‘Nosferatu’, this was the first vampire themed feature film. Early Hollywood dram films lead into horror themed movies such as ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Dr. Jekyll and Hyde’. These were both silent horror film adaptations from the book/novel.

In the early 1930’s Horror in Hollywood was popularised a lot by the American producers. It brought a series of gothic horror movies to the screen. Some films were blended with science – fiction and Gothic horror, such as ‘The Invisible Man’. These films in this era were designed to thrill and incorporate serious elements but were mainly influenced by German Expressionist films from the 1920’s. Even though some studious didn’t give of a reputation of spectacular films of their day, they did produce some films that are very important within the history of horror movies. For example; the remake of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Hyde’ and ‘Mystery of the Wax Museum’.

About Horror Film

Horror films are unsettling movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, disgust and horror from views.

The Horror genre is broadly in any medium is intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the audience. Ttraditionally, the cause of 'horror' experiance has often been the intrusion of an evil or supernatural element. Since the 1960's any work of film with a morbid, gruesome or surreal, exceptionally suspenceful, or frightening theme can be classed as horror. It sometimes overlaps science fiction or fantasy.

Horror films deal with the viewers hidden worst fears and the fear of the unknown. Themes or elements often prevent in typical horror films include ghosts, torture, gore, werewolves, curses, demons, vicous animals, vampires, haunted houses, zombies and masked serial killers.

Media Texts

Media texts give advertisers the ability to target consumers through keywords and deliver text, image, and video or criminated advertisements. The audience is the most important port of the text. If you know your target audience then that is when you decided on how to construct your media text.

The concept of media text is the idea that all communication, all discourse, is a construct of reality. Every description or representation of the world, fictional or otherwise, is an attempt to describe or define reality, and is in some way a construction, a selection and ordering of details to communicate aspects of the creators view of reality. There are no neutral, value-free descriptions of reality, in pint, in word, in visual form. There is only one truth in a text-the truth, the writer and director intended. A different ‘truth’ seen by an audience.

Producers use certain demographics to construct media texts. They look at income status, age, gender, race and location.