Research Focus: Characters

Victims In Horror Films

Victims in horror films are stereotypically female as female characters are often portrayed as being fragile and vulnerable making them easy to kill off.  Misogyny occurs specifically in slasher horror films and there is generally violence towards women throughout the duration of the film. Generally, female clothing in horror film tends to be light and feminine to portray innocence and purity. The stereotypical female victim is seen as blonde, wears provocative clothing and lots of makeup. These types of characters are made obvious to the audience that they are going to be targeted and killed. Therefore, we wanted a character that surprised the audience when they were killed off as none of their physical appearance suggested any reason for them to die. For example, Nancy Thompson in 'Nightmare On Elm Street' is almost always dressed in beige and olive tones along with minimal makeup and simplistic hairstyles. Although Nancy lives, we wanted to create a similar character to Nancy. Here are some more examples that served as inspiration for some initial ideas for the personality we wanted our victim to have:

1. Kris Fowles from 'Nightmare On Elm Street' is a perfect example of a stereotypical victim. She is seen always wearing makeup and wearing light blues and pinks throughout the film. She is involved with boys from the start of the film and even sleeps with one nearing her death. Her family are also rich and everything she owns in her room is white connoting her innocence and purity making her a perfect victim.

2. Katherine Embry from 'The Ring' is also another good example. Katherine and her friend Becca are school girls having a sleepover and both are dressed in a provocative manner with their shirts unbuttoned and their short skirts. Before Becca dies, they are seen talking about a tape whilst discussing boys and taking bad about other girls. The isolation of the girls and the manner in which they conduct themselves is enough to signal to the audience that they are going to die.

1. Nancy Thompson from 'Nightmare on Elm Street' displays some qualities we wanted to incorporate into our film opening. As aforementioned, Nancy is always dressed in beige and olive tones along with minimal makeup and simplistic hairstyles. It is also Nancy who kills Freddy in the in the final moments of the film expressing her strengthen and courage

2. A similar character to Nancy is Sidney Prescott from 'Scream'. Throughout this franchise, Sidney is portrayed as intelligent and mentally strong. Even though her friends are dying around her, the will of vengeance for her mother's death keeps her strong. In some moments of the film she appears calm and collected during dangerous situations.

Supernatural Creatures In Horror Films

Stereotypically supernatural creatures are portrayed as demonic creatures that have come to the human world in search of something or someone. There are intense and precise makeup and timing schedules that go into creating gory and realistic monsters for supernatural films. The supernatural creature is usually the central theme of the horror film as the hero/heroine's job is to destroy the creature. On our blog, we posted some initial ideas of what we wanted the supernatural creature to look like. We knew the makeup of the creature would need to be very well done in order to appear scary to the audience. Below I have put some images/gifs of creatures we took inspiration from:

1. The Conjuring

2. The Women In Black

3. Ouija - Even though this image is not of a supernatural creature we thought that the stitched mouth effect could be interesting to create and look especially creepy

In conclusion, we wanted our supernatural creature to look demonic and something that was not of the human world. We considered black or white contacts, various coloured face paints and lots of liquid latex to create the effect of ripped skin. We wanted our creature to look very gory, covered in lots of blood but have a definite feature on the face to stand out, for example the eyes, or the mouth.