Genre AnalysisVICIOUS

LocationThe audience in VICIOUS is

established through key features such as location. We are shown an isolated house in an empty street, which is a conventional setting in the horror genre so horror fluent fans will decode this setting as

dangerous and scary. The lