The codes and conventions of a horror film

There are many codes and conventions of a horror these are things the audience expect or know will probably be in the film as it has been in most films.

Firstly people expect a location usually somewhere scary in classic horrors it would be a castle or haunted mansion in the middle of nowhere and a killer in the city would be weird but now a location can be anything from a shopping mall in a town or a city itself so that is one codes and convention.

A killer or a villain/villains this could be anything from zombies and ghosts to a killer such as freddy and jason we expect in a horror ome sort of villain and even in films such as final destination there is a villain it could be argued that the villain is fate.

Another thing we expect is a main character or the hero this has been changed over the years as we used to be able to spot the main character as they would be very heroic so we could spot them easily however film like decent have challenged this as the survivor is not realised till half way through the film.

The victim an obvious one but in all horrors there are victims the people who will die sometimes they can be spotted easily (Drew Barrymore Scream) and some times not so easily (First women to die in nightmare on elm street).

A weapon there is usually a weapon in a horror from Freddys claws to a zombies mouth you always expect the villain to use one.

Then there are things that never change such as blood we always expect there to be blood and death these are two things that follow the horror genre that we always expect to see so in every horror there will be things in common such as tense and scary music without music to make a scene tense it may not be scary it could ruin the atmosphere.