For psychological horror genre conventions i found out that there are many codes and conventions that can be followed, some include weapons,

creepy setting, sights, sounds and characters.

GENRE CONVENTIONS

WEAPONS

• When researching psychological horror’s, i noticed that many used weapons, not physical but mental. For example, the killer/psychopath uses their mind against their own victims because it is so damaged and disturbing it can make anyone feel helpless and threatened. Visions, jumpy scenes and supernatural concepts may be used instead of real life weapons such as knives. For my own short film we use the main characters mind against herself as she starts to see visions which are all in her head and not real life, suggesting that she is constantly thinking about herself and nothing else as she has been mentally consumed by materialism and appearance.

SETTINGS• Some of the main settings you will see time and time again

when watching a Psychological horror film are big houses, forest/ woodland areas, ware houses, schools, and hospitals and so on. These types of settings create realism for the target audience as they are able to relate to the film on some level, having seen/ been or currently live in these settings. This increases the fear for the audiences are they begin to picture themselves in these positions. Nonetheless for my own production, we filmed all the footage in a normal house, that was not creepy or abandoned, which creates even more realism for the audience making them relate even more to the setting as many do live in similar houses as the one in our own film.

SIGHTS

• Quite often, when watching a psychological horror film, there are flashbacks that take the audience back to see why the killer is disturbed and to explain what happened to them in their lives that has lead them to become mentally challenged. We also may see shadows/ silhouettes which nerve and terrify the audiences. In a way we do this in our production, however we do not use flashbacks we only show what is happening in the present moment such as taking, deleting selfies, using social media as a comfort zone and providing evidence as to why she protagonist is going crazy.

SOUNDS

• Common sounds/ music that we hear when watching a Psychological Horror film are; Contrapuntal Sound- this is sound that doesn’t match the action that is on screen. For my short film, there are not many sounds as we decided to keep the background music soft but with tension, so every time something jumpy happens the music would accommodate the action to give the audiences a bigger scare.

CHARACTERS• A disturbed, or tormented individual is the main antagonist,

usually comes back to get revenge on their victims. The victims can differ but like any horror film, a high percentage of the victims are female. The uses of children as the killers are also very popular. E.g. the Orphan, the Omen... When psychological horror films use children as the killer, again, the victims tend to be female. This could have something to do with the fact that mothers are maternal and the female audiences watching will be able to relate to the character in some way. We used a young female adult, who is mentally disturbed but is not aware of it, her own self comes to torment her and lead her into insanity.