Lesson 1

[Tony Scott]

Film concept

1. A group of people strapped to chairs in a basement.

2.

Monster/Villain: Undertaker/Vampire

Interesting Terror : six people don’t know how or why they are strapped to chairs.

Environment: Basement/Funeral Home wake ceremony.

Victims: Random vulnerable innocent people captured from various places.

3. Fear of the dark

Fear of the unknown

Fear of death

Fear of time

Fear of something terrible happening

4. Concept

Four to five people are trapped in a basement strapped to chairs. They can see each other. Each chair sets almost connected to the wall directly behind it. There are walls surrounding the room on three sides. At the front of the room is a sheer black curtain but they can’t see through it. There is a large time clock hanging from the ceiling in front of the black curtain. The victims can see the clock and hear the buzzer. They can barely see each other because of the chair restrictions

Every hour the clock rings on cue. The captured group of people becomes momentarily unconscious, they don’t realize it initially, only to awaken at a wake ceremony in a funeral parlor. One member of the group is reading a statement about the dearly departed lying in state, closed casket service. When the group wakes up back in the basement still trapped in the chairs they notice that one person from the group is missing or later replacement victims. They finally figure out that they are blacking out but can’t recall why how or until later.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Tony Scott.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Tony Scott.

[D. Renee]

A. Monster: Horace

B. Terror: Once you enter, you do not leave

C. Environment: Haunted House – used for rituals in the early 1900’s

D. Victims: Drug dealers retrieving lost cocaine

Fear of the dark
Fear of the unseen
Fear of creatures — spiders, snakes, etc.
Fear of pain or torture
Fear of death
Fear of being alone
Fear of going insane

Reuniting for Christmas, friends gather at their old hang spot and stumble upon a backpack full of cocaine. They break inside the town’s haunted house so they can party. While inside, they snort coke with the demon that inhabits it, causing all hell to break loose when the owners of the cocaine come looking for it.

[Frank MacCrory]

Halloween (1978) Horror Conventions

What I learned from this assignment is that conventions are still there even for a movie “from a different era,” and that one can get through an entire horror plot without any supernatural elements.

1. I picked this movie because I hadn’t seen it before.

2. Title: Halloween (1978)

Terrorize the Characters: Popping in & out of view; locking & unlocking things

Isolation: Suburban town; the “isolation” is that neighbors don’t pay ANY attention to each other

Death: Everyone (except the bad guy) dies almost instantly once attacked

Monster/Villain: Michael Meyers

High Tension: Repeatedly follows or stops briefly

Departure from Reality: A six-year-old Meyers kills a teenager who sees him coming

Moral Statement: Misbehaving teenagers get attacked (responsible for their actions) while misbehaving little kids are innocent (don’t get attacked)

3. Victims weren’t completely clueless (e.g., Annie had the presence of mind to honk her horn when grabbed), though the apathy of police and neighbors was a bit much. Spawned a famous franchise.

4. Concept: Colder

Terrorize the Characters: Leaves bodies where others will find them… Merely kidnaps and restrains the resort staffer he has no quarrel with, which just makes them a witness to lots of horrible killings

Isolation: Ski resort cut off by a late-season snow storm, local news crew plus tiny number of staffers and guests (cell phones work but no one can get to the site)

Death: Kills off people one by one, gets more elaborate as time goes on

Monster/Villain: Disgraced candidate for sheriff whose life was ruined by this local reporter’s expose

High Tension: Makes sure people know of each death, taunts them, but no hint of who’s next

Departure from Reality: Villain seems to have superhuman hunting/survival skills, at least compared to this group

Moral Statement: Beware disproportionate revenge for disproportionate actions

[D. Renee]

Where are we supposed to post the pre-assignment?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  D. Renee.

[Frank MacCrory]

I think it’s just for our own use to fill out other assignments?

[Tony Scott]

I thought the same thing

[D. Renee]

nvm

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  D. Renee.

[Huey Williams]

Lesson 1 Horror Concept and Conventions

Subject Line: Movie Title – PUMPKINHEAD – Horror Conventions

What I learned –

How to identify Horror Conventions while watching

a movie.

Title/Cocept

Pumpkinhead – Father who’s son is kill by GROUP OF YOUTHS seeks the aid

of a witch to administer justice to those responsible by

way of awakening a monster from the grave.

Terrorize The Charaters – The story open with a terrorized Family, father,

wife and son are isolated in the woods, in terror of something and a man’s

screaming outside their home for help.

The man running in the woods cries out for help as he’s being chased by a

monster, the tension amplifies when we see quick flashes of the monster.

The Group of Youths discover what real terror is as they are one by one are

chased and killed by the monster, only a few of them survive.

It’s a departure from reality is when the monster starts killing off the

Young Group responsible for the child’s accidental death.

The Moral Statement is to never leave the scene of an accident, when there’s

an injury or death.

[darryl brant]

<font face=”sans-serif”>“What I learned doing this assignment is</font> conventions exist and have existed for a reason and if you want to play the game, you have to understand the rules<font face=”sans-serif”>”</font>

1. BARBARIAN

Directed by Zach Cregger

2. CONVENTIONS OF HORROR

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: First is a basement, second is a soiled mattress with a video camera and bucket for feces, third is an underground dungeon replete with animal cages, four is claustrophobia, five is total darkness, and finally, it shows all the things that could possibly go wrong when booking somewhere to stay through airb’n’b.

ISOLATION: An airb’n’b rental situated in the middle of an abandoned, derelict, rundown neighbourhood with burnt out houses and no people in sight, otherwise known as Detroit.

DEATH: One character has head repeatedly smashed against a wall until it becomes pulp. Others are caged like animals left to die.

MONSTER/VILLAIN: A naked, hideous, human-like creature who lives in the basement that wants to ‘mother’ her victims.

HIGH TENSION: This is where it goes off the rails due to stupid decisions. The main character does not need to go down to the basement and certainly not a second or third time but she does where she gets trapped, inevitably.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: Nearly getting killed at an airb’n’b rental could feasibly happen but the way it happens in the film is outside normal life when our protagonist is forced to see heinous things and do unspeakable things to avoid getting killed by a monster with super-human strength.

MORAL STATEMENT: I’m dubious about lessons to be learned in horror films but I guess it could be ‘if you sense something is amiss, it likely is’

3. What I liked about Barbarian is that it while it does adhere to the tropes as above, it also subverts your expectations at each turn keeping you guessing until the end.

4. Title: Dad?

Concept: The last thing Petra expected to find while living abroad is her abusive father. Especially because he’s dead.

Terrorize The Characters: Trying to get away from a horrific past only to have the past catch up to you in the unlikeliest of places.

Isolation: Living abroad without knowing anyone or speaking the language

Death: Left to die on an old hospital bed in an abandoned hospital that has become overgrown far from civilization.

Monster/Villain: The abusive father.

High Tension: Character is forced to confront the past. Admittedly I’m a bit confused between the difference between High Tension and Terrorize the Characters.

Departure from Reality: Doppelgangers don’t exist but if a person who looks exactly like your dead father isn’t a doppelganger, then who is it? The victim has a chance to live out a revenge scenario on a person who looks exactly like her abusive father, but is not her abusive father because he’s dead.

Moral Statement: I really don’t know.

[William Curley]

Lesson 1: Horror Conventions. Movie Title: ” The Monster” Terrorized Characters: Mother. Estranged Daughter. Tow Truck Driver. Isolation: All three characters find themselves on a desolate, remote Wisconsin backroad nestled in a thick woods. Note: Filmed in Ontario. The mother and daughter are terrorized when thier car becomes disabled after attempting to avoid hitting a deer. A tow truck driver, while hooking up thier car for tow is attacked by a hideous looking monster, one lurking in a roadside woods watching . The unfortunate man is ripped apart with one of his severed limbs landing on the mother,s windshield. Monster: An ugly, horrifying Vvisage with a gorilla type body. 90 % of the face is a massive set of gnarling, menacing teeth. Yes, this Monster was quite fearful. High Tension: Mother and estranged daughter become stranded after avoiding hitting a deer. The must now wait seemingly forever for a tow truck. While waiting ominous sounds and movements are seen in a wooded area adjacent to a disabled 4 door vehicle. The situation with a stranded car, scary surroundings and the horrifying death of the tow truck driver catapults the location to surreal disreality. Moral Statement: Prior to thier road trip mother and daughter had an estranged relationship. Fighting and bickering were both the norm at home, in the family car, etc. The horrifying experience both had required support and protection from.one to another. A deadly, ravaging monster reunited an internecine mother/ daughter relationship. What I Learned: The horrifying movie readily fit our class model, a realization I made only after looking at our class parameters.

[Earl Mcintyre]

This is a story idea I came up with but haven’t fleshed out yet.

Working title: Roadside Attraction

Monster/Villain: a disgruntled former employee

Interesting Terror: Not sure what my interesting terror is yet.

Environment: an abandoned roadside museum of oddities.

Victims: Two young couples looking for adventure.

[Todd]

The House of the Devil Horror Conventions

What I learned doing this assignment is that it’s really easy to apply these conventions to nearly every film and once you do, it’s easier to see them play out in other films, too. I feel like once you apply this to any horror idea, you can then have fun filling in the blanks.

Film: The House of the Devil

Concept: College girl is hired as a babysitter for an elderly woman she never meets/sees; she begins to fear for her safety in her isolation in the large house after eerie occurrences and begins to question the people who hired her.

Terrorize The Characters: She already feels weird that she was hired under false pretenses to look after an elderly woman rather than a child, this causes her to not trust the couple who hired her. She keeps calling her best friend who unbeknownst to her has already been killed by the couple’s son. She is spooked by odd noises. Eventually she finds evidence that the couple may not be what they seem. Soon she is drugged and tied up inside a pentagram where a creature begins a ritual on her using blood and an ominous skull. She breaks loose and kills nearly everyone but then is told it’s too late and that whatever evil was summoned is already inside of her.

Isolation: She is alone in this big house seemingly with only an elderly woman whom she never sees. The house is in a remote location and her only means of transportation is her roommate who is shot and killed some time after dropping her off. She repeatedly tries to call her but to no avail. The only reason why she won’t just call a cab or walk out is because she needs the babysitting money to afford her rent.

Death: While the young woman explores the house, we are given a glimpse into a room she never sees, where it’s clear the house’s original occupants have been ritualistically murdered, a fate that could befall her at any moment.

Monster/Villain: The satan-worshiping couple who hires her, their son, and a demon who are all after the young woman to complete a ritual during a lunar eclipse.

High Tension: She is entrapped in the remote house against her will because her only ride won’t answer the phone/has already been killed. Also she is given the number for a pizza place and when she calls, the couple’s son answers and brings her a drugged pizza that she unwittingly consumes. Then she is tied up and unable to escape, but even when she gets loose and runs away, she is told the ritual is complete and it is too late.

Departure from Reality: This is a situation outside of normal, daily life that includes sinister satan worshipers and a demon that kidnap people and perform rituals on them during a lunar eclipse.

Moral Statement: The moral statement could be that we subject ourselves to sketchy situations or unknown dangers in the single-minded pursuit of money, regardless of if there are red flags or not. Or the moral could be about not being naive or trusting of strangers, especially if their stories are inconsistent or keep changing.

There was a lot of creeping dread and atmosphere in this film. It was slow burn and unraveled slowly, but I wouldn’t say it was a great horror film because there could have been more creepy things around every corner. The writer/director did do a great 80’s throwback to horror films with the pacing, directing, acting, music, etc.

My Concept: A Seamless delivery person becomes trapped in a wealthy couple’s apartment.

Terrorize the Characters: The couple’s good intentions mask their evil agenda. The apartment is an entity itself, belching out supernatural horrors and psychological torment.

Isolation: He is waiting out a dangerous snowstorm and the weather makes escape impossible. Eventually, the power will go out.

Death: Other Seamless delivery drivers that came before him were murdered.

Monster/Villain: The wealthy couple and the apartment.

High Tension: He is entrapped against his will and by the weather, the couple is murderous, the apartment itself is an evil entity.

Departure from Reality: The murderous couple, the sinister setting, and the supernatural terror.

Moral Statement: Privilege, the pursuit of wealth and the elusive “American Dream”

[Brian King]

Rosemary’s Baby, psychological horror, Horror Conventions

Concept: A pregnant woman discovers her husband’s sinister pact with a coven of witches: trade their unborn child for personal fame and success.

Terrorize The Characters: The hero lives in constant fear that a coven of witches will sacrifice her unborn baby to Satan.

Isolation: Deceived by her husband, drugged by her seemingly friendly neighbors, and mentally and emotionally tortured by her doctor, she finds herself trapped and isolated from anyone she can trust.

Death: Her best friend, new neighbor; and when her husband’s rival goes blind.

Monster/Villain: The hero’s husband is manipulated by a powerful coven of witches led by Satan.

High Tension: As the hero edges closer to uncovering the horrifying truth, the coven intensifies their efforts to keep her captive, isolating her both emotionally and physically, leaving her with very little chance of escape.

Departure from Reality: After the coven drugs the hero, she’s ritualistically raped by Satan.

Moral Statement: Rosemary’s Baby explores a mother’s unwavering love and the sacrifices she is willing to make for her child.

Additional Commentary: What would you do if your own child was the offspring of the ultimate evil? Rosemary’s Baby expertly blends elements of horror and thriller, with its psychological intensity heightened by the appearance of Satan’s Eyes and Hands, making it a horror movie, first, and then a thriller. By merging these genres, the film creates a gripping and terrifying situation. The concept explores a mother’s love in the face of unspeakable darkness, with a bone-chilling final scene

>Conventions for the New Concept<

What I learned… How to strengthen my concept by incorporating horror conventions.

Concept: Would I risk my own life to be reunited with a loved one, knowing there’s a chance they could return as a zombie; or worse, unleash the zombie apocalypse?

Terrorize The Characters: The hero is torn between the desire to escape her home, where her father intends to kill her, and the paralyzing fear of leaving the family mortuary, the only home she’s ever known.

Isolation: Haunted by guilt, the hero blames herself for her mother’s death, and now she’s trapped in a nightmare of agoraphobia, leaving her unable to venture outside.

Death: Her mother perishes in a tragic car accident. Her father uses his daughter’s precious bodily fluids to drain her of life, so he can reanimate her mother to lead an army of zombies.

Monster/Villain: The scientist-father relentlessly pursues a cure for zombies at any cost, attempting to control the uncontrollable.

High Tension: The hero yearns to break free from an emotional and physical prison, fearing that she will ultimately become her father’s next science experiment.

Departure from Reality: The concept explores the terrifying realm of reanimation, blurring the boundaries between life and death.

Moral Statement: Would I attempt to revive a dead loved one, while risking a zombie apocalypse even if the odds of success were only 50/50? What are the consequences of personal choices and the limits of love?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Brian King.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Brian King.

[Karen Christine Angermayer]

A Quiet Place: Horror Conventions

What I learned doing this assignment is that if the puzzle pieces fit well together they make a great movie. I am curious to discover my own pieces!

Title / Concept: A Quiet Place

Concept: If you make a noise, they kill you.

