-"Psychological horror" is a subgenre of that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot. Psychological horror is different from the type of horror found in "splatter films," which derive their effects from gore and violence, and in which the object of horror does not always appear as a monster or a visious stalker, but usually another person or a supernatural presence, whose horrific identity is often not revealed until the end of the movie.
-There are plenty of psychological horror movies, that creep into your sub-consious and haunt you well after the movie has finished, they usually effect you on a deeper level, and stay with you for longer. Usually creating a great lead character, who stays with you, and who you can identify, and empathise with. Well-known examples of psychological fiction include ‘The Sixth Sense’ (1999) and ‘The Blair Witch Project.(1999)
All the above information taken from BellaOnline.com
-Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot.[1] Psychological horror is different from the type of horror found in "splatter films," which derive their effects from gore and violence, and from the sub-genre of horror-of-personality, in which the object of horror does not look like a monstrous other, but rather a normal human being, whose horrific identity is often not revealed until well into the work, or even at the very end.
Characteristics
-Psychological horror tends to be subtle compared to traditional horror and typically contains less physical harm, as it works mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience rather than the display of graphic imagery seen in the slasher and splatter sub-genres. It typically plays on archetypal shadow characteristics embodied by the threat. It creates discomfort in the viewer by exposing common or universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears, most notably the shadowy parts of ourselves in which most people repress or deny.
An example of a old psychological horror is Alfred Hitchcock's Pycho (1960) and more recent Shutter Island (2010)
Order - Chaos - Reconstruction
This research relates to all of the horror genre.
Horror films tend to follow a 3 stage pattern in the plot lines.
- The opening act (ignoring prologues which are designed to create tension or provide justfication for the disruption of order) generally sets the groundwork for a community unaware of impending danger.
- Either a "Normal town" (Halloween (1978), Grelims (1984)) Though some films are set in citys, but this isnt the norm. For example ToolBox Murders (2004)
- An Isolated group (The Thing (1984), Friday the 13th (1980))
- An Individual (Carrie (1976), The vanishing (1993))
- The second act sees the arrival of the monster, the breakdown of social order and change, the prolouge often gives a portion of this act (Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980)) For example, in the opening of halloween, the monster murders a victim, This causes tension. This is quite normal for slasher movies.
- The final act resolves the issues, however swiftly, and restores order to the community, which may be different from the order that opened the picture.
- Most films follow this pattern though some films try to break free from this, such as Alfred Hitchcocks "the birds" 1963 and George A Romero's Dawn of the dead (1978). Which both end with the situation not being resolved. This could be done by writers/ directors to keep to plot going for a possible sequel or just to keep the audience guessing.
- Some films play with the template, Dawn of the dead (1978) is set entirely in act 2 but internaly follows the three act structure.
Although it sounds like a bit of a hybrid genre mess, Shutter Island may be a useful one to read up on, to help establish the popularity of your genre (audience) for one thing - though do look for lower budget, Indie examples too
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