From gothic monsters to sound effects to torture porn.
In the early stages of horror films. The horrors of the film are mostly physical things such as supernatural or grotesque creatures, ranging from vampires, demented madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, Frankensteins .demons, zombies, evil spirits, arch fiends, Satanic villains, diabolical presence of evil. In the early stage of horror they really need to rely on these scary looking abominations to depict the horror of the film. They use sound effects which are normally heard of in real life because of the lack of technology. These sound effects such as women’s screams and growling sounds which the monster makes are the key elements of sound effects in old horror flicks. Since the advance of technology horror films now focus more on manipulating sound to enhance the atmosphere of the film. Using the background music of the film, when danger is near the music changes to an intense tone or the background music could be stooped halfway so that the environment sounds can take over. The footsteps of the monster getting louder signals the distance of the monster between the characters. As technology becomes more advance, convincing cg are also added to these films to replace the “real” actors who dressed in monster suits. The CG’s quality will continue to improve as technology advances. Such as now, technology made it possible to live within the boundaries of the film itself by making the film in 3D. If this is not enough, “torture porn” movies such as SAW rely on the actors and makeup that they wear. The different ways of physical ways of destroying the human. These types of horror films try to make the audience feel the pain felt by the victim.
Current horror such as terrorism
However in the current state of horror. Terrorism is the horror in this world’s reality. Various terror attacks had sparked the fears of the global community and the effects are devastating. Terror stricken countries such as sri lanka (in the past), various westernised countries have its alert on the high. One of the famous terror attacks is 9/11. 2 planes crashed into the twin towers dealing significant amount of damage. Bombings in various countries had created fear in the hearts of everyone as they will not know when the next attack is going to be next and who will the victims be. Real world victims and bodies invoke the horrors of the onlooker looking into the scene of the damage. The various disembodied victims of a blast, the cries from the survivors. The sound of a blast from the distance can shatter the hearts of onlookers as they expect the scene which they will be facing next.
New directions – clover field
The various directions of how these genres can evolve are to make the payers or audience feel as if they are in the scene and in the place. A good example of a movie going into this direction is cloverfield. Where the main character is actually “you”, although the character in the movie is not you but you are stepping into his shoes. The view you see in the movie is his view. The movie goes about by putting you into the protagonist shoes in his line of vision. So what he sees is what you see in the movie. If he fell and is on the ground, you will be seeing the ground. If he is running the camera moves as if you are looking into the camera and running. This style tries to immerse the audience into the movie sort of like a first person view.