Terrorize The Characters: A family of four has to be careful to not make any noise, because they are killed by a certain species.

Isolation: The family created their home and their way to town through a forest in a special way. They walk barefoot and quiet. The do not meet any other person outside their little “paradise”.

Death: They have already lost one child when he accidentally made a noise.

Monster/Villain: A species that attacked the area and already killed many people.

High Tension: Everyone of us makes noises in daily life. It´s almost impossible to avoid them. In addition to this the mother is pregnant – how can you go through a painful process like giving birth, without making any sound?

Departure from Reality: Monsters. A dead town. Giving birth without any sound. Killing someone by overmodulation.

Moral Statement: The „weekest“ member of your tribe can save you. (I am not sure about the statement.)

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film?

I liked the idea to put the movie in a certain contained setting. I learned from this that you obviously don´t need many locations to make a great horror movie.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story.

Concept: A small group of families, one of them having a child with a deadly desease, want to enjoy a relaxing and teambuilding time in the woods when the forest suddenly starts threatening them.

Terrorize The Characters: The parents and children are told that oxygen is running out and they are not allowed to leave their cabins.

Isolation: Several cabins in a forest resort. No internet.

Death: Oxygen is life. Lacking oxygen means death. The have already found several dead bodies.

Monster/Villain: a person with a split personality

High Tension: will they survive this? Will they stay sane, while the villain tries to make them believe, that it´s dangerous outside and that they will die, poisoned by carbon dioxide?

Departure from Reality: feeling like you transmute into a tree, a psychopath making his experiments crossing human beings and plants, killing somebody by leaving someone alone in the woods

Moral Statement: The fine line between not caring about our nature and our future – and becoming fanatic about it, which can be as deadly.

[Chuck Czech]

What I learned doing this assignment — characters have to be put under extreme pressure throughout the story, heightening emotions and leading to hysteria; the sample film I chose, It Follows, demonstrated an ongoing sense of dread

Title / Concept: It Follows — a young woman is stalked by a supernatural monster who will kill her unless she has sex with someone else

Terrorize The Characters: The main character is sexually assaulted, which begins her journey; the monster appears in ordinarily safe locations — classroom, living room, bedroom, beach house, school pool — and it could be anyone who walks by

Isolation: The initial victim dies alone on a beach; Jay is strapped to a chair in an abandoned building; she is stalked by a supernatural monster only she can see; Jay retreats to isolated locations to better see the monster approaching — empty park, remote cabin, deserted school

Death: Initial victim is mangled on a beach; Greg is killed after having sex with Jay

Monster/Villain: A malevolent spirit that hunts and kills people infected with its sex-related curse.

High Tension: relentless pursuit; unstoppable threat; sexual violation; attack at anytime anywhere; impending death

Departure from Reality: The monster often appears as people who don’t fit into the surroundings — an old woman in a hospital smock, a naked woman on the street, a naked man on the roof — and it calmly stalks its victims.

Moral Statement: Be careful who you have sex with.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film? The main character is always in peril – even after she follows the monster’s rules; things keep getting worse for poor Jay.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story.

Concept: A rookie cop partners with a young medium to track an invisible demon who’s behind decades of missing persons cases.

Terrorize The Characters: The demon appears every thirty years and takes three victims; once the medium identifies the demon’s current work, she becomes its next target; the demon possesses a serial killer to stalk the medium, and then tries to trap her forever in the spirit world

Isolation: Once the medium becomes the demon’s next target, the cop is unable to protect her; the medium feels she’s on her own

Death: The cop and medium uncover the graves of dozens of victims who were taken from past decades; during the course of the story, the demon kills two victims and then targets the medium as its third victim; one of the men the demon had possessed thirty years ago is brutally killed when he spills the beans on the demon’s role in the missing persons cases

Monster/Villain: An invisible demon that possesses men to hunt and stalk women — three victims for every generation of the town it haunts

High Tension: Demon possession; serial killer; explorations of the spirit world

Departure from Reality: The medium is able to disappear into the spirit world, which is the domain of the demon; the demon possess people to do its dirty work in the real world

Moral Statement: You have to risk confronting your inner demons to be freed from an emotional prison.

[Redelia Shaw]

This assignment taught me the standard conventions used in horror films and the importance of incorporating this roadmap into our screenplays.

1. The Visitor, directed by Justin P. Lange, tells the story of Robert Burrows, a British man who relocates to his wife’s childhood home and discovers a sinister and dark part of himself he never knew existed, revealed through his image in various portraits.
2. Although Robert seems adored by many in this small town, a few people know the truth about him, and they disappear or die soon after every interaction with him. These characters tread in fear after meeting him.
3. The setting is isolated to this small town and his wife’s childhood home.
4. People die painfully, as one woman is killed by a serpent (snake), another is eaten alive by a swarm of locusts, and the third man is nailed to a tree.
5. The villain of this film is an entity of which Robert is the firstborn son and direct descendent.
6. Robert feels himself going crazy as people disappear and die around him. He has nightmares and hallucinations of himself as the entity when he looks in the mirror. His goal is to get him and his pregnant wife away safely. Only to discover his wife is really his sister and he is the lord of the Dark World.
7. The entity (Visitor) is captured in numerous photos and images next to the most iconic people from some of the most gruesome historical events we all wish we could forget, including Hitler, Leopold in the Congo, and the Cambodian genocide. Getting eaten by locusts and nailed to a tree are not common ways to die.
8. The sins of a father are visited upon the son unless he chooses a different way. This film is about the power of choice.

The Biblical metaphors in The Visitor made the horror film more interesting to me because it discusses the impact of generational curses.

[Sunil Pappu]

A Quiet Place Horror Conventions

“What I learned doing this assignment is… how different the genre conventions are for thriller and horror. Having written only thrillers thus far this was a real eureka moment for me. I also felt that each line of the script heightened one of the primal fears at any given point in time while watching the movie.”

• Title / Concept: A Quiet Place: A family is forced to communicate in sign language to stay alive in a world where noise-sensitive blind creatures kill humans.

• Terrorize The Characters: kills anyone who makes a sound!

• Isolation: alone in a ghost town, the son is trapped in a cornfield, the mute daughter is trapped in the granary, the pregnant wife is trapped in a flooded basement, and a newborn baby is trapped inside a wooden casket with an oxygen cylinder

• Death: Son is killed on the railway tracks

• Monster/Villain: blind noise-sensitive creatures called Death Angels but referred to by survivors as ‘The Creatures” or “The Listeners.”

• High Tension: Son turns on the toy spaceship and gets killed; kerosene lamp shatters and they hear a thud on the roof – racoons that get snatched by the creature, old man in the woods screams seeing dead woman, creature eats old man alive while father protects his son, wife’s pregnant and her water breaks with no one around, steps on a nail and smashes a photo frame that attracts the creature. The creature enters the basement, the alarm bell goes off and she escapes upstairs, son and father see the red lights indicating danger, pregnant wife must deliver her baby without a noise, son lights fireworks to distract the creature, the father runs in with shotgun to save the wife and sees a bloody tub, wife is alive and has given birth, son trapped in the field, daughter is saved by her hearing aid in the field, baby cannot cry, father carries the mother and baby into the soundproof basement, leaves mother and baby to save the kids, flooded basement with mother and baby trapped with the creature, son and daughter fall into the granary and creature jumps in, hearing aid drives away the creature, father saves the kids, mother sees creature swipe his razor sharp claws at father, kids run to hide under truck and creature follows ripping it apart, father screams to attract the creature away and gets killed. Kids start the truck and ride home. Mother takes them inside, in the basement the creature advances towards the mother, mute daughter holds the hearing aid to the microphone and incapacitates the creature, mother kills it with her shotgun. More creatures arrive captured on CCTV. The daughter increases the intensity and the mother reloads her shotgun.

