HORROR CONVENTIONS THAT WE USED:
The main victim being a female:
In most horror films, specifically those ranging around the slasher genre, typically tend to use a female character as the main and most vulnerable victim. A prime example of this would be the opening of Wes Craven's Scream, as it depicts a female character getting an absurd call from the killer and eventually makes all the wrong decisions to seal their fate. The main victim in our trailer is also female and makes a wrong decision in the trailer by taking a photo of herself. We decided to make the main character female to conform to this convention and makes it easier to create vulnerability and isolation within the character, their emotions and the surroundings around them.
The main victim being a female:
In most horror films, specifically those ranging around the slasher genre, typically tend to use a female character as the main and most vulnerable victim. A prime example of this would be the opening of Wes Craven's Scream, as it depicts a female character getting an absurd call from the killer and eventually makes all the wrong decisions to seal their fate. The main victim in our trailer is also female and makes a wrong decision in the trailer by taking a photo of herself. We decided to make the main character female to conform to this convention and makes it easier to create vulnerability and isolation within the character, their emotions and the surroundings around them.
The setting, perfect for killer to their victims:
Our story is based on the myth that when you take a picture (photograph) it steals your soul, this belief is shared by many cultures, but we decided to give it a 21st century twist, as nowadays we are being filmed everywhere. With this in mind we decided to set our horror in a location that had many cameras such as CCTV, that we had access to. So what better place to film than in our own school that is being monitored 24/7 with CCTV; an environment that is entrapped with multiple ways of killing their victim in the least susceptible ways.
The killer is mysterious:
Throughout our trailer you barely see who the killer even is. It can even be expanded further to the theory of if there even IS one killer. The title of our trailer "The Soul Takers" can imply a group of killers, however in our trailer only a hooded figure is shown. This embarks mystery onto the audiences and intrigues them to discover the true theory behind the group of soul takers.
HORROR CONVENTIONS THAT WE DEVELOPED:
Social Fear:
Many horror films in this current age exploit the trope of social fear in order to engage and attract its target audience. For our trailer, we decided to develop this trope to a certain theme: the fear of technology. This is because of one of the trailer's taglines "they say to take a photo is to steal a soul" which implies that the victims can be killed through the means of photos and cameras to a greater extent.
Mind Invasion:
In certain horror films, the victim can be considered of having supernatural beliefs of the existence of killers in which their peers may refer to them as "crazy and delusional". On our trailer, our victim believes that people are dying when they get their photo taken which is lead to people finding her crazy and her mother calling therapy. We chose to develop this convention because it adds suspense into the atmosphere and the people who don't believe in what the victim believes won't expect anything to happen
Using ideas from other horror films:
Our story is based on the myth that when you take a picture (photograph) it steals your soul, this belief is shared by many cultures, but we decided to give it a 21st century twist, as nowadays we are being filmed everywhere. With this in mind we decided to set our horror in a location that had many cameras such as CCTV, that we had access to. So what better place to film than in our own school that is being monitored 24/7 with CCTV; an environment that is entrapped with multiple ways of killing their victim in the least susceptible ways.
The killer is mysterious:
Throughout our trailer you barely see who the killer even is. It can even be expanded further to the theory of if there even IS one killer. The title of our trailer "The Soul Takers" can imply a group of killers, however in our trailer only a hooded figure is shown. This embarks mystery onto the audiences and intrigues them to discover the true theory behind the group of soul takers.
HORROR CONVENTIONS THAT WE DEVELOPED:
Social Fear:
Many horror films in this current age exploit the trope of social fear in order to engage and attract its target audience. For our trailer, we decided to develop this trope to a certain theme: the fear of technology. This is because of one of the trailer's taglines "they say to take a photo is to steal a soul" which implies that the victims can be killed through the means of photos and cameras to a greater extent.
Mind Invasion:
In certain horror films, the victim can be considered of having supernatural beliefs of the existence of killers in which their peers may refer to them as "crazy and delusional". On our trailer, our victim believes that people are dying when they get their photo taken which is lead to people finding her crazy and her mother calling therapy. We chose to develop this convention because it adds suspense into the atmosphere and the people who don't believe in what the victim believes won't expect anything to happen
Using ideas from other horror films:
HORROR CONVENTIONS THAT WE CHALLENGED:
Usage of weapons:
The most typical weapon used in a horror film is a knife, used to stab the victim in the chest. We have challenged this convention as our killers won't be using knives or anything to do with weapons in order to kill their victims; they use the old saying "to take a photo is to steal a soul" to their advantage. For example typically in horror movies people are killed with typical weapons such as knives, axes, chainsaws, traps etc. However this may only be suited for slashers, but even in supernatural and paranormal horror films the audience already have an image and expectation in mind of how the killer is going to kill, whereas our trailer totally seems to be an unlogical way of killing even for the suprenatural and paranormal.
Usage of weapons:
The most typical weapon used in a horror film is a knife, used to stab the victim in the chest. We have challenged this convention as our killers won't be using knives or anything to do with weapons in order to kill their victims; they use the old saying "to take a photo is to steal a soul" to their advantage. For example typically in horror movies people are killed with typical weapons such as knives, axes, chainsaws, traps etc. However this may only be suited for slashers, but even in supernatural and paranormal horror films the audience already have an image and expectation in mind of how the killer is going to kill, whereas our trailer totally seems to be an unlogical way of killing even for the suprenatural and paranormal.
We decided that we needed to bring a new way of killing to our horror, so through our research we stumbled upon documentaries of tribal people, who believe that taking a photograph of a person, in return steals a bit of their soul, this is not true it was a myth produced by peoples own fears and beliefs. This led us to use cameras as our main way of killing our victims in our horror.
CONVENTIONS USED IN OUR ANCILLARY TEXTS:
Mysterious killer: Both our poster and magazine cover sport a similar image of our main victim's face being covered by a mysterious figure behind her. This conforms the horror convention of a mysterious killer as, especially in our poster, there is no identity to the killer and the audience has no idea as to who the figure is and what role he will play in the film Danger is always behind you: Another traditional horror trope is that most danger comes from behind or when the victim's back is turned. In our poster and magazine cover, we depict the killer specifically behind Gabi to conform to this trope and conjoin with our trailer's overall effect that you never know what to expect in a paranormal horror. |