Super Natural(Possession)

• Unlike thrillers, Supernatural Horrors do not limit themselves to specific religious elements and tend to contain more vivid and gruesome violence. Possession is a sub-genre of a sub-genre, but my group for our advanced portfolio have chosen to base our horror promotional package predominately around Possession as we have found that this is the most effective sub-genre, and is the one we have seen crop up again and again when asking our target audience. Supernatural Horrors and Possession Horror films both tend to have identical codes and conventions, but there are conventions which we would typically associate with either Supernatural or Possession.

• Supernatural is a sub-genre of Horror that centres around supernatural elements, such as ghosts, the afterlife, the devil and demonic possessions. Supernatural films deal with the unknown questions of life that cannot be answered; therefore, they tend to incorporate religious elements into the narrative. Since they tend to emphasize the unknown, Supernatural films are considered to be quite suspenseful, which creates tension for the audience when watching them. These films often cross over into other genres, creating hybrids like Supernatural-Comedy and Supernatural-Drama.

• Another common convention in possession films are the colours that are used throughout, typically the colours are dark and mysterious; such as the predominant horror colours red, white and black but greys and browns are also used throughout the film and also throughout the films trailers to create tension and so the audience is able to see common features that crop up again and again therefore able to pick out the Horror genre from any other. The film 'Sinister’ does this a lot in their trailer as the colours are a good way to create tension and fear for the audience, The red, blacks and whites also have a symbiotic link with there film poster as these are the three predominant colours used on the film poster.

• The stock location tends to be quite secluded, in an abandoned house that tends to have history, such as an old base for an old mental asylum or deaths/murders have happened in these houses before. The truth tends to come out mid way through the film e.g. ‘Mama’ as it is set in a rural location and the real truth and narrative behind the plot does not come out until quite far on in the film.

• The main character always tends to be the one that has been possessed and they soon become the antagonist, e.g. `The Amityville Horror’ and ‘The conjuring’ when the possession literally goes inside of her while she sleeps. Other main characters include the protagonist who either is tortured or harmed by the antagonist or religious characters that try to help remove the evil possession from inside them e.g. ‘Insidious’ when the priests and professionals try to perform exorcisms on the possessed man.

• There is a clear battle that is shown throughout the whole narrative between Good and Evil; which tends to be the religious characters or props versus’ the Evil entity which they are so desperate to get rid of.

Here are some examples of the actual possessions and evil spirits that gain control of the protagonists body, and then torment them and their families. The two top right hand images are both from the film ‘Insidious 1 and 2’ and these characters have tormented the man since he was a child and now start to do the same to his children and wife. The other two images are from the film ‘Sinister’ where he uses film and images to come to life and then kills his victims and eats the soul of their children; and the last is an image from the film ‘The Possession’ where a mystical box possesses a young girl (the protagonist) and uses her body as their own.

These two images both show examples of the stock location within possession films. The image to the left shows a house from the film ‘The Amityville Horror’ it is surrounded by trees and woodlands and is very secluded from other people which is the perfect location for a possession, as people have not lived their for years and don’t know its history or what happened there.

The image to the right is from the film ‘The Conjuring’ it is surrounded by mist and makes the house seem scarier and builds up tension as the audience are drawn in to know what is inside the house. The noose that is hanging from the tree creates fear for the audience as the home is supposed to give a safe sense of security but the noose just makes is spine chilling and scary.

The fact that the white typography is on top of the red /dark background could be a possible suggestion that good always triumphs over evil. The black colours give a definite example of evil as we would first associate the colour black with badness as it is a common colour that crops up again and again throughout the Horror genre. Other such colours, such as greys and dark blues are also used as they give of an element of spirit like beings, being there with them, they also make it seem as if a presence is there such as in the paranormal activity poster.

The images above show different posters and DVD covers from a range of Possession Horror films each of these show common codes and conventions; the typical colours of red, white and black are used throughout all 4 images above. The flames, the typography and the background on the omen all have red in them , this connotes the devil and hell which are big elements of Possession films as the audience are able to relate the colours to the content and sub-genre of film. The white colours that take up a lot of the typography also connote the evil spirits as we would associate is with ghostly beings. But the white colours could also connote the religious elements that are portrayed throughout the sub-genre of supernatural/possession, as white tends to connote innocents and purity and good.