As with all creative industries, there are practitioners and theorists fueling the theory that goes into every light, camera and action needed to create your favorite horror experiences. Where Theater has Brecht and Stanivslasky and Literature Orwell and Conrad, Horror has a diverse range of wise men and women who have devised rules, theories and practices to be followed and defied in equal measure in the hopes that the most audience resonant, terrifying, box office breaking film can hit the cinemas.
Todorov- Narrative structures begin with an equilibrium, then something that upsets it, then stories end with a new equilibrium.
Contemporary to Carrol and argumentatively contentious in his theories, Tzvetan Todorov contributed to the philosophy of horror in a way that many people would argue isn't even relevant. Below is a short extract from is 1973 book 'The Fantastic: A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre' in which he explains his idea, the theory of the fantastic, and how it creates horror:
"The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work -- in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations"
We thought we should include that vertical slice as it highlights, at least to us, an inherently self defeating prophecy. Todorov suggests with his third rule that the audience of the horror fiction will denounce any meaning beyond the superficial account, buying entirely into the premise as an established thing to be taken on face value. In much the same way that Todorov's theory applies to all mediums and not just horror, let me exemplify his point in the form of Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin's world isn't devoid of subtext by any stretch of the imagination and no work truly is but it isn't the point of the books or show; the viewer is invited to peek into this world, to observe its working and to make up their own minds as to how it makes them feel. Although questions of class, creed, dynasty, gender, politics, sex, violence, war, drugs and so, so much more are posed, they are not the point and as such, the central draw of the show is the the character-to-character conflicts. The idea of the Fantastic is a similar thing, inditing that it stems from the hesitation you have when lost in a work of fiction as opposed to the reflection you experience when looking back on it. However, the theory of recognizing the Fantastic is a meta-act, existent beyond the realms of the content, turning it into somewhat of a paradox.
For our Trailer, I will not, at least knowingly, be employing the theory of the Fantastic as, despite the imprinting that an audience has with the victims of a horror experience, the meaning beyond the projection is founded entirely through the viewers ability to recognize the disconnect between the two different interpretations of the universe in the sequence. Although we can fully appreciate that it is the dissonance in a work that generates fear, we believe that a mainstream Horror experience isn't really the place to engage with such a practice as, putting aside whatever ethical quandaries can be raised from thrusting someone into world defined by its purpose to terrorize, the technical limits of the format (such as time and budget) don't allow for such a deep personal investment.
"The fantastic requires the fulfillment of three conditions. First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work -- in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations"
We thought we should include that vertical slice as it highlights, at least to us, an inherently self defeating prophecy. Todorov suggests with his third rule that the audience of the horror fiction will denounce any meaning beyond the superficial account, buying entirely into the premise as an established thing to be taken on face value. In much the same way that Todorov's theory applies to all mediums and not just horror, let me exemplify his point in the form of Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin's world isn't devoid of subtext by any stretch of the imagination and no work truly is but it isn't the point of the books or show; the viewer is invited to peek into this world, to observe its working and to make up their own minds as to how it makes them feel. Although questions of class, creed, dynasty, gender, politics, sex, violence, war, drugs and so, so much more are posed, they are not the point and as such, the central draw of the show is the the character-to-character conflicts. The idea of the Fantastic is a similar thing, inditing that it stems from the hesitation you have when lost in a work of fiction as opposed to the reflection you experience when looking back on it. However, the theory of recognizing the Fantastic is a meta-act, existent beyond the realms of the content, turning it into somewhat of a paradox.
For our Trailer, I will not, at least knowingly, be employing the theory of the Fantastic as, despite the imprinting that an audience has with the victims of a horror experience, the meaning beyond the projection is founded entirely through the viewers ability to recognize the disconnect between the two different interpretations of the universe in the sequence. Although we can fully appreciate that it is the dissonance in a work that generates fear, we believe that a mainstream Horror experience isn't really the place to engage with such a practice as, putting aside whatever ethical quandaries can be raised from thrusting someone into world defined by its purpose to terrorize, the technical limits of the format (such as time and budget) don't allow for such a deep personal investment.
Barthes- He says the narrative will set up little codes to give the audience clues as to what is going on for example the enigma code- where stories set up puzzles to be solved. in horror the enigma code is activated when the killer's face is masked - the audience wants to know who the killer is. this drives the narrative forward.
