Research Horror Conventions - Narrative

The narrative is vital in any movie, especially in a horror movie. The difficulty of producing a horror movie today is that many storylines seem the same, some are also predictable and there is the worry of creating a cliché narrative. After watching a number of movies from this genre, my personal view is that script writers and directors are finding it increasingly hard, to make unique and original storylines. Many plots are now becoming more-so regurgitated, and there has been a recent wave of horror remakes. Which I feel is another approach for producers to continue making money from this genre.

Here is a list of things that I have picked out from analysing more horror films:

· Villain (male/female) - a ghost, serial killer, psycho killer, stalkers that are killers.

· Hero (male/female)

· Law – they are always portrayed as being corrupt or just too annoying to believe you.






· Secret – there is always a mystery that the hero occasionally unravels the reason for why the villain is bad and what connection there might be between the hero and the villain.








· Side characters (Friends/family) – sometimes they try to help but end up dying (the black guy always dies first).

· Murders – the technique of the villain’s killings get weirder and gory by every victim also they seem to get more real and unexpected.

· Camera – sometimes the camera doesn’t want to show the killer’s face to quickly the reason being to keep viewers on the edge of there seats.

some directors and writers like to repeat the same film, but this time using better filming equipment, authentic and larger locations and better special effects for example ‘The Exorcist’, ‘The Omen’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. The other approach is producers claiming the story are based on real events, for example the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘The Strangers’ and ‘Ils’ (Them – a French movie).

This is why I want to try and stay away from making a predictable horror or a storyline that has been done. Which is why I want to put together more of an original storyline. After looking over more horror films I picked out a few aspects that I may want to use, for example:

All horror films have a villain (psycho killer, zombie, a ghost) and a hero who tries to save the day, most of the time the villain and the hero are played by males. But now some directors are switching gender roles to having more women to play heroes as well as villains, this is one of the things I want to include in my storyline.

Here are a few things I want to try include in my narrative:

· Supernatural theme

· A serial killer

· Secrets/Mystery

· A good guy who is affected by the serial killer.