Blog-2, Genre

Genre is used to classify or describe a type or form of literature. But literature does not use typical characteristics setup and therefore it is a bit complicated. For example we are going to talk about horror genre where the use of props such as knife or any other weapon is really crucial. It makes someone look like a God or to be precise the God of Death. Someone trying to kill you makes you wonder if he has the power over your life. It gives you the horror of dying and the fear of some entity which might be supernatural trying to kill you.

The most iconic things or the most imagery that occurs in the horror genre are the haunted house, props like knife, chain-saw, blood, dead people, grave yards and good against evil. We see almost every one of them in the movie “Dracula”. It starts with Dracula’s mansion which gives us the creeps the first time we see it. This is one of the best scenes in horror genre; the way they portray a certain layer. If it is the house of the protagonist we see light and a more casual whereas when we see Dracula’s mansion we get the shivers. It looks like a thousand years old where anything could be lurking around the corner.

 It is one of the beauties in horror genre, the use of props. The use of blood for example in Dracula meant a lot of things; sex, rape, repression, etc. It is through horror movies that we try to see how we would react if we lived in a society with no social norms. If there were no good against evil how would people react but when we feel a little bit of zeal watching that, we also want to come back to the normal or repression and that is when the light takes over the darkness.

Horror genre depends on many aspects such as settings and locations which also accounts for the haunted house or the horrific crypt in the silence of the lambs. Most of the horror genre portrays night as it means more mystery and more fear. We don’t see well in the dark and that enhance our fear. Horror genre portrays that very smoothly as we see Dracula going after everyone at night and having his full power at night. We also see the setting of his mansion as dark which means we are going to afraid as we don’t know what is lurking behind every corner.

The horror genre has a narrative of good against evil. Evil takes over a community and terrorizes them when the good comes and vanishes it/them. This is done to show the aspect beyond our daily norm. What someone might or would do if they were not in the social norm. This is a way of portraying how the world might be if they got out of their repression.

The most important part of any genre including the horror genre is the use of music or background score. Even if the scene is not that scary or horrific the back ground score can create more terror in the audience’s mind. There are many styles in horror genres like the use of cameras where we see different views such as the long shot or the point of view. This is all done to keep the audiences on edge.

At last we see characters in a horror genre. It is basically the same character seen in every genres “good against evil”. But in the horror genre the evil is a supernatural being or sometimes a person with mental issues. The horror genre shows the use of damsel in distress which portrays that women are weak and can easily be preyed upon.

A genre is made up of a dozen of things like props, costume, setting, narration, style, characters etc. and the way everything is portrayed varies in different genres. The use of costume, setting differs for every genre and the style of shot done for the genre totally makes the difference. We feel the scare and the horrors due to the use of these styles and it is difficult to define some works using genre as there are so many different types of genre that the different parts can fall into.

Work Cited

"Genre :: Expository Definition Essays." Genre :: Expository Definition Essays. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.

"Elements of Horror Genre." Elements of Horror Genre. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.