Carl Jung - Says that horror is comprised from the conflict between the self and the shadow
Carl Jung's theory of a self and a shadow I'd argue lies at the heart of almost all contemporary horror and even a lot of classics too. To be hunted, the concept of there being a negative reflection of yourself, an embodiment of everything a character fears in them selves and, poetically, in man itself. A shadow is also seen as the harsh truth incarnate with either the expressed goal or osmosis desire to punish the self for what it depicts. For example, it arguably the most blatant example of this theory, recent horror film 'It Follows' presents a story in which the protagonist inherits a creature destined to kill her after having sex with a relative stranger, the subtext isn't so much submerged as it is bobbing under the sunlight two inches from your face with the most obvious indication being that it reflects sexual diseases, youth night culture and the stalker mentality with the titular 'Tall Man' even raising questions of impregnation, sexual assault and rape. All of these ideas are present in the shadow and are examples of things the self has either indulged in or put themselves at risk of.
I will be using a similar idea to Jung's shadow/self complex although it isn't quite as binary as his theory supposes since the killer doesn't so much reflect the bad qualities of one person as he does the attitudes and sins of a generation as well as, allegorically, an entire way of presenting violence on screen. The killer of my OTS is one of the main characters, humanized enough to understand why he's doing the things he does yet distant enough for the audience to still fear his presence in a scene, especially when the camera jumps to the victim's perspective.
I will be using a similar idea to Jung's shadow/self complex although it isn't quite as binary as his theory supposes since the killer doesn't so much reflect the bad qualities of one person as he does the attitudes and sins of a generation as well as, allegorically, an entire way of presenting violence on screen. The killer of my OTS is one of the main characters, humanized enough to understand why he's doing the things he does yet distant enough for the audience to still fear his presence in a scene, especially when the camera jumps to the victim's perspective.
Levi-Strauss- says that narrative is driven forward and organized by binary oppositions - things in opposition to each other.
Propp- All storylines boil down to 8 character roles, for example the hero and the victim, and 31 functions.
Sigmund Freud - Theory of the uncanny valley and how it's application in media
As the God Father on all things disturbing, Sigmund Freud's revolutionary theories on Animism and the Uncanny have rung out beyond the realms of just horror, breaking into all mediums with their honest, yet disturbing truths. Freud is most famous for his work on something known as the Uncanny, a theory you've likely become familiar with on a daily basis as it elevates the mystery surrounding what makes something disturbing or scary into the cold light of day. To elaborate, the Uncanny effect, specifically the Uncanny valley, refers to the the cognitive dissonance that arises when something isn't Human enough for us to consciously recognize it as such but that has enough Human features to mentally disconnect it from a non-person entity (such as a machine).
As you can see in the diagram, the industrial machine is nothing like a living thing aesthetically, meaning that it is very difficult for us to feel empathy for it, on the other end of that spectrum, a 'normal' person is very easy to understand and to reconcile. The Uncanny Valley effect comes in when those strong barriers are broken or put into question. It is one of the reasons it's slightly odd to look at someone with a physical impairment such as an amputee as, despite our morally just outlook on them as sympathetic, our brains are troubled by this off version of something familiar.
The cognitive dissonance that arrives when familiar iconography is something that great story tellers across all mediums have utilized for generations to create unease and to instill an air of irregularity onto their audience; examples being the menu of Spec Ops: The Line, the statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes and The Scream by Edvard Munch. The Uncanny has always been particularly at home with horror since the whole point is to make the audience feel uncomfortable, using things as simple as corpses to scare the viewer for their naturally unsettling qualities.
Freud's theory of the Uncanny duck-tails rather nicely with another theory of his, the theory of Animism, which is used to describe objects traditionally inanimate without Human interaction moving independently, such as a ventriloquist doll or zombie. Horror has long since had an affinity with Animism from classics like George A. Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' to recent thrillers like 'Annabelle', the disenfranchised actions of something that, by the laws of logic, cannot move, unsettles us.
