1. The Horror Film  Horror films tend to be viewed with critical disdain for a number of reasons:  Predictability of form and content  Low budgets and poor production values  Targeting an adolescent audience  Variety of generic sources and subgenres  Fantasy worlds – little connection with social or political issues  Dependence upon blood, gore, viscera for effect  Conservative attitudes towards morality and sexuality

2. The Horror Film “The horror film has consistently been one of the most popular and, at the same time, the most disreputable of Hollywood genres. The popularity itself has a peculiar characteristic that sets the horror film apart from other genres: it is restricted to aficionados and complemented by total rejection, people tending to go to horror films either obsessively or not at all” Robin Wood, American Nightmare

3. The Horror Film  Why are horror films popular with audiences?  Stability of form and content provides a predictable set of pleasures  Ability to merge with other genres eg crime, sci-fi  Emphasis on the impossible and the uncanny  Taboo or forbidden subject matter  The attraction of fear

4. The Attraction of Fear  Psychological:  Iconography often linked to primal fears eg darkness, knives, masks  Return of repressed desires, especially violent and sexual urges  Fascination with the body and its fragility  Sex and sexuality as key themes  Ultimately reassuring – the diegesis is governed by set rules, chaos is brought under control  Questions of morality

5. The Attraction of Fear  Social:  The diegesis represents ‘normality’; the monster stands in opposition to this  Often based around contemporary social fears and tensions  Ultimately, society is able to contain and control the ‘abnormal’  Issues of science, technology, religion and psychology as social ‘narratives’  More recently, the family and middle-class lifestyles have been examined as a source of horror

6. Some Horror Trends 1. Traditional, gothic horror 2. Sci-fi horrors 3. Stalk and slash horror 4. Psychological horror