GenreHorror

Tamara Cleeton

Genre in general

Each genre has a set of rules that make it different from the others e.g. horror is different from comedy contains lots of dark colours and is designed to scare people where as comedy is brightly lit and makes people laugh.Each genre has different:• Themes/narratives• Iconography• Characters/stylistic elements

Tamara Cleeton

Horror

The main codes and conventions of a horror film are:• To frighten/panic• To causes dread/alarm• To invoke our hidden, worst fears• Have a terrifying/shocking finale• Are captivating/entertaining

Tamara Cleeton

Horror

Films of the horror genre centre on the dark side of life, forbidden, strange and alarming events. They play on our primal nature and fears of:• Nightmares• Feeling vulnerable and alienated• The unknown• Death and dismemberment• Loss of identity

Tamara Cleeton

Horror

Horror films contain dark colours and lighting, normally set at night, and some sort of gore or shock. Lots of horror films use death of family and friend members of the main character to terrify them. The main character is normally someone who is seen to be weak like a girl home alone.

Tamara Cleeton

Horror

Horror films are often combined with:Science fiction:• A monster – corruption of technology• Earth threatened by aliensThriller:• Focus on revolting/horrible acts

Tamara Cleeton

Application of theoryIn the Edwardian era, in a small British town, three little girls are playing tea party. Suddenly they look up and see something (off-screen), then get up and walk in a trance-like state to the window and jump out to their deaths. In London Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a penniless lawyer and the widowed father of four-year-old Joseph, is charged by his office to obtain the paperwork with which to sell a large manor – the bleak, isolated and desolate Eel Marsh House. Though he is hesitant to leave his son alone with a nanny, Arthur's boss warns him that if he fails to complete his duty he will lose his job.

Straight away this synopsis tells us that it is a horror from the fact that it set in a small town, which are usually used as they are isolated. The way that they see something that the audience can not see will build tension in them and is an enigma code making the audience wonder what they are seeing. The girls jump to their deaths while obviously possessed something that is common in horror films. The main character is then introduced and sent from a main city to this isolated town, clearly showing that he is in danger of whatever happen to the little girls.Tamara Cleeton

Arthur is treated coldly upon his arrival and is barely able to get a room for the night, but he meets a kind local man named Samuel Daily (Ciarán Hinds) and his wife Elisabeth (Janet McTeer) who allow him to stay at their home. Arthur visits his legal contact, Mr Jerome, who hurries him off with a stack of papers, telling him to return to London. Instead, Arthur pays the coachman to take him to Eel Marsh House, where he feels he will be able to more thoroughly complete his work. While there he is distracted by odd noises, footsteps and finally a brief appearance by a woman dressed in black. Arthur then hears a commotion in Eel Marsh, and runs out only to find his coachman waiting for him. As Arthur reports the incident to the police, three children come into the station; two boys carrying their very pale little sister who had just drank lye. She subsequently collapses in Arthur's arms and dies. That night, Sam reveals that he and his wife lost their son in a drowning accident, and Elisabeth – who has lost her mind with grief – carves a figure into the table of someone being hanged before she is sedated by Sam and their butler.

Being ‘treated coldly’ make the main character isolated. Staying in the town when told that he should go lets the audience know that he is in danger being there. Odd noises are a code in horror films to let the audience of the danger coming. Someone harming themself and someone else dying also heightens the for the main character. The gruesomeness of a picture of someone hanging is also a code for horror films as it is graphic and hits on our fear of death.

Tamara Cleeton

The next day Arthur decides to stay the night at Eel Marsh House to finish his work, and discovers letters from Alice Drablow, the home's recently deceased owner, and her mentally disturbed sister Jennet Humfrye (Liz White). Jennet claims Alice stole her son Nathaniel away from her and demands to let her see him. In subsequent letters it is revealed the boy drowned in the marsh and that Jennet blamed Alice before committing suicide. Toys begin making noise upstairs in Nathaniel's room, where Arthur witnesses the spirit of the Woman in Black. The next day, Arthur learns that the deaths are the work of Jennet, who is the Woman in Black, and cursed the town after her child was taken from her. Elisabeth then indicates that Joseph, who is being brought to the town by his nanny the next day, is a target for the Woman in Black. In an attempt to lift the curse, Arthur decides to reunite Nathaniel and Jennet by finding the boy's body in the marsh with Sam's help. They place his corpse in the Eel Marsh House, where Jennet finds him lying in his planned nursery bed and it appears to Arthur that she is satisfied. However, she is unable to hold him, presumably because he doesn't feel the same connection. Arthur and Sam then place Jennet's son in the grave with her before covering it back up.

Staying the night in the house instantly alerts the audience that something is going to happen to the main character. The letters, and stories within them give the audience a clue as to who is behind the hauntings and why. The characters bring the film to what the audience think is the resolution.

Tamara Cleeton

The next night, Joseph and Arthur are reunited and intend on immediately returning to London, but Joseph slips away while Arthur and Sam are busy talking. Arthur soon notices the Woman in Black on the other side of the station, and Joseph walking along the train tracks under her command, and it becomes apparent that the curse will never be lifted. Arthur leaps onto the tracks in an attempt to save Joseph from an oncoming train. As Sam looks on, he glimpses in the windows of the train the faces of all the children the Woman in Black has taken. In horror, he gasps and looks away. Once the train passes, Arthur calls out to Sam, but he and the nanny are gone and everything around them is dark. Joseph asks, "Who's that lady?" Arthur looks and sees a glowing blonde woman in a white dress standing on the tracks, and smiles before responding, "That's your Mummy." Stella Kipps takes the hand of her husband and the family disappears into the fog and darkness as Jennet, silently sobbing, looks at them with envy. Just as the film ends, her face slowly pivots towards the audience as the screen turns to black.

It is then shown that the resolution has not been met and that more horror are to come making the sense of relief the audience felt go. The final resolution is brought in a horrific way of the main character being killed which is another code for horror films, but at the same time being reunited with his wife and being with his son makes it abnormal as it makes it sweet.

Tamara Cleeton