Personally, I think it is impossible to avoid using Freud's Uncanny effect in our trailer due to it, for starters, being a horror which necessitates unsettling the audience and secondly, as it is such an effective narrative tool for setting a tone or for visual story telling, playing up the symbolism of certain on-screen presences by extenuating or corrupting them. 'When The Moonlight Falls' will benefit greatly from territorial assets such as blood, corpses and the masked yet human killer; however, we would like to extend that use to the cinematic elements as well.
As you can see in the diagram, the industrial machine is nothing like a living thing aesthetically, meaning that it is very difficult for us to feel empathy for it, on the other end of that spectrum, a 'normal' person is very easy to understand and to reconcile. The Uncanny Valley effect comes in when those strong barriers are broken or put into question. It is one of the reasons it's slightly odd to look at someone with a physical impairment such as an amputee as, despite our morally just outlook on them as sympathetic, our brains are troubled by this off version of something familiar.
The cognitive dissonance that arrives when familiar iconography is something that great story tellers across all mediums have utilized for generations to create unease and to instill an air of irregularity onto their audience; examples being the menu of Spec Ops: The Line, the statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes and The Scream by Edvard Munch. The Uncanny has always been particularly at home with horror since the whole point is to make the audience feel uncomfortable, using things as simple as corpses to scare the viewer for their naturally unsettling qualities.
Freud's theory of the Uncanny duck-tails rather nicely with another theory of his, the theory of Animism, which is used to describe objects traditionally inanimate without Human interaction moving independently, such as a ventriloquist doll or zombie. Horror has long since had an affinity with Animism from classics like George A. Romero's 'Night Of The Living Dead' to recent thrillers like 'Annabelle', the disenfranchised actions of something that, by the laws of logic, cannot move, unsettles us.
Personally, I think it is impossible to avoid using Freud's Uncanny effect in our trailer due to it, for starters, being a horror which necessitates unsettling the audience and secondly, as it is such an effective narrative tool for setting a tone or for visual story telling, playing up the symbolism of certain on-screen presences by extenuating or corrupting them. 'When The Moonlight Falls' will benefit greatly from territorial assets such as blood, corpses and the masked yet human killer; however, we would like to extend that use to the cinematic elements as well.
Noel Carol - Why we enjoy being scared and the theory of Art-Horror
Although Noel Carroll is famous for all manner of motion picture, fiction and artistic philosophy, the talking point around which he gained such stature was his academic analysis piece, The Philosophy Of Horror or The Paradoxes of The Heart, in which he dissects the ludicrous reality of man's suspension of disbelief.
As a horror connoisseur, Carroll approaches the genre with the solemnity of Aristotle in regards to matters such as 'why we enjoy being scared', 'why evidently fiction devices continue to disturb us' and 'what makes horror a trans-media phenomenon' at the forefront. Art-Horror is one of the many things he raises with his reading of what makes horror enemies terrifying are particularly interesting; in his theory he posits that the scariest figures in Consternation Media are those that break conventions and conceptions, for example, Zombies are both living and dead, making them a deathly unknown.
Jumping back to the main point of this feature, Art-Horror is a thematic underpinning to certain horror games and movies in which the narrative contemplates the dissonance between the commonplace and the danger to such uniformity. The linear progression through the story arks must involve a disruption to an established decency, or at least to a world painted a few shades brighter than the threat. To give you an idea untainted by my own pseudo-waffling, the horror series 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', which could be deemed Art-Horror, breaches the traditionally safe connotations of dreaming with its titular antagonist, Freddy Kruger, acting as a symbolic manifestation of the danger to the cast.
In our trailer, we would very much like to capitalize on this idea of Art-Horror, using the visual iconography, color correction and the language of cinema to instill the disgust in the Deep Web and what our antagonists are doing to these people. To elaborate, one of the core themes of 'When The Moonlight Falls' is the disconnect between the supposed safety of the internet and the depraved danger lurking in its seedier party which is to be communicated through all the fibers of film making. Our trailer will also dabble with Carroll's other major theory, the Attraction-Repulsion complex, where in the audience is simultaneously enthralled and disgusted in a near masochistic fashion at the actions on screen in a safe way, despite what old-guard, soap box preachers would have you believe through the virtue of the killers having a more fleshed out motive and character than traditional horror antagonists.
