Using all of your Research, what are the Main Conventions of a Horror Film Opening?

Using all of your Research, what are the Main Conventions of a Horror Film Opening?

From all my research I have decided that the main conventions I'd use for a horror opening is the use of thrill and suspense, foreshadowing, relevance, unrealism and excitation.

A main convention of a horror openings is thrill and suspense. This is supported by Mark Zuckerman's theory that people who have a high score on the sensation seeking scale had a greater interest in horror films. There is evidence to his theory from a study he did in 1979 and other researchers have found correlations. However, this is said to not always be significant as even Zuckerman himself admitted that only looking atone trait misses the fact that there are lots of things that draw people to horror. Despite this contradiction I plan to use thrill and suspense in my task as it is something used in the majority of horror movies and seems to be successful in selling movies and therefore is a successful convention. 


A key feature in horror film openings is foreshadowing. This is when there are hints at the start of the movie which are signs of whats to come in the  movie. This incites an emotional or mental strain which is called tension. An example of this in horror films is in the opening scene of Scream 4 where they are talking and decide to watch a horror movie and one of the girls starts playing with a knife. In this opening scene they are also talking about a stalker who threatens to kill one of the girls who is talking to her on a fake internet profile which gives s the idea that something is going to happen to the girl by this person. This convention is something I want to use in my opening as it gives the allure of mystery. Mystery keeps audiences captivated and makes them want to keep watching, this also makes the story become a jigsaw as the audience have to start figuring things out for themselves. 

My research has shown that a key convention associated with horror film openings is relevance.
In order for a horror film to be watched it has to be relevant to it's potential viewers. An example of this is Final Destination, the movie is about teenagers who went to a theme park and is therefore going to attract younger audiences and as they are going to be able to relate to the story they are more likely to watch the film. I am going to use this convention as if the viewer has personal/subgroup relevance with the film they are going to be more captivated as they'll identify the protagonist in a way that condemns the antagonist to their fate.

Another convention of horror film openings is unrealism. Despite the graphic nature of horror films we all know at some level that what we are watching is not real. An example of this is Chucky Child's Play where a doll turns into an evil killer. The fact we know what we are watching is fabricated reality gives us more reason to keep watching. Movies are edited from multiple camera angles with many different soundtracks. I will not go out of my way to make my horror film look completely unreal I am going to keep it looking as realistic as I can I will just make sure my story line has the element of unrealism.

Excitation is another convention I want to use in my horror opening. This is a theory argued by Dr. Dolf Zillmann in 1978. He argued that the negative feelings created by horror films intensify the positive feelings when the hero triumphs in the end. There are however movies where the hero doesn't triumph at the end but even small studies have shown that peoples enjoyment was higher during the actual horror film than at the end. I may use this in my opening by making the audience like the protagonist and dislike the antagonist so there is excitement throughout the whole movie where at points different people are defeating the other. 

According to the researcher Walters movies that bring high levels of tension, relevance and unrealism have a greater horror appeal. Therefore I'll aim to use these conventions in my opening and throughout my whole film.