Conventions of Psychological Horror Trailers and Films
We decided that we wanted to create a psychological horror trailer, so Aisha and I researched into the main conventions of a psychological horror movie, in order to discover what codes and features are included in the films and trailers, so we could make our trailer as genuine as possible.
Psychological horror films mainly rely on character fears, beliefs, eerie sound effects and emotional stability in order to build tension and further deepen the films plot. Unlike “slasher films” such as Saw and Final Destination, which contain mainly gore and violence, Psychological horror films include more subtle approaches of terror than the traditional horror film.
This is because they do not include a lot of physical harm, but focus more on the factors of mentally affecting the audience, such as Hide and Seek and Sixth Sense, rather than constantly displaying graphic imagery like in slasher and gore films.
Psychological horror films aim to create discomfort in the viewer by exposing common or universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears, most notably the darker and sinister parts of a person’s psyche, which most people repress and deny.
The danger in psychological horror films comes from within, and it aims to expose the evil that hides behind usual and normal things, which most viewers find highly frightening as the topic is more relatable than that of a supernatural or slasher film.
It is commonly argued that psychological horror contains features that make it more of a thriller genre than horror. However, in psychological horror, the essential element is to frighten the audience mentally, whereas this is not the case in thriller films. The final aspect of psychological horror is its use of body horror. The purpose is to develop a feeling of unease by exploiting human fears to abnormal, suffering, and madness, among others.
Aisha and I aim to use as many of these themes and conventions as possible. We intend to incorporate these codes into our trailer, in order for the genre of our trailer to become evident to our viewers.
