Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality. – filmsite.org

The conventions of horror films change within its sub-genre how ever there are several universal conventions.

These include:

A storm/rain – Pathetic fallacy plays a key role in horror films as it usual signifies moments of terror of stormy weather gives connotations of misery and aggression.

Isolation – This plays on peoples primal fears as when you are alone you are more vulnerable, therefore increasing the tension.

Dark lighting – This also acts on people’s fears as dark lighting provides a fear of the unknown. This creates mystery as to where the killer is and raises tension.

Murder – The basis for all horror films, dying is a major fear and completely removes you from life. It is also linked with pain and terror which makes it a compulsory convention

False sense of security – A tapping noise will be used to build tension but the climax of the scare will be something insignificant. This ticks the audience into feeling safe but then the real horror appears.

The overall genre of “horror” contains many sub categories which each contain a different style of “enemy” and different style of protagonist. Each has their own style of camerawork, sound and editing which give them a unique identity. For example “28 days later” is a zombie-horror which contains very fast paced shots which follow the action whilst “Halloween” contains slower scenes which focus more on building tension.

These horror sub-categories include:

Monster

Psychological

Slasher

Zombie

Gore

Horror hybrids (with comedy or action etc.)

Throughout time, horror movies have stuck to certain trends depending on the time period they were released in. In modern cinema they stick to the same conventions and provide similar antagonists. This can not be said for earlier films however as the genre was first being discovered so there was a broad range of villains and entities for the protagonists to deal with.

Each of these classic films have spawned separate sub-genres for all horror films to fit into where the conventions are shared and universally known. For example Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” is regarded as the first “slasher” film and films after that like Halloween and Friday the 13th share the conventions of that original film (single killer who stalks his/her prey). This also applies to George Romero’s “Night of the living dead” which provides the basis for all modern zombie horror films. Although the conventions of these “classic” films are usually copied, some films may decide to alter them slightly as to provide a fresh premise for their film.

28 days later starts with animal rights activists freeing monkeys that were being tested on, these monkeys attack the activists and infect them with the “Rage virus” which makes the victim turn into a brainless ruthless killer, able to infect others. An overlay shows that 28 days have passed and a man is shown exiting an abandoned hospital – this links with the convention of isolation as when he walks into the street he is completely alone and vulnerable.

He is then attacked and chased before being saved by 2 survivors, however one of them is infected and so is killed instantly by the other survivor. This creates tension as she says that if the protagonist becomes infected she'll kill him 2in a heartbeat”. This raises a certain uncertainty about her character and keeps audiences on edge as you do not know whether she will attack him. This reinforces horror genre theory as it “tempts” the audiences fear of death.

After a series of infected attacks the survivors meet a group of soldiers. However this provides a false sense of security, (another classical convention) as when alone the soldiers try to rape the women. This makes them seem extremely vulnerable and tension is raised. Then to rescue them the protagonist slowly kills each of the soldiers, further adding to the overall death count. The film ends with the survivors in a cottage waiting for rescue. This uncertainty plays with the audiences minds as the film finishes and goes to black.