Characteristics of a Horror Movie and Elements that Typically Scare the Viewers

It is typical for a horror movie to showcase certain characteristics that make them distinctive of the genre. Most of them feature stories that depict, address, or explore people's nightmares, hidden fears, phobias, and psychotic and neurotic tendencies. The genre intends to evoke emotions such as fright, terror, panic, disgust, or shock to the viewers through scenes revolving around morbidity, murder,disease outbreak, or supernatural events.There are no exact distinctions that could brand a decade to be more explicit in showing gore than others. Eras mainly differ on the more specific graphic elements used than the degree of explicitness shown.

Evil Forces and Their Victims

Horror movie characters can include just about any type of person, animal or creature, or sometimes, even objects like dolls and trees, whether they are based on reality or are fictional in nature. Yet, there are some very popular evil forces that typically appear in many horror flicks. These include vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demonic spirits, savage beasts, zombies, serial killers, and psychotic beings. Meanwhile, their victims are often physically or emotionally weak characters who tend to succumb to these dark forces or win over them.

Dark and Eerie Atmosphere

Mounting scenes that initiate fearful thoughts makes it possible for viewers to see through foreboding elements and apprehensions seen on screen. Some popular elements that incite a dark and eerie atmosphere in a horror movie include a close-up of a scared main character slowly walking towards a creepy door, the blackness of the night, the shocking look of a dismembered doll or human body, or a number of weirdly broken items seen around a creepy room.

Graphic Scenes

Graphic scenes rely on the use of horrifying shots or special effects, which can be mechanical effects that are shot live during filming or optical effects that are later added to the footage using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Explicit gore and jump scenes coming from the irrational or the unknown provide shock factors that can make moviegoers jump on their seats or cover their eyes because of the horrific intensity of shots shown on screen. However, horror movies don't necessarily show detailed explicitness all the time. Movies with R ratings usually have longer graphic scenes shown.Some of these commonly used scenes include slitting throats, mutilated or tortured bodies, and exorcism scenes.

Creepy Sound Elements

A horror movie's creepy sound elements maintain certain types of shocking factors to them. Some prominent ones include a sudden loud bang, an unlikely falling object, a darting animal, the chopping of body parts, or the suspense-filled opening of a squeaky door. Interestingly, even dead silence properly set in between disturbing sound elements can also contribute to a movie's tense-filled moments. Musical score and sound effects also help establish frightful and sinister scenes.

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