Review the film

Authors Avatar

Review the film “Dracula, Prince of Darkness” (Hammer 1965). Analyse the conventions of the horror genre as they appear in the film, and comment on how they create dramatic tension.

Horror has been a popular genre over the last 200 years. People enjoy reading gothic novels and watching horror films because it injects excitement into their lives. This may be because generally life is safer and people may find it mundane; horror gives people a thrill and knowing you’re in safe surroundings lets you know you’re going to be ok after the short time you are being entertained.

Writers like Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker and Edgar Allen Poe have all been popular horror authors, however, the first great gothic novel was ‘Mysteries of Udolpho’ written by Anne Radcliffe in 1794.

Then, film was invented and ‘Nosferatu’ was the first horror film made by the Germans. This then encouraged more films to be made and they have become increasingly more popular. Recently in films technical advances have made films more realistic because people’s expectations are becoming greater, we want to believe what we see is real.

We watched Dracula, Prince of Darkness made by Hammer in 1965 and have studied the conventions and techniques as they appear in the film and in this essay  it will be about the effect of them on the audience, how they generate pleasurable fear.

Most horror films have a similar storyline. They are usually set in an isolated place with a gothic setting and most of the scary parts take place at night. The main characters usually consist of the monster or ‘baddie’, who may be a murderer and is not easily destroyed, which is handy for sequels. A clever person or maybe a scientist, ‘stupid’ people that often go off on their own and is more likely to get killed first, and a beautiful women who screams a lot and may get injured, or even killed for dramatic purposes.

Join now!

There will be a number of tense chases and exciting near misses which tend to happen in the middle of the film or near the end before the monster is caught, if he isn’t killed or caught then the film can be made into a sequel.

In vampire movies there can be a strong sexual element, this occurs in our Dracula. After Dracula turns the women into vampires they become voluptuous and the make up changes to be more attractive.

In films it takes a lot of technical work to make it perfect. However when Dracula was made ...

This is a preview of the whole essay