A popular genre is Horror, a convention of horror is a blonde white girl who gets murdered. The girl usually enjoys herself before getting herself killed. The convention of horror is the victim us not allowed to enjoy so she gets slaughtered.

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Vignesh Raj


Horror films dates back to the 19 century. The first horror movie was released in 1896 called “The Devils Castle”. Since way back before cinemas were invented, humans have always enjoyed the thrill that goes with sudden shock and the twist of supernatural at the end. For centuries horror had an appeal for our ancestors telling stories to entertain, frighten and stories that test our fears. By reading ghost stories and telling scary tales around campfire there seemed to be a strange pleasure from playing with each others fears. Even today tales continue to inspire horror directors from allover the world, although social attitudes may change but people fears keep constant. Horror films come from a variety of different subgenres they are slasher, monster movies, chillers, scary movies and macabre. And also satanic horror it is usually very dramatic and it is rarely have to do with monsters or murderers. The themes of horror films are presence of threat to normalcy, murdering victims mainly women who are blonde, which is a convention of horror. Horror movies are enjoyed by all age group but particularly teenagers because boys and girls between that ages liked the sudden suspense, role of supernatural in the film, they loved they way horror made them feel scared and frightened. Teens often dared each other to watch a horror film. Some teenagers admired it because of the sexuality and those sex scenes horrors contain.

Genre simply classifies different types and styles of media texts. Genre is then divided into subgenres. Subgenres can be defined as sub-category within a specific genre. For instance, romance is a genre and the subgenre of that is historical romance and classic romance. Genre also helps the directors to make a particular type of film to entertain a specific age group or type of people. A film with two or more genre combined is called hybrid. An example of hybrid film is ‘Star Wars’ which combines Action and Sci-Fi.

Examples of different genres are Horror, Romance, Comedy, Gangster, Sci – Fi, Adventure, Costume Drama, and many more. We can identify a genre by analysing the films, props, setting, characters, signifiers, sound, conventions, narratives ……  This allows us to identify the genre because almost all the films have these things in common.

Code means a communication system that carries message to certain people. To understand codes you need know the way to take in the message. For instance a girl writes a message to a boy in a code language, the boy needs to know what the codes stands for so that he can work out what the message says. But for others the note is nothing but rubbish. But in media directors create codes that audiences are familiar with. An example of this is when the color film turns black and white, the code is to tell the viewers that this actual scene is flash back and the person is thinking about past.

A convention is things that you can expect in a certain genre. The media produces meaning by convention, and then the audiences understand the meaning from their own previous experiences on films. An example of convention is you will expect the victim of horror to be a girl and blonde. Another example is in a news program there is a clock beeping music which is to indicate that the words that we are about to hear are important.

A popular genre is Horror, a convention of horror is a blonde white girl who gets murdered. The girl usually enjoys herself before getting herself killed. The convention of horror is the victim us not allowed to enjoy so she gets slaughtered. The setting is typically in isolated places. The setting is usually like this so that it helps create the mood and tension to put the audience in the situation. The victim always gets humiliated after getting murdered. For example hanging the dead body in a tree, or the victim in ‘Psycho’ where the body lies in the bath with contaminated blood and water. The victim always makes wrong decision that we expect the victim not to. For instance a girl who is being chased by a monster, she stops and looks back without running. All of these are conventions of horror.

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There are lots of codes from horror; one of them is when the vicious killer stabs the victim. The camera shots the killer with low angle shot and the victim with high angle shot. The low angle shows the killer is enormous and scary and to be looked by the audience that he is in control. High angle shot on the victim shows that he or she is small and helpless. Before the victim gets stabbed or killed he or she enjoys herself. On way of this, is by sex. The director shows this sex scene by a code ...

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