As a horror connoisseur, Carroll approaches the genre with the solemnity of Aristotle in regards to matters such as 'why we enjoy being scared', 'why evidently fiction devices continue to disturb us' and 'what makes horror a trans-media phenomenon' at the forefront. Art-Horror is one of the many things he raises with his reading of what makes horror enemies terrifying are particularly interesting; in his theory he posits that the scariest figures in Consternation Media are those that break conventions and conceptions, for example, Zombies are both living and dead, making them a deathly unknown.
Jumping back to the main point of this feature, Art-Horror is a thematic underpinning to certain horror games and movies in which the narrative contemplates the dissonance between the commonplace and the danger to such uniformity. The linear progression through the story arks must involve a disruption to an established decency, or at least to a world painted a few shades brighter than the threat. To give you an idea untainted by my own pseudo-waffling, the horror series 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', which could be deemed Art-Horror, breaches the traditionally safe connotations of dreaming with its titular antagonist, Freddy Kruger, acting as a symbolic manifestation of the danger to the cast.
In our trailer, we would very much like to capitalize on this idea of Art-Horror, using the visual iconography, color correction and the language of cinema to instill the disgust in the Deep Web and what our antagonists are doing to these people. To elaborate, one of the core themes of 'When The Moonlight Falls' is the disconnect between the supposed safety of the internet and the depraved danger lurking in its seedier party which is to be communicated through all the fibers of film making. Our trailer will also dabble with Carroll's other major theory, the Attraction-Repulsion complex, where in the audience is simultaneously enthralled and disgusted in a near masochistic fashion at the actions on screen in a safe way, despite what old-guard, soap box preachers would have you believe through the virtue of the killers having a more fleshed out motive and character than traditional horror antagonists.
Robin Wood- Horror is misogynistic- we are meant to identify with the killer because of the use of the POV shot. Horror films also show us the repressed evil desires of human nature and society that are represented as a "monstrous other." This is why in horror audiences are suggested to be identifiable with the killer.
Deborah Knight- Defines genre by narrative and claims the pleasure of genre comes from the "deferral of the inevitable."
Clove- Final Girl theory. This refers to when the Last person alive is a woman and is the one left to tell the story and confront the killer. Some examples of films that this theory has been observed in are Alien and Halloween.
Stuart Kaminsky- Weapons in slasher are an extension of the body. This is why guns do not work with in the context of horror as the weapon is detached between the killer and the victim making the kill less brutal to the audience.
Carven- Mistrust of authority power and kids knowing more than adults, adults not believing them.
Neale- Genre is dynamic and changes overtime with a repetition of a underlining plot and a pattern of variation. This variation and difference is vital as with out it audiences would get bored and would not watch horror. "Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre."
Konigsburg- Enduring genres reflect universal dilemmas and moral conflicts and psycholo
H.P Lovecraft - Main figure in the popularization of the horror of existentialism.
To finish off, I thought I'd reference not only one of my personal favorite writers of all time with his work on 'At The Mountains Of Madness', 'The Shadows Over Innsworth' and 'The Dunwich Horror' but easily one of the most influential horror figures of all time: H.P Lovecraft. The theme of madness and insanity, of an unreliable narrator and of some type of Eldritch horror that transcends a realm of understanding are pivotal to the progression of the genre across films, games and written literature. Given the body of work I have already discussed, the coupling of this theme with the Jung's Shadow/Self complex, Freud's Uncanny Valley and Carroll's Art Horror should come together in our trailer to create something truly horrifying.
One of Lovecraft's common traits is that of an unreliable narrator, as previously mentioned, and something that we explored as well with the majority in the killers seeing an objective good in what they are doing versus our protagonist who stands in the fight alone. The camera never stays with one character long enough to call them the definitive protagonist especially when the one constant, the killers, having such a materialistic view of the world that anything interpreted from their massacres is equally disenfranchised from the realms of reality as the violence they commit.
One of Lovecraft's common traits is that of an unreliable narrator, as previously mentioned, and something that we explored as well with the majority in the killers seeing an objective good in what they are doing versus our protagonist who stands in the fight alone. The camera never stays with one character long enough to call them the definitive protagonist especially when the one constant, the killers, having such a materialistic view of the world that anything interpreted from their massacres is equally disenfranchised from the realms of reality as the violence they commit.