Write a 750 word essay on the horror genre and how it affects an audience. Refer to at least 5 films you have seen from the genre with specific reference to a key moment from at least one and discuss its effect on you personally.

Horror films have notably existed for nearly a century, more earlier films portraying themes of supernatural horror or macabre (grim atmosphere), which to this day still remain at the heart of horror movies. Horror movies seek to induce negative emotions such as disparity, fear and terror through depicting scenes of a nightmarish atmosphere and playing on the audiences fears.

One of the more earlier accounts of horror was the film 'Nosferatu' released in 1922, I'll be using it and comparing it to other horror titles throughout the essay as it ticks all the boxes of a horror film. The German silent film adaptation of the famous horror novel 'Dracula' portrays the vampire 'Count Orlock' as the main protagonist, the use of this mythological creature induces its fear due to its monstrous abilities and appearance while adopting a human like appearance, the display of an unearthly and hellish figure is enough to install a sense of dread within an audience.

Sound is also used in this film when scenes of horror are applied, such as that the orchestral scoring heightens and quickens in pace at a scene franticness, and slows to a more deeper tune at scenes of apprehension and when building up anticipation, which is key to inducing anxiety into the audience and building on the horror. In regards to modern day horrors, sound is used in amongst scenes as a background to setting the mood, however films such as the popular horror film series 'insidious', sound is abandoned completely in scenes of horror, by cutting out sound the audience becomes more attune to the surrounding sounds, every creak and every knock, until the horror entity is met, whereby the music jumps back in a high pitch tune to further shock the audience. An example would be in the second insidious installment, where the mother of the family tormented by a spirit hears the phantom talking through the baby monitor, we are left with every gruesome sounding syllable in the absence of music, until what is thought to be the phantom hitting the child where high pitched orchestral sweeps add to the shocking nature of the scenario.

Nosferatu was in production in 1921, and as a result we are left with Gothic early 20th century setting, including decrepit buildings, castles and dimly lit areas. This setting is similar to that of the setting depicted in the 2012 remake of  'The Women In Black' the dark and Gothic Edwardian era English village and the Gothic mansion tell a tale of horror themselves; the effect of this setting in particular is a sense of disparity, a lot of dimly lit rooms whereby low quality lighting can be quite visually restricting and disorientating which is the opposite of what we'd like, but it leaves us guessing and assuming the worst, there could be anything lurking in the dark. The scene most applicable to this is the scene in which the antagonist Arthur walks down an candle lit, decrepit corridor in an old mansion, to investigate what appears to be the sound of a rocking chair moving, only to enter empty room with nothing more than an old bed, dresser and a vacant rocking chair that is in fact moving by itself. The moving chair is already pretty spooky but the fact that it's an old antique with history only increase the creepiness of it all.

Anticipation is key to building up fear in a horror, audiences are constantly being set up for the next scare, in Nosferatu's case, the literary elements are used to forecast horror, examples being 'Not so fast my young friend! No one can outrun their fate', where the audience is being set up to thinking the characters impending doom is inevitable; and the quote 'you might have to go to a little bit of trouble...a little sweat and maybe...a little blood...', in this quote the suspected vampire is conforming to its ghastly stereotype, setting the audience to believe that at some point in the near future, blood will be spilt. Anticipation is also a major factor in the famous Stanley Kurbrick film 'the shining', with Danny's hallucinations of an elevator filled with blood an phantom voices in his head, and Jack pacing after his wife who is armed with a bat, we are left guessing what is going to happen and which person if any is going to die, personally while listening to Jack and his wife's argument and Jacks menacing deluded threats and idle promises of safety i put my bets on the murdering manic to reign victor, yet he is knocked unconscious by his wife. The anticipation of this scene gives us a fear of the unknown, fear that the horror could go either way therefore leaving the audience frightened of that horror occurring in the worst possible way.

Nosferatu's shows the theme of the supernatural, something that attacks the audiences primal fears, by attacking something that each individual audience member fears, it will increase the horror that each viewer experiences on a personal level. This is similar to the supernatural elements and basic human fears is the classic horror film 'a nightmare on elm street', by dealing with the subject of nightmares, the films feel can relate to each audience member, everyone has nightmares, it makes us feel like it could happen to us all the same. The film blurs the lines between reality, through the way the protagonist Freddy caters each nightmare to its hosts biggest fear, and death within the dream means death in reality, an example is the character Debbie's death scene, in which Freddy watches her limbs fall off and be replace by insect limbs, insects being Debbie's fear. This can effect an audience in the fear that if they we're ever in that scenario, their biggest fear would be the result of the nightmare, while also giving us a supernatural figure that is the cause of it all, all the fear revolves around this one character, making him a pretty fear worthy character