Conventions of Horror

Horror films are films which involve an element of fear. They usually contain aspects of the supernatural or evil. Horror filmas are associated with death, blood, gore and evil.

Horror films have changed over the years and become much more graphic and controversial. Early horror films were usually based on literature such as Bram stokers Dracula, the villains in these films were some form of monster. In the 60s horror films developed by using people as villians rather than the supernatural. Many horror films use children as being villains such as The Omen and The Exorcist. Over the years human villains have become more and more depraved due to less strictness of censorship. Horror films are often subject to remakes of originals either as a modern day version or an english language version i.e The Ring was originally a Japanese film called Ringu. Horror films are also more likely to have seques, The Saw franchise has 7 films to date. In the past decade horror films have also started to use hand held cameras such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Horror films often involve and element  of thriller such as The sixth sense which involves a plot and a twist ending rather than just plenty of killing scenes. Horror can also merge with comedy in films such as Ghostbusters or Shaun of The Dead - a mock version of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

Highest grossing Horror Films:

This list shows that Horror Thrillers arehighest grossing, for my main task I have chosen the genre of Horror Thriller.