DH Research Into The Horror Genre continued...

Reading Source 2

1. Stories that aim to scare their audience have been around for centuries, and their popularity has never really diminished. The reason for this success is probably for several reasons, firstly it confirms and expresses peoples darkest fears, yet also trivialises them as the audience know it is fiction. Also, horror is a timeless genre; people will always find them scary no matter when it was made, while a western for example would be unpopular in modern times.

2. Horror monsters generally reflect the fears of the culture that created it, for example both `Nosferatu` (Murnau, 1922) and `Dracula` (Browning, 1931) were created after WW1. When there was a great hatred for the aristocratic upper class which these characters represent.

3. Nosferatu` (Murnau, 1922) was created in Germany after WW1, at the time the country was suffering from mass unemployment and pestilence, Germany therefore responded to a creature associated with power and disease but physically repugnant, representing the hated politicians  of the time.

4. The year has a great effect on horror films, the 60s saw the rise of human antagonists and mundane locations as belief in the supernatural was reduced. The late 60s also saw a black protagonist in the film `Night of the Living Dead` reflecting the vast cultural changes in relation to race. The 70s had many more sadistic characters and more graphic violence as audiences became bored with more tame horror due to the rise of horrific real life images in the news and other media. Modern day horror is generally very graphic and often supernatural due to advances and therefore expectations in video effects. Much like in the 70s there is a large amount of gore and visceral violence due to the increase in news and the common ownership of lightweight cameras which means that real-life violence is seen.

5. According to Steph Hendry, horror remains relevant due to its ability to adapt to each generation’s concerns and views and therefore appeal to everyone. Its metaphors allow people to confront the problems and issues in society making it constantly modern and relevant.

Reading source 3

1. A research project has found that people are repulsed by near human faces, while faces that are human or vaguely human are accepted. The discovery was made in the 70s when scientists wanted to know how realistic robots should be, they found that if they began to resemble humans exactly people found them `sinister`. The modern day study of 3000 people attributed this to a sudden disconcertion as the brain sees human features so expects a human but then realises something is wrong. This effect explains the reasons for the unsettling fear of dolls, zombies and other horror devices.

2. Why people like the zombie sub-genre:

·        People wonder if they would survive it and what they would look forward to in the future.

·         Zombies are easy to beat and make people think their prospects would be good
·         No discrimination by religion, gender or race, everyone is in danger and anyone could survive
·         People have the opportunity to be a hero/leader
·         It is an exciting fantasy to plot out your movements in such a scenario
·         People are allowed to take or do whatever they want
·         A lot of people like the idea of killing

3. `Why do we love zombies` key points:

·         There are many different ways of presenting zombies
·         The focus of the stories are on the characters
·         It shows normal people in extreme situations; the audience can see characters' personalities
·         The real battle in the stories is deciding how much humanity people must give up
·         Has a lot of commentary about modern society

DH