During Week 6 we continued to explore elements within the Horror genre to aid with our understanding of immersion. Especially unpacking the notion of Economies of Film or the Film Economic Model transposed against the genre of horror. We also further examined the importance of sound (if not more valuable than vision) and how the contrastive valence of music can either add or detract from the overall immersive experience.

At the start of the class we were prompted to create a 50 word synopsis/poem/creative definition of Visceral in relation to horror.

Horror has the ability to elicit the multisensorial response to human beings, by playing with the unreasoning visceral drivers buried deep within our bodies, under our skin and behind our eyes. The primordial brain needs to react and remain aware of it shortcomings ultimately remaining in fear, when fear itself doesn’t exist.

Sobchack in Grant (2015) argues that Horror strengths lie within the genre representations of convergence into the ‘family space’ and the overall threatening of “the order of things” usually through the disrupting health and home. It was premised in the lecture that it could be intrinsically linked to certain times of distress in the world.

Some examples included;

28 Days Later (Early 2000, emerged from a response of post 9-11 fears)

28 Weeks Later (Metaphor of Invasion of Iraq)

Generally the immersion in horror is also linked to the ability for studios to produce films at economies of scale, the dynamic in levels of budget is often highly noticeable.

We then discussed the importance of sound in Horror, and generally how it is emphasised much more than vision. Chion places the notion of directors using silent and sporadic sounds, Straightforward and conventional – Buildup and Payoff techniques.

Interestingly many directors over the past few years have explored upbeat soundtracks to be transposed against zombie violence, Often adding levels of contrastive valence to the scene (comedic or intellectual value).

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Grant, B.K., 2015. The dread of difference : gender and the horror film Second., Austin: University of Texas Press