Other Horror Cliches

The Ring

The rings main scary scene for the horror cliche is the cliche of the creepy child in the closet, with a gruesome face. This is a cliche as it is a scary child is almost always included in a horror film, as it makes the viewer vulnerable at the sight of someone younger being able to scare you. To show she is vulnerable in the ring the little girl curls up and looks scarily at the woman who opens the cupboard, and the camera angle is aimed high above her in a high angle shot to scare the viewer at the vulnerable state of a younger child, the child will always be vulnerable ass the audiance for these films are 18+, and children would be scared of these films.

Dawn of the Dead trailer

The trailer is from 1978 and it shows one of the biggest cliches that are put together in zombie films, the creepy looking zombies with lifeless looks and blood soaking their bodys coming at you with their arms outstretched on the screen. This scares viewers even though it is cliched as it reacts to the viewers instinctive needs to protect themselves coming at them that they don't like.

IT

The film IT is different from other horror films because they use clowns, which have been twisted to the idea of being a scary thing to see instead of the childish idea that they are nice to see. There are other typical cliches such as the shower scene, where you are naked and at your most vulnerable state. This scares viewers as you dont want to have the same scenario happen to you, hence getting inside their conscience and scaring themselves at the idea of being in the same position. Other cliched scene is the scared children in the presence of the clowns, this scares viewers, mainly parents at the thought of their own children being scared in this sense, and it makes viewers copy the emotions the children are feeling. The problem with this film is that it doesn't explain anything about the plot, unlike the other films that I have seen and analysed.

What lies beneath

What lies beneath is set in a rural countryside setting, which is cliched as it is a setting where everything is open and quiet and no one can hear you scream. What lies beneath is based of a ghost of a girl in the house, which means that most of the films are based on bathroom scenes with the creepy music in the background to signal a change in the relaxed atmosphere. The film starts on the basis of one object, the key. It makes the audiance ask the question. What does it open? This engages the viewer to the film they are watching and helps them understand the plot of the film. It follows on to the ghost that the main character fears, and the whole identification of the ghost is cliched as the audiance and character only get a glimpse of the object of fear, and this is glimpsed behind the character in the cliched view of the over the shoulder shot of the ghost in the reflection of the mirror. Again, this interacts with the bathroom scene which is where the mirror, a inportant prop in the horror cliche, is placed in the film. It continues with its cliches by next showing the main character sleeping on the bed, a vulnerable state which people face everyday which makes the audiance engage by watching the character and the surrounding setting for anything suspicious. The house, which you can hear by the crashing of waves that you can't see, is by the sea. The use of sound editing is crucial in creating a new cliche of the vulnerable way that the woman is by the sea, a dangerous place to be when in danger for fear of drowning. The object which is shown is a creepy looking box, cliched as the key that was at the beginning of the film opens the creepy box, and explains why the ghost of a girl is there. The ghost that is shown in the mirror is then shown in the bathtub which is cliched when she disappears, and continues with the cliche allthrough of the bathroom scene. It adds to the creepy scene further when the reflection of the girl changes in the bathtub into something else that can't be identified. It is cliched and adds curiosity to the viewer, to what it is. To annoy the viewer there is another character which is cliched by telling the main character that the ghost she says that she is seeing is not real, and that she is suffering from a breakdown, this annoys the viewr as they feel that they are stuck with the secret as well that the woman is not insane, because it questions the viewers sanity as well. The creaking of doors in their empty house is cliched as it is contained in all horror films.

I don't watch a lot of horror films, but I like the plots to the films I have analysed as it may use the same cliches but they are used in unique ways for each one, so you never feel like you are watching the same thing twice. This makes you feel new in te setting each film places you in, and I like the feeling of newness. When I create my opening two minutes, I might consider the genre as my film, but if I don't use this genre then I might use some of the cliches in another genre to make it different.