• Departure from Reality: A trip to the grocery store is fraught with danger, boy running on the dirty floor without shoes, walking on gravel without footwear, talking and even arguing in sign language to stay alive, giving birth without making a sound, baby hidden in a wooden casket with an oxygen cylinder and mask, a creature that is blind and can kill with sound.

• Moral Statement: Instincts of motherhood to protect her children can defeat any monster. Parents will sacrifice their own lives to protect their children.

Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film? – With minimal dialogue the film captured the emotions of the characters beautifully. Music and sound effects have been used to heighten the suspense and fear. The first audible dialogue comes at 57 minutes into the film spoken by the mother enquiring about her kids “Where are they?”

Conventions for my story are:

• Title: Signals / The Detectors

• Concept: A family with no digital footprint is separated and stranded across town, taken over by mysterious species that feeds on high-frequency human brainwaves altered by prolonged exposure to mobile signals. They must unite to save the last mobile tower and warn the outside world before being hunted down.

• Terrorize The Characters: feeds on anyone exposed long to mobile signals to alter the brain function and gouges their eyes and feeds on them.

• Isolation: only surviving family of five is separated and stranded inside a mega mall – father at a karaoke bar, mother in the sauna, one twin son with a girlfriend inside a bathroom stall, and younger daughter at the playpen, another son is at the bookstore.

• Death: nightclub patrons are slaughtered, the teen son is killed trying to save his girlfriend calling on her mobile, a movie theatre crowd, car pile up on streets, mother sacrifices her life to save her daughter.

• Monster/Villain: a high-frequency brainwave-detecting creature that feeds on human brains exposed to prolonged mobile signals. It’s called “the detectors” or “the watchers”

• High Tension: teens doing cocaine in a nightclub get decimated by the detectors/watchers, a teen boy is trapped with his girlfriend inside a bathroom cubicle and gets devoured by the detectors trying to call for help; a mob of the detectors enter the movie theatre and go on a rampage; the father hides behind a giant jukebox while the bar is destroyed; cars pileup outside the mall and the watchers feed on people on the streets while the mother is trapped in a sauna; young girl is trapped inside a toy house at the playpen with watchers wait outside, creatures climb onto mobile towers on the roof of the mall and hang at night, only surviving family lives inside the mall and find a way to defeat the watchers using low-frequency analogue tech and nature. The surviving twin son feels guilty for surviving and shares a strained relationship with his dad, losing his mother he needs to mend his relationship with his dad to work together, he protects his baby sister who loves playing mobile games.

• Departure from Reality: family with no digital footprint, creatures detecting people’s brainwaves and feeding on them, creatures that feed on people exposed to mobile signals and hang from mobile towers, family living inside a mall for days.

• Moral Statement: We spend too much time on smart devices, especially the Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids born with AI and smartphones that we might alter our brains permanently to detrimental effect.

[Michelle]

Michelle’s Horror Conventions

I learned to watch for conventions when watching (bad) horror.

Film

· Title / Concept: The Black Phone / Deceased kidnapped children provide survival tips to the latest victim via a disconnected phone.

· Terrorize the Characters: Characters are kidnapped by a masked magician.

· Isolation: They are locked in a dark soundproof basement.

· Death: We don’t see the killings, but imagine them after seeing characters in the afterlife.

· Monster/Villain: The Grabber, who waits for kids to play the game.

· High Tension: Will he escape before being killed?

· Departure from Reality: disconnected phone rings, talking dead kids, sister finds brother through dreams

· Moral Statement: Adulthood ruins the innocence of youth.

My Film

· Terrorize the Characters: characters chased and savagely killed

· Isolation: on an island

· Death / Fears: the dark, the unknown, something terrible will happen, the unseen, psychopaths, spiders, heights, death, rape

· Monster/Villain: islander gone mad whose actions are manipulated by a masochistic priest

· High Tension: Does anyone survive?

· Departure from Reality: death by archaic means

· Moral Statement: Do unto others…

[Joyce Davidson]

Lesson One. Watching a horror film

WIL: I learned that urgency, tension and fear must be maintained and grow to the end.

Movie: THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE

I chose this quickly and found one of my concepts is similar to the environment and the motivation of the “monster”. #1 It is difficult to find him fearsome. He did terrorize victims.#2. Each victim was alone. There is a danger for killer’s actions to become to predictable.#3 The victims seldom fought back, but the killer was realistic.They mourned their friends more than they feared that they were next. #4.Monster/villain could have had a stronger motive. #5. Romantic scenes did little to rev the tension.#6. The environment was realistic and not scary in itself. #7 Everyone has a secret, but the members of this group were supposed to have bad secrets. This required some back story revelations.

My concept involves a group of returning alums to a reunion.

When at a reunion a group of fromer students tour the old high school before it is opened as a hospital for the mentally ill, but they are trapped inside with a killer among them.

[Raven Kushner]

What I learned: That horror works best when the setting and plot are kept simple.

The Nun (2018)

1) Concept: A nun commits suicide sparking an investigation by the Vatican, which is carried about by an experienced priest, an aspiring nun, and a local lothario.

2) Terror: Everyone was terrorized by a demon Valak whose evil was reawakened by war bombing that damaged the cloister’s building structure

Isolation: The events take place within the cloister, as the main characters were forced to spend the night due to the convent’s rituals

Death: Lots

Monster/villain: demonic activity

High tension: Lots of people slowly creeping up to things and then being shocked by the reaction of that thing/person/entity

Departure from reality: supernatural events

Moral statement: Demons are evil, and so is war

3) The movie wasn’t that great, but they excelled at keeping the tension high (even if it was a little artificial or forced), and the characters were likable. You were rooting for them to get out of there.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Raven Kushner.

[John Budinscak]

Horror Conventions and Concept

Day 1

What I learned doing this assignment is…

o The critical components separating a horror film from a thriller.

o What comprises smart horror.

o What needs to be defined in my concept.

o I believe these puzzle pieces will be the basis of an outline.

MOVIE: “LIGHTS OUT”

CONCEPT:

MONSTER: Evil spirit.

TERROR: It stalks/kills its victims from the shadows, dark rooms, dark places.

ENVIRONMENT: Every dark room or shadow is where the spirit exists.

VICTIMS: Anyone who came between the Diana (evil spirit) and Sophie (hero’s mother).

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: Characters can only see Diana in the absence of light. Whether in shadows or a room when the lights are switched off, she’s there. She hunts/stalks her victims in the dark.

ISOLATION: Opening scene, the father is trapped in his warehouse when the lights flicker and go out. The mother rarely leaves her home, the lights are never on/working – and she spends her time talking to the evil spirit. The older daughter attacked in her apartment. The young stepbrother escapes from his mother’s dark house.

DEATH: The evil spirit possesses abnormal strength with long ‘talons’ at the end of her fingers. The father is stabbed with Diana’s claws in the opening scene. Rebecca is stalked in her apartment. The boyfriend is beaten outside the house in the shadows. Two policemen are killed rescuing the girl and her stepbrother. The spirit intimates she killed the mother’s first husband as well.

MONSTER: The evil spirit – Diana – will do everything in her power to keep the mother isolated from her family and/or anyone who tries to help. Diana protects the mother’s fragile psyche, which is critical to the spirits existence.

HIGH TENSION: Many life and death situations, lights go out & electricity fails providing the venue for Diana to appear, intimidate and kill. Lots of escaping dark rooms, being trapped in the basement, the spirit appearing in the dark, disappearing in the light.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: Being slaughtered by an evil spirit really doesn’t exist in the normal life. Being tossed and beaten by ghosts doesn’t happen often as well.

