Codes and Conventions of Existing Teen Horror Films

Dead Wood;
Whilst there are some codes and conventions in Dead Wood, these first opening minutes do not show any codes which could have plot-relevance; such as showing characters 'forgetting about a threat', a 'warning going unheeded' or any 'shortcuts' being taken - and instead focuses on the threat in the woods, and how much panic it can induce. It also has some decent weather, unlike many horrors which choose drab weather to imply a pathetic fallacy - yet inferring from the shaky camera work and choice of soundtrack,  the production crew might have been low-budget and couldn't afford to spend time on small details such as the weather. However, 'Dead Wood' does include the most common codes in its opening, for example showing it's 'secluded location' in both it's establishing first shot and when the female lead exits the tent. Dead Wood also attempts a jumpscare in the first scene, after showing pleasant scenery of the woods with calming music then contrasting with a sudden foot splashing into a puddle with the ... unique action track then coming in (this could also be a false scare as though the foot is running away from danger, the foot itself is not something to be feared). The 'victim falls over' and 'someone dies in the first five minutes' - which are very common conventions used in the horror genre- are also present, and so is 'investigating a strange noise' when the female lead starts calling for her friend, however, she does not face the usual consequences a character normally would for going towards tan ominous noise.

Dead Mary;
Unfortunately, since nothing much happens in the opening to Dead Mary, there isn't much to say about it either. It's quite unique compared to Dead Wood and Wrong Turn, as not only does it take its pace, but it does not begin with an establishing shot. Instead, there are many extreme close-ups on a gas-station sign (which in itself establishes a location in the world of Dead Mary). Accompanied by the creaking of the broken sign swinging, it would be a very tasteful opening if not for the cheap font. There is very minimal action in this opening, but there are a few subtle hints to what might come back later in the film; like the supposed lead girl not being able to find signal, and how there appears to be someone watching from the woods with a point of view shot. The dialogue also implies that there are secluded locations, as there 'was no-one' in the gas station. Oddly, there is no obvious threat, no 'bad weather', no music, and barely any suspense - if anything, the most dangerous thing in this opening is the amount of attitude the female lead has. Barely any conventions are used, and so in return there isn't much tension.

Wrong Turn;
In our last film, we are immediately given an establishing shot of a 'secluded location' with an above panning shot and a heavy, foreboding, soundtrack. There are plenty of sound effects alongside the opening dialogue and in the high-tension scenes after where faint manic laughing can be heard, which add greatly to the tension in the film. Looking at the conventions of the film, while the power wasn't cut that rope certainly was after the film's first scare of the female lead slipping when rock climbing. Again, like the previous two movies, the weather was oddly pleasant considering the situations the characters were thrown into. Visual pathetic fallacy might just not seem appealing in teen horrors. While there aren't many codes or conventions that are plot relevant (which again is similar to Dead Wood - they both even have rustling plants) the movie still includes major ones, where two characters 'die within the first five minutes', by the 'victim falling over' - though not of her own accord - and therefore cannot make it to safety. Needless to say, Wrong Turn definitely makes use of its non-diegetic audio more than it does of traditional codes and conventions.

Conventions In Horror Films

In horror movies, there are certain elements that are frequently used in the genre. Many of these lead to the protagonists being hindered, or simply build tensions into scenes.

Secluded location; Normally shown in an establishing shot to show where the characters will be during their traumatic experience. They have no means of contacting the outside world, and even escaping the area would be a difficult task.


The power is cut; Just as tensions builds or characters become aware of the antagonist - the lights go out. They're in darkness, and panic ensues.

Bad weather; A visual pathetic fallacy. There might be sunshine before the threat is shown, yet in the secluded location as the threat is present, the weather can shift into torrent of rain and even have lighting to show the danger of the situation.

The fake scare; As there is, yet again, more tension building up - many horror movies include a fake scare which can make an audience jump. The fake scare will often be an animal moving or a minor object breaking, and is often followed by a genuine scare.

Characters forget about the threat; Because it's totally normal to just casually forget about the monster lurking in the woods, leading them into a false sense of security.

Warning goes unheeded; For some reason, most protagonists ignore the potential danger they might face if they enter their secluded location. "Theres a serial killer in that abandoned hospital? Sounds like a great documentary to film".

The short cut; Just like Little Red Riding Hood shouldn't have gone through the woods, protagonists seem to often take the more life-threatening route - because it'll be faster to their destination, right?

Investigating a strange noise; There will be a rustling of leaves, or a door opening. The characters foolishly will go towards whatever is making the suspicious sound - and almost always get dragged away by the antagonist.

Cowering infront of a window; When the monster is outside, why not hide underneath a place where it can access to enter the room you're in?

Someone runs upstairs instead of outside; Instead of getting away from the threat, it way makes more sense to trap yourself even more (most protagonists even hide in the bathroom or some other confined space).

Victim falls over; Sorry, but if you're not the main character, your running away sequence will either end or include tripping over something.

Vehicle won't start; Another convention which prolongs the get-away, and a common way of building tension. Will the car start in time? Will the elevator doors close?

Horror In The 90s!

One of the unseen demon
designs from Jacob's Ladder.

For movies in the 90s, there were many psychological thrillers - such as Jacob's Ladder, Se7en, and CUBE - that also included elements of body horror as the Cronenberg influence of special effects were coming to an end. 

The frantic head movements
made by the body horror technique.

In Jacob's Ladder, Lyne wanted the demons to be humanesque instead of biblical, and the birth defects caused by the drug Thalidiomide (alongside inspiration taken from David Cronenberg and his synthetic monstrosities) were the perfect starting place for his designs of the demons [1].Lyne also used a common body horror technique in which an actor is recorded waving his head at a low frame rate, resulting in some horrific imagery when played back [2].

Se7en, although not quite as extreme with gruesome imagery, also used body horror effects to show how each victim of the serial killer calling himself John Doe was made to look like one of the seven deadly sins. Directors in the 90s were taking inspiration from previous eras which used endless amounts of bloodshed and gore to make their horrors sickening - but instead used this grisly imagery only at the right moments (and in most cases to antagonize the villain of the movie even more to show the audience what frightful things they were capable of doing). While there were many movies still focusing on brutal deaths and torment, the 90s began to really target on having frightening yet complex villians (such as Hannibal Lecter, Max Cady, and Benjamin Willis)!

Hannibal Lecter ready to play some mind games. 👀

Whilst most teen horrors stepped away from the psychological side of horror and mainly focused on slashers, there was also another continuation from the 80s that both younger and older audiences watched; the movie renditions of Stephen King's novels - with Misery being one of the more famous adaptions and, yet again, another case of an interesting antagonist. There were also some comedy horrors such as Frankenhooker which eventually led into more movies of this genre in the 2000s.

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

In our preliminary task, we were asked to create a short scene involving a character opening a door, sitting down beside another character, then engaging in conversation with them. We had to shoot, direct, and edit our footage - making sure we included match on action, shot/reverse shot, and the 180-degree rule in our camerawork and storyboard planning. I think our end product turned out to be pretty successful;

To begin with, we brainstormed ideas for our scene and what setting/dialogue our characters should have - and who our characters should even be. We were in mutual agreement that even though this was only our preliminary task, we wanted our scene to have substance (plus, treating our beginning project with the same passion as we would our exam task helped gave us a great idea to what we could expect in the future). Wiktoria was very passionate about having the conversation be between two secret agents, and we found that this idea had lots more potential compared to a romantic or horror approach to the scene. After exploring various camera shots, angles, and movements we could use in our scene, we began to produce other concepts for our agent's story - leading into planning our scene and storyboarding. The backstory to these agents would be that Agent would come to meet Bgent in a secluded area so he could receive a mission report; unfortunately, a failed mission means that another agent would have been killed. Devastated at the news, Agent lashes out at a sorrowful Bgent then exits the room. Although our original casting had to be changed due to actors availability, our replacement actor was a perfectly fine substitute and both Josh and Ashley were great performers to work with when shooting. We were also unable to take our opening shot of a grey office building, but our change in location from our school to Keystone Youth Club was a very beneficial decision. Although an opening shot would have helped set an office-like scene, the interior of where we filmed in keystone looked more like a secret bunker - so everything worked out (yet we were lucky, in future we will think more about location planning). Though we were able to film all shots incredibly early, it would also be wise to stick to a film schedule. 

Our filming was highly enjoyable and produced satisfying results. Each member contributed to camera work, directing, and mies-en-scene. While Wik and I hunted down locations inside Keystone that would match what we needed in our storyboards, Emma made some last-minute adjustments to crucial props needed for later on. Wik, who had proposed the idea of the secret agents, was very comfortable and confident directing while I mainly monitored the reality and mies-en-scene and Emma kept her eye on the camera. Though we had forgotten most camera movements in our shots and nearly ran out of time to film, I'm glad we were already able to work efficiently as a group. This task has certainly been a learning curve, and there are a lot of areas we have agreed to improve on in future projects.

Editing our footage using Premiere Pro was also a great experience. The software was very straightforward to use, and I feel as if I am already skilled at editing match on action between separate shots. What I didn't notice while editing is the sound of a camera being turned on in one of the later videos - which admittedly could have been easily avoided if I had either turned up my volume or used headphones in my editing; again, something I have learnt to be cautious about. There is also a lack of meis-en-scene in a transition between two shots near the beginning of our scene, where Bgent goes from having his head in his hand to look up at Agent in 0.2 seconds - highly unnatural for a normal human. From this, we will try and take more shots to work with in future filming and try to pace out scenes longer to build up more tension. 

I would say our preliminary task very did well to meet the expectations of our set brief, especially our use of more unique shots, location planning, casting, and editing (for the most part), though there were definitely weaknesses when it came to planning. When producing our main task we will absolutely be more organised, yet I feel as if we have learnt from this task and will continue to make more good content.

Preliminary Task: Filming

Overall every member contributed to the directing, filming, and mies-en-scene of our preliminary task. Me and Wik were very enthusiastic when finding the right areas for specific shots inside our filming location (Keystone Youth Centre), whilst Emma looked after our cast and props. There was a problem in casting as Sam was notified of the shooting times too late, so we made the decision to ring someone we knew of good acting ability and who lived close - leading to Bgent being played by Josh Mirabueno; plus we shouldn't have assumed Keystone would have been open all night as we almost ran out of time to film. 

Wik was very comfortable with using the camera and definitely had an idea of how she wanted our actors to come across - me and her both being wanting to be precise in even the angling of the folders and chairs. Emma also created an extra prop we had forgotten to bring by whipping out her red pens and making a 'FAILED' page for Bgent to pass to Agent. I would also say that I was quite passionate about the mies-en-scene, taking multiple shots to have certain objects and characters in the same places as the previous shots taken. Although we all admittedly forgot most camera movements, we are all very pleased with how our filming came out. 

For the future, we will try and be more prepared with gathering cast and checking times for filming (plus make a list of props to check we are properly prepared!)