What is the appeal of horror?

People like to be 'jumped out of their seat' when they see a horror film and i feel the main thing that appeals to the audience is 'fear'. We all have nightmares in real life and try to block them out but, in a film you can always say afterwards that it is not real. So overall i think that we are attracted to the horror genre because we can watch somebody else be frightened and scared in a film and no at the end of it, it does not affect us and also, it is not real!

List the identifying characteristics of a horror film

Dark Lighting
Suspenceful Music
Victim/Hero
Killer
Blood
Death
Weapons (Knife more grusome)
Screams
Location (Little Town in the middle of no where)

What helps audiences recognise genre?

select texts on basis of genre, often because texts are arranged at retail outlets by genre (just pop along to HMV). Also, certain genres are considered appropriate to certain ages/genders in society, and choices are made accordingly eg teen movie, 'chick flicks' have systems of expectations about the content and style of a text, according to its genre. This enables them to take particular pleasures in the text, those of repetition, and of predicted resolution. Pleasure may also be drawn from differences. Identify with repeated elements in generic texts and may shape their own identity in response (eg fans of a particular genre of music dress in a specific way - metalheads in their band t-shirts, for instance)

Why Is Genre Important

Genre becomes important when we realise that it means much more than just categorisation. This is because our response to genres is deeply conditioned and creates the way we approach and respond to a text. The journalistic genre, for example, conditions us to expect to see a particular form of text: headlines, columns and blocks of writing. But this genre also conditions us to expect to be able to trust and believe in what we are reading in ways that might not always or necessarily be sensible. Such is the power of genre.

Genre also conditions us to see as entirely natural and realistic certain aspects of what we read and see. Think about the kinds of characters that survive and those that end up mutilated in a horror story or film, for example or think how much sympathy you have with who is murdered in a gangster story or movie - some characters have your sympathy, others make you feel they deserve all they get!

A Quote About Genre

Genre is what we collectively believe it to be.
Andrew Tudor (1986)

Definition of Genre

a genre is a loose category or classification of media product (e.g. tabloid newspaper, soap opera, science fiction film). Classification into one genre or another is governed by codes and conventions, and each has its own more or less obvious iconography. The codes and conventions of a genre refer both to the cultural signals contained in the text and to the ways in
which the text's content is presented.