MORAL STATEMENT: The dangers of depression and how evil can/will manifest itself.

I have nothing else to add about this film. It was a good horror movie, not a great one.

MY CONCEPT:

MONSTER: Alien that can assume different forms (human and animal).

TERROR: An unknown killer is eliminating both the good and bad guys in gruesome, out-of-this-world slaughters.

ENVIRONMENT: From dark woods, to critter infested swamps to underground tunnels.

VICTIMS: Animal traffickers, meth lab strongmen and human traffickers.

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: Characters are stalked and slaughtered by an unknown predator. They are chased by drones, robotic animals and the unknown.

ISOLATION: Characters are pursued in the dark woods, chased through swamps – above and below water. They are stalked in underground tunnels.

DEATH: Death occurs through a variety of methods – severed limbs, animal attacks, tossed down a shaft, taser/electrical charge.

MONSTER/VILLAIN – An alien able to assume human (adult, child) and animal forms. As it seeks to complete its mission, it kills for both food and for fun.

HIGH TENSION: Life and death pursuits through various terrains by unknown and known monsters. Ticking clocks. Impending doom. Fear of unknown.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: Being hunted by aliens. Chased by robotic animals, drones and unknown forces. Escaping from ‘real’ predators – alligators/pythons, panthers.

MORAL STATEMENT: Every living thing has a soul/spirit separate from its flesh.

[Deborah Stenard]

WHAT I LEARNED DOING THIS ASSIGNEMENTIS:

TITLE- NOBODY SLEEPS IN THE WOODS TONIGHT-2020

(The first in a Polish Horror Film Series)

CONCEPT: A group of teens and counselors in the woods at an electronic devices deprivation camp are terrorized by two mutated brothers turned into flesh eating monsters by a meteor from space.

I picked this movie because I thought it was interesting that horror conventions are pretty much the same all over the world.

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS:

Trapped in the woods with no way to contact the outside world.

Fighting monster-like people with super-human strength.

No conventional weapons available

All the adults are killed off early, leaving the teen-agers on their own

The monsters are animal-like and have no human feelings.

ISOLATION- This group of teenagers are being forced by their parents to spend time at a camp in the woods where no electronic devices are allowed. No cell phones, no ipads, no radios, no land lines and no vehicles to take them back to civilization.

DEATH-

The first death is no seen, but sounds horrible.

Each subsequent death is either quick and horribly painful, or lingering and disgusting. Only one girl survives and she is forced to kill the monsters in order to survive.

MONSTER/VILLAIN-

Two brothers who live with their mentally defective other in a hut in the woods. When a meteor lands near their hut, the energy that emanates from the meteor turn them into what look like monstrous lepers, who cannot speak or reason, who only want to eat any raw meat they can find. No matter what or who.

HIGH TENSION:

The teens are in the woods at night when the first attack happens. One boy disappears ,and they have no idea what happened to him.

As they search for him, one by one, they are picked off by the monster brothers. With new death is witnessed by the survivors and they come to realize that very soon, they are next.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY:

A mailman comes to the hut in the woods. This is not his first tie delivering mail. But all of a sudden, he decides to investigate the cellar for no good reason.

A meteor, big enough to light up the night sky for hundreds of miles and no one comes out to investigate.

The meteor carries spoor that turn humans into flesh-eating monsters.

MORAL STATEMENT:

The kids who had sex by the lake where the first one to get killed, so DON’T HAVE SEX BY A LAKE IN THE DARK.

Also, when that one scared kid says do not go in there, let’s leave and get help now listen to him!

And do whatever you can to survive.

[Shannon Amborn]

PRESERVED is the story of a mother so blinded by grief that she uses her life savings to cryogenically preserve her terminally ill daughter (CONCEPT). But fifty years later, when the technology exists to “bring her back,” the scientific experiment goes awry in this modern-day Frankenstein tale where science and morality meet (MONSTER: the reincarnated “creation”).

As a technophile fascinated with the science behind cryogenics, gene editing, and CRISPR – as well as a lover of classic literature – I intend to grapple with the ethics specifically surrounding the technology of cryogenics, asking the same age-old question as Mary Shelley: just because we can do something, should we? Additionally, it will question the essence of what constitutes an individual; from where are our perceptions of self derived or contained? In the brain, the body, the mind and/or the soul?

As a single mom with an only child (a daughter), I also wanted to explore the extremes of maternal instincts and attachment (FEAR OF LOSS/DEATH), and play with a female “Frankenstein” and her “creation,” in this case a grieving mother who collaborates with a group of ambitious, eager scientists (GROUP WHO GETS TERRORIZED).

[Yolanda Buggs]

NOTE: I (Yolanda) am a co-writer with (Redelia). We are both in the group and have both signed the confidentiality agreement. Below is the project we’re writing as a team:

HORROR CONVENTIONS

Our Movie title: Ditch Day

Terrorize the Characters: Teens disappear, people die, and spirits possess them.

Isolation: High school friends are trapped in the middle of a haunted lake in a houseboat.

Primal Fears: Fear of the dark, Fear of unknown, Fear of unseen, Fear of death

Death: Drowning, mysterious creatures, underwater impalements, etc.

Monster/Villain: An entity from the past.

High Tension: They are told to be off the Lake before sundown but due to series of mishaps, they are not. Terror ensues.

Departure from Reality: Death by past spirits.

Moral Statement: The value in knowing our history and the importance of truth and reconciliation so we do not repeat the sins of our fathers.

[Wade Jehowski]

What I Learned from doing this assignment is that the so called Villain is just as terrorized as the Victims.

Title: X

Concept: A group of good looking youngsters rent out a guest house from an older couple to shoot a pornographic movie in the late 1970’s.

Terrorize the Characters: The old couple is jealous of the fact that the good looking youngsters are so sexual, something that they can no longer have due to health issues and begin to pick off the porn actors one by one.

Isolation: The elderly couple has a house in rural Texas, very similar to Leather Face’s house in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and of course their vehicle is out of commission. The house is very dirty, dripping water, flies buzzing and an unwatched boiling pot on the stove.

Death: Since the couple is elderly, the deaths occurs very geriatric like. It’s a slow burn. The first death doesn’t happen until 59 minutes and 10 seconds into the film. The build up is very tense in itself. The causes of death for the villains are somewhat due to being frail, which is a major theme in the movie. There is a great scene involving an alligator or crocodile, not sure of the difference, that foreshadows one of the porn actor’s death.

Monster/Villain: An elderly couple, mainly the female, that terrorize the youngsters due to getting old and becoming jealous of being young and vibrant.

High Tension: My favorite scene is when Maxine, what I would call the “Final Girl” is swimming in the lake and we can see a alligator/crocodile slowly sneak up on her and she jumps onto the dock just in time. The great part is that she has no idea that she was just in danger.

Departure from Reality: The youngsters are very liberal; however, there are numerous Evangelical viewpoints. The view that sex is bad comes across through random television spots playing in the background or some of the statements made by the elderly couple. It’s obvious that the youngster hippies are out of their element. They should have gone to Austin.

Moral Statement: It sucks getting old. Realize that one day your faculties will go away and that you will wish for youthfulness. Sometimes older people come off as a burden, but we are all heading there.

I thought this was a great horror film because it emphasized that just because you get older, you still have the same thought process of wanting to be touched or loved. When you’re young you take those aspects for granted. I have grandparents that are starting to struggle with things that I take for granted now. They’re not murdering young porn stars, but I thought the movie did a great job of showing aging in a gratuitous way.

[Robert Lee]

“Nightbooks” Horror Conventions

I learned about the elements of a horror film.

They were isolated from the rest of society in a witch’s apartment with no way to get out.

The witch threatens them with death if they do not tell a scary story every night, and turns them into tiny ceramic statues if they do not obey.

Monster: Natasha the Witch , who lures kids into a traveling apartment.

High Tension: The kids have to escape , before Alex runs out of story ideas, or else they would die.

Departure From Reality: It is uncommon for a person tricked into going into a witch’s house, and then being forced to do tasks. Also, the house itself had more space than seemingly was possible to fit in it.

Moral Statement: It talked about the value of friendship, and the dilemna of lying to protect friends.

3. It was decent, and I think, for the most part, it followed the pattern of elements.

Concept: A shapeshifting alien tries to disrupt normal activity, and cause trust to fall between characters.

Terrorize the Characters: They don’t know who to trust, and, because of the shapeshifter’s efforts, their relationships fall apart.

Isolation: Thanks to their lack of trust, the doppelgänger can lead them into situations where they are all alone, and easier to fool.

Death: The monster kills beings to steal, and use, their forms.

Monster/Villain: A shapeshifter capable of taking the form of any being they kill.

High Tension: The villain uses their shapeshifting to cause things to go wrong and cause people to turn against one another.

Departure from Reality: Alien shapeshifter is posing as a student as a spaceship is spotted.

Moral Statement: People should always try to support one another especially in times of peril.

[Cary Patrick]

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Horror Conventions

What I learned from doing this assignment is that more and more ideas begin to flow once I have a solid and specific idea of where I want to go with each element.

Title / Concept: The Hills Have Eyes

Terrorize The Characters: Initially believing they’re alone, they’re hunted by mutants who live in the desert.

Isolation: Vehicle is incapacitated in the empty desert.

Death: Pick axed to backs, dragged, shotgun suicide, beaten with rock, burned alive, blown up by explosion.

Monster/Villain: Mutants affected by nuclear radiation

High Tension: Huge terrain in the middle of nowhere. Unseen monsters. Possible other dangerous wildlife nearby.

Departure from Reality: Radiation affecting people this particular way.

Moral Statement: Ethics of government weapons testing. Appreciating family.

What I thought was great about this film was that they took the time to let the audience care about the victims before completely putting them through it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

My concept:

Concept: A psychopathic doctor abducts hitchhikers for medical experiments and organ harvesting against their will.

Terrorize The Characters: They become “lab rats” – tortured, contained, and vital organs removed. No idea which new experiment will ultimately kill them.

Isolation: Empty roads, medical lab, crate sized cages.

Death: Chemical treatments, pain tolerance, poison, amputation.

Monster/Villain: The Doctor and his assistants.

High Tension: Not knowing where they are. Not knowing if the next treatment will kill them. Clean and professional facility with an emotionally detached staff who are experts in their field.

Departure from Reality: Humans treated like lab animals.

Moral Statement: Medicine should be humane, even for the greater good.

[Debbera Hayward]

A. The monster/villain: An urban legend the green man. A humanoid creature with plant like features who lives in the forest.

B. The interesting terror: Uncle tells his nieces and nephews scary stories about the Green Man who haunts children who are naughty. The stories become reality while they are on a camping trip with their Uncle.

C. An isolated and horrific environment: Uncle takes his nieces and nephews on a camping trip in the forest. They accidentally set up camp in an area that is deeper into the forest than they had planned.

D. The people who will be terrorized: Nieces and nephews.

[Marissa Lichwick]

This is not fleshed out at all.

Title: Hereditary

Concept: A family drama flipped on its head. A seemingly normal family is overcome by an evil entity after the death of a patriarch who was an apparent cult leader. The nefarious entity/advisory is destined to capture the family, especially the son as he is chosen to be the seventh ruler of hell that the family is predisposed to inherit.

TerrorizeThe Characters: The family members who cannot escape their inherited doomed fate.

Isolation: In their home.

The Advisory follows them everywhere. They cannot escape their fate. The Advisory enters into them and begins to destroy the family from inside the home.

Death: Beheaded.

Monster/Villain: A transparent light.

High Tension: A clicking sound.

Departure from Reality: Does a family inherit the kingdom of hell?

Moral Statement: Not sure. Stories based on Greek Tragedy are great ideas for Horror films.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film?

The acting, writing, directing, production, just everything about it. It’s a smart film that doesn’t resort to jump scares. I’m afraid it might fall under Thriller Horror rather than straight Horror.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story. (I’m still working through this)

Concept: A Korean Horror film that adapts traditional Korean fable and biblical idols spoken of in the Book of Jacob (old testament)

Terrorize The Characters: At 11:11 strange hauntings occur. First, they are small then they grow in size leading to severe and gruesome deaths. As the film unfolds the time becomes linked to the idols and the fable of a dead Korean woman called “Geshen”

Isolation: Time 11:11

Death: Still figuring this part out.

[Wade Jehowski]

What I learned from this assignment is…

I already responded to the first half of the assignment by reviewing the movie “X”. Here is my concept with the conventions:

Concept: A middle age boy is found murdered at a week long Boy Scout Summer Camp.

Terrorize The Characters: The Camp Staff, parent volunteers and Middle/High School aged scouts are all put under investigation by the authorities. During this time, other deaths occur.

Isolation: The authorities make everyone at the Camp, which is a large amount of people, stay at the Camp until they figure out who the “Monster” is. We have the Camp attendants having to sleep in their quarters/tents nightly scared of what will happen to them during this event. This Camp is isolated from any civilization.

Death: The main character is a 10th grader who found his troop mate stabbed to death in the tent they were sharing. He is the main suspect and scared. As other Scouts from other troops go missing and bodies are found, our character, along with everyone else at the camp begin to become paranoid of everyone else.

Monster/Villain: I’m still trying to piece out the Monster.

High Tension: Any sound that is heard in the woods instantly creates the mind to wander. Our main character begins to notice the Archery Range, the lake, the Troops Ax yard and wonders that there are so many ways for the monster to get them. I was hoping to possibly have a death by drowning, bow and arrow and possibly a body in the designated ax yard where they cut firewood. I’m an Eagle Scout and am familiar with all of the things that could go wrong at Summer Camp.

Departure from Reality: The departure is that while there are murders, the Camp attendees are dealing with being interrogated along the way. They get nervous talking to the authorities in a secluded area and begin to look at their friends as possible suspects.

Moral Statement: I think my moral statement would almost be similar to a Zombie Movie or series. The big takeaway is that whenever chaos happens, the biggest threat isn’t necessarily the Monster it becomes the acts of human nature. I think of the movie of 28 Days Later, the Zombies weren’t the main problem, it was the uninfected humans that caused the horror. As a killer roams free, I want the attendees at the Camp to cause the horror and trouble. The Killer is almost a backstory. I want paranoia to set in amongst the people and make scenes very tense and horrific.

[Frances Williams]

Frances Williams,

Title/ Concept Scream

Two Psychopaths Terrorizing Their classmates.,

Terrorize the Characters – They are isolated and picked off one by one

Isolated High school kids are trapped in a farmhouse.

Death- They are stabbed and gutted

Monster/Villain Two Psychopaths

High Tension

Morbid sense if reality

Departure from Realiity

Killing gives them a thrill

Moral Statement

People who are mentally ill can appear as normal.

[Brian Walsh]

Lesson One Assignment

What I learned from this assignment: Though they are predictable and not completely satisfying in this film, the conventions are used effectively.

1. I chose this film because it is relatively new (2022) and I haven’t seen it before.

2. Title: Rise of the Beast (2022)

Terrorize the Characters: The beast makes ominous growling sounds but when it is stalking prey it does so silently. It moves stealthily when it has to, but when it’s in full pursuit the ground shakes from its weight.

Isolation: Trapped inside a research facility and surrounding grounds.

Death: Two of the animal rights activists get killed quickly, one after the other. The soldiers get killed one-by-one, not longer after the activists are captured. The lead’s love interest gets infected, which means certain death. Two of the animal rights activists get killed quickly, one after the other. The soldiers get killed one-by-one, not longer after the activists are captured. The lead’s love interest gets infected, which means certain death.

Monster/Villain: Genetically-engineered gorilla that was once a human being

High Tension: They run into the monster ape inside the facility, resulting in the death of one of their team and injury to another. They are then chased outside to deserted cabin in woods. Another team member goes for outside help, only to be killed by the monster in the woods. The survivors are arrested by the military an brought to an underground prison/test lab for interrogation. The ape breaks in and hunts them all down.

Departure from Reality:Humans attacked by creature become infected, which mutates them into similar creatures.

Moral Statement: No one has the right to play God by tampering with the human genome.

3. It wasn’t a great horror film. There was plenty of standard horror suspense and tension with the ape stalking the activists and soldiers, but it was predictable. The script wasn’t very good. The CGI ape wasn’t effective during direct confrontation scenes. The dialogue was not an asset to the film. The ending left open the possibility of a sequel, which is standard operating procedure for horror films.

4. My Concept: An escaped prisoner returns to his hometown to prevent the release of a horde of demons trapped inside the corpse of a long-dead 17th Century exorcist priest.

Terrorize the Characters: A quake along the local fault line traps the search party inside the mine. Further quakes threaten to bury them. Meanwhile, someone or something is killing them off, one-by-one. They believe it is the escaped prisoner, but it isn’t.

Isolation: Abandoned mine.

Death: The search party is killed off, one-by-one. Quake blamed for first death.

Monster/Villain: Long-dead exorcist priest filled with demon spirits that animate him.

High Tension: Search party finds priest in coffin. Later on, when they are backtracking, they discover it gone. Demon-possessed dead priest stalks them while the demons inside struggle to break free of their human prison.

Departure from Reality: In the late 1600s, a terminally ill exorcist priest cast demons into himself in order imprison them the way Jesus Christ sent demons into a herd of swine that rushed over a cliff into the sea to be drowned. The dying priest sealed them inside a coffin with a prayer to prevent his body from decaying and a cross to hold them inside until the Day of Judgment.

Moral Statement: Pride is the deadliest of all, the root of all evil, and the beginning of sin.

[Peter Symons]

What I learned doing this assignment is a solid core concept is priceless.

Subject line: Tongues Horror Conventions

Title / Concept:The VVitch- 1600s American Puritan family is destroyed by a witch.Terrorize The Characters: Death of baby Sam. The fear of the witch of the wood. The paranoia that Thomison is actually the witch and has cursed the family. The devil has taken hold in a family torn apart by evangelical zeal. The fear they do not deserve gods grace. Omens of evil. Crops destroyed by blight. Dead Chick in egg. Twins in league with Black Phillip. Isolation: “The Wood” near the family’s meager homestead frowns down on them line Draculas tower waiting to devour them. Death: Portents of death. Rabbit, goat, blood in milk. Death of Baby Sam. Death of Caleb by the witch.Death of twins by the crone. Death of William, gored by Black Phillip. Death of Katherine by Thomason in self defense. Monster/Villain: The witch of the wood. The dissolution of the family unit by external and internal pressures both natural and supernatural.High Tension: pressure mounts as the witch takes hold on the family.Departure from Reality: The Witch is a modern day fairytale of puritanical piety.Moral Statement: pride goeth before a fall.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film?

Perhaps the most accurate depiction of puritanical America ever produced.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story.

Concept: Tongues. A convent of charismatic nuns who are actually a coven of witches use miracles as a coverup for casting spellsTerrorize The Characters:Isolation: Irish convent in the countryside Death: Rachel’s stillborn baby cut from her womb by a woman pretending to be pregnant; death of Rachel’s husband by the coven; death of sister by Rachel; possession of her dead baby by Lilith, first wife of Adam.Monster/Villain: Lilith; Sister Celeste High Tension: The sisters draw in Rachel as the family she never had. Using her to as a way to bring her baby back from death to serve as a vessel for Lilith Departure from Reality: a broken woman is asked to take a leap of faith and believe in a miracle that comes at a terrible price Moral Statement: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

[Patrick Casey]

The Devil’s Doorway Horror Conventions

What I learned is that I need to learn the conventions of horror, and use them to my advantage.

Title / Concept:The Devil’s Doorway/ In Ireland the Catholic church runs asylums for poor women, and that supernatural events are taking place so two priests are sent to investigate, and this is in 1960.

Terrorize The Characters: The priests are the main characters Father Rilley, and Father Thomas. I like that two are sent. It would be easy for them to be surronded and sacrificed to Satan. But with two priests they can guard each others back. So the evil has to be strong to kill them.

Isolation:The two priests investigating the problems at the asylum get caught in the asylums dungeon like secret cellar.

Death:One little ghost of a child tells the priest, ” they’re gonna kill you.” This plot also indirectly involves satanic sacrifice and possesion.

Monster/Villain:The monster is the Catholic church which has a doorway to hell because of how it mistreats poor women and children. By Mistreating people they’ve been working with Satan for years.

High Tension:One priest really wants to find the cause of the bleeding statues, but the Reverand mother drags her feet and prevents his success.

Departure from Reality:The departure from reality is in the form of supernatural events, and ghost of mistreated children and women, and nuns that do black masses.

Moral Statement: Catholic priest’s have been covering up their sins for years and using nuns to help them.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film?

I like that this is a movie from Ireland, and that it’s premise is built on the Magdalean laundrys in Ireland. These are Asylums for women and they clean a lot of sheets doing laundry.

It’s also filmed in the pov style. Father Thomas films events in the story, kinda like Blair Witch.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story.

Concept:A school teacher is an evil witch

Terrorize The Characters:She terrorizes people so that then can see into the future.

Isolation:If you fight back she’ll drive you crazy, She and her followers control the environment, the county.

Death:By Killing people she can steal their dreams and create value from the stolen dreams.

Monster/Villain:The Lucifer is the villan that black mails her into killing so he can get souls and she gets black magic.

High Tension:Only a few children in the town have the were with all to stop her.

Departure from Reality:A satanic cult that controls various areas in America doesn’t exist

Moral Statement:Some of the evil witchy people aren’t poor, but they’re rich and powerful and they’re right in front of us.

[Diana Acosta]

I learned the formula works but in this particular movie they deviated from the formula towards end which made it campy as a whole but had its moments.<div>

Title / Concept: dismember/monster kills teens then makes them relive the day until they solve the game.<div>

Terrorize The Characters: they die horrifying deaths over and over again and watch their friends die too.

Isolation: it is their high school at night while stuck in a timeloop

Death: all the lead characters are impaled, cut in half, dismembered, torn apart, every day

Monster/Villain: the half corpse of an 8 yr old murder victim and half demon

High Tension: figure out the puzzle and find all the body parts of the 8 yr old while being killed evey day

Departure from Reality: time loop

Moral Statement: the group was brought together by the demon because of their loneliness and Isolation within in high school social scene.

My story

concept: terrorist training kids to be serial killer in the name of terror

</div><div>

Terrorize The Characters: People being shot down dead by seemingly invisible killer

Isolation: The terror threat now turned daily tasks into dangerous events

Death: Blown from inside out by seemingly invisible killer

Monster/Villain: Terrorist trainer and his army of killer kids

High Tension: No one lives to tell what happened and no one can find the source

Departure from Reality: They seem almost super human with their ability to clear a location quickly, quietly and viciously violent and random.

Moral Statement: Kids in our society are being manipulated by the wrong people because they are the forgotten and ignored.

</div></div>

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  Diana Acosta.

[Susan Silver]

Subject line: US Horror Conventions <div>

What I learned doing this
assignment is that I need to keep clear exactly what I want to focus on. The reason
I’ve been hesitant to watch horror films is all the running around and physical
attacks, which bore me. But they can go so deep, and the reins on imagination are
completely set free.

Title / Concept: Us/The Tethered rise up to attack the characters.

Terrorize The Characters: The Tethered appear looking just like the
characters, who don’t understand what they are or where they come from

Isolation: In a house far from neighbors

Death: Both the characters and the doppelgangers are being murdered.

Monster/Villain: The Tethered

High Tension: The Tethered are growing in number, trying to take
over the country.

Departure from Reality: Two bodies share the same soul

Moral Statement: Your repressed emotions will not stay
under / your unrealized potential will turn against you / the repressed people
of the world will rise up against the privileged

This film has such deep
personal, spiritual, and societal layers of symbolism that I could watch it numerous
times and discover new things. The twist at the end completely took me by
surprise! Jordan Peele is a genius.

Concept: Victims going about their lives are being randomly captured
and kidnapped.

Terrorize The Characters: The victims are held in prisons and undergo
bizarre tortures without understanding why.

Isolation: The victims can talk to each other in voices the jailors
can’t understand, but they can’t see each other.

Death: When some of the victims escape, they encounter rooms of
piled corpses with bizarre markings on their bodies and other rooms with
different types of torture, all incomprehensible.

Monster/Villain: The villain is indistinguishable, speaking in a
foreign language, completely masked, and always surrounded by a hazy blur.

High Tension: The victims argue among themselves (and at times turn
against themselves) as they try to figure out a way to escape.

Departure from Reality: The victims develop super skills that, only if
they work together, they can use to escape.

Moral Statement: The jailors speak among themselves
that all this is for the greater good, but the victims are not willing
participants.

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[Avi K]

What I earned doing this assignment is: I have never thought of horror movies in terms of the four components and the conventions. This lesson has really given me a great way of breaking down the piece of a great horror movie.

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>ASSIGNMENT

Analyze a HORROR movie to discover how the conventions were expressed. It is totally okay to analyze a movie you’ve already seen, but please watch it again. Don’t just do it from memory.

1. Go to Netflix, iTunes, or Amazon and search for “horror” movies. Pick a horror movie that fits three criteria: The Relic.

2. Watch the movie and as you do, note its conventions.

• Title / Concept: The Relic

• Terrorize The Characters: The characters are all gathered for a gala, unaware that they are being hunted by a monster and will die brutal deaths.

• Isolation: The victims are trapped in dark, enclosed spaces (a museum building, its basement, the water tunnels below it).

• Death: They are ripped to pieces by the beast, which then eats the hypo thalamus from the victims’ brains.

• Monster/Villain: An anthropologist who drinks a potion as part of a tribe ritual in a remote Brazilian forest and is turned into a beast.

• High Tension: Low lighting in the museum building, wheezing noises as the beast passes through different areas of the building, bodies piling up- decapitated, torn to pieces.

• Departure from Reality: A man turning into a monster, which then hunts and decapitates its victims and then eats a part of their brains.

• Moral Statement: Respect for traditions of other communities and groups.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film? The script, the setting, the acting, it all comes together to make a great creature movie.

4. Note down the same conventions for your movie concept

MY CONCEPT: A divorced woman discovers that the house she won in a divorce is a death trap used by her ex-husband to murder women.

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: The victims are trapped in a house whose exits are controlled by a serial killer and are forced to choose between killing themselves or endure brutal torture and be killed by him.

ISOLATION: The house is in remote woods near a lake, where there is no other person for miles.

DEATH: Bear-traps, spring-loaded doors with saw blades that cut people in half when they slam shut as someone tries to escape (door opens once a day and stays open for 30 minutes?), cutting themselves each time they want water, having to pick a person to die if the larger group needs to be saved, having to cut off a finger for each attempt to escape or use a phone.

MONSTER/VILLAIN: A serial killer who likes to drive women mad with fear/insanity before killing them, and getting them to choose between killing themselves before it gets worse, or try to stay alive and have a chance to escape.

HIGH TENSION: Sinister notes, voices that whisper at night, lights turning on and off by themselves, gruesome video clips suddenly playing, impossible choices to stay alive.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: wounding yourself for a drink of water, nominating someone to die each day you’re alive, cutting off your own finger for trying to use a phone to call for help, being electrocuted if you try to venture outside a designated ‘radius’.

MORAL STATEMENT: Don’t cheat others.

[D. Renee]

I learned that there are a lot of moving parts to a horror film and they are even in movies that I wouldn’t consider conventional.

Title / Concept: The Lodge / Cult terror
Terrorize The Characters: two kids have to spend a few days with their fathers girlfriend who survived a suicide cult and they blame for their own mother’s suicide because she stole their father.
Isolation: lodge in the mountains surrounded by snow. All the electric goes out and food disappears.
Death: literally begin to think they died. Kid has a dream they died from a faulty gas heater, find a picture that says “in living memory”, find a paper with their obituary, the dog dies in the freezing snow (first hint they’re not dead), sea monkeys die, gf goes psychotic w/out her meds, Gf burns her knees on hot logs, gf kills father, gf has her and the kids commit suicide like the cult she was in.
Monster/Villain: unknown, at first think someone is messing with them, then start to think they are dead (I suspect the son has set the whole thing up to chase away the girlfriend), turns out the kids are torturing her, they push too far and she snaps – killing them all.
High Tension: things keep happening and they don’t know why, kids blame the girlfriend for their mother’s suicide, electricity won’t work, food disappears, keep saying the gf has to repent for her sins, gf is off her meds, gf keeps having flashbacks to the cult, gf starts acting out the cult torture she was inflicted with
Departure from Reality: think they died, random stuff keeps happening, the dollhouse keeps showing what is going to happen, the son hangs himself to prove they can’t die cause they’re in purgatory.
Moral Statement: Don’t be a home wrecker, don’t mentally torment a psychotic, don’t leave your kids with a woman who’s your former mental patient.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film? It was too slow for me but I liked the twist and that they all died since you think the dad is going to save the day and instead, he dies.

4. With your concept, fill in each of these Conventions for your story.

Concept: haunting bad guys
Terrorize The Characters: Drug dealers have to enter a known haunted house to retrieve their goods, but don’t know the demon has gotten into their stash.
Isolation: Trapped inside the haunted house on Christmas.
Death: Achilies slashed from under bed, walls coming to life and eating people, demon making dinner out of someone.
Monster/Villain: A murderous, coked-up demon.
High Tension: Keep getting close to the drugs but losing them last minute, trapped, childhood nightmares come to life.
Departure from Reality: Ghosts who get high off drugs.
Moral Statement: Don’t do drugs or go into creepy houses.

[Serita Stevens]

Conjuring. The Warren’s help a family whose home is haunted.

In a newly purchased old home, a family who’s spent all their money on this, struggles with the malevolent ghosts who want to kill them, especially one mother who murdered her son and hung him from the tree in the garden.

No one believes them until the Warren’s come onto the scene. There are several attempts on the children, one is possessed and tries to kill the mother. Things escalate and the family is forced to flee but the ghosts go after them.

Nothing the family or Warren’s do until the Ms. Warren preforms an exorcism.

Moral statement that evil even thou it lives on, can be defeated.

[Peter Symons]

Lesson #1

What I learned doing this assignment is that you need to stick to the basics to elevate the horror.

Watch the movie and as you do, note its conventions.

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