Queenan's guide to horror film cliches

Within our media class we decided to look through an article on horror cliches that we may be able to use within our own trailer, as we gain our audiences attention to the genre and narrative of our trailer. Here below I have highlighted and quoted some of the key points which I feel that we should use.

• They are split into differnt catergories: slasher, zombie, vampire, mainstream horror, Asian horror and revolting Eli Roth films. ' I think that the catergory that we are thinking about doing will be the mainstream horror as we will be looking at some religious elements that have been taken to the extreme, with maybe a slasher element thrown in with the knifes and blood in some of the shots.
• 'All of these subgenres rely on worthy, battle-tested cliches that appear again and again. Indeed, horror is the one genre in which the absence of cliches would ruin everything.'
• 'Small children are often evil in horror movies.' We have decided to go with young teenage girls instead as they posess the same innocence as children but also keeps the target audience young and interested.
• 'Teenage in horror movies are usually spoiled brats who deserve to die.'
• 'Horror films work best in rural settings.' We will be setting our trailer in the rural areas like the isolated solitary house and the woods where there is no one to know what is happening there, creating lonley, isolated and eerie setings.
• 'Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her.' I think this would be a good scene for our trailer, however im not to sure as to how we could fit it into the narrative prehaps when we are filming we could try out some shots and see how they look.
• 'Horror movies also contain lots of scenes in which the living dead or the living undead zip past an open door or window, but nobody sees them.' I think again this would be an effective scene to do so if we can pull it off and this could cause alot of tense atmosphere if right.
• 'The more gruesome films in the genre require captives to sacrifice one section of their bodies in order to preserve others.'
• 'It is always a bad idea to go to sleep in horror films, or accept a ride from strangers, or resepond to personal ad. It is an even worse idea to get in an elevator, a popular hideout of the promiscuously dead.'
• 'Never purchase a dirt-cheap house or apartment.'
• 'Never have any kind of medical operation in a horror film.'
• 'Never go into a dark room alone.'
• 'Never answer the phone in a horror movie.'

I think that we could use many of the conventions stated here to make our trailer a very clear and effective horror trailer and will dicuss these with Alana and Laura.