FC: Gothic horror Sub genre

Gothic Horror Genre

• Gothic horror is a sub genre of film or literature that is often linked to supernatural horror.
• The use of the Gothic sub genre in films has been adapted from its use in literature, as shown with the famous stories of Dracula and Frankenstein.
• Gothic horror is usually based around myths and old stories intended to chill the spine and scare people they can contain ghosts and haunted houses for example, which is where the supernatural element is tied in.
• Gothic horror rekindles childhood fears and reflects society's dominant ideologies of what is seen as scary, ie: the dark or the feeling of someone following you.
• The sub genre differs from other horror sub genres in the sense that it creates a more emotional and less intellectual fear, one doesn't have to properly engage with the film to understand and relate to the fears on screen and in this sense it is visceral.
• However Gothic is similar to other sub genres in the sense that it is dynamic through the options it gives and can be easily consumed by audiences.

An Example of Gothic Horror

The Woman in Black (Watkins, 2012)

• Adapted from the novel of the same name by Susan Hill the women in black is a classic modern horror film the plot presents the audience with a young windowed lawyer who is sent to a desolate village to put a dead eccentrics affairs in order. he then discovers that a revenge seeking ghost of a deceased women is terrorizing the locals and the plot goes from there.
• Daniel Radcliffe plays the lawyer, and as the film was released very closely to the last Harry Potter film it gained major buzz. The fact that it stars and gives prevalence to a major Hollywood actor is somewhat unusual for a horror film as is the fact that it was only certified as a 12A in the UK.
• However the fact that it was only a 12A reflects that it is a Gothic horror, it doesn't focus on blood and gore and isn't high tempo, it builds and makes people jump it keeps them on the edge of their seats and plays on people's fears of the dark. This makes it innovative.

Conventions of Gothic horror

• Desolate and wild landscapes that are often sinister.
• Shadows, moonlight Flickering candles stereotypical ghost story themes.
• Graveyards, forests, haunted houses
• Supernatural powers with magical or haunting themes
  
• less gore and high tempo and more focused on an actual story line where the main character might dispel the evil or be consumed by it at the end in a climatic scene.
• Most of the first ever horror films were Gothic
• can be based around omens or ancestral curses
• Use of certain weather, ie: Mist and storms and they are also usually set at night
• Sense of dread and mystery
• Villain and hero
• Can contain a strong moral, De sade thought the gothic genre came as a response to the brutality of romantic society. Frankenstein is an example of a Gothic horror with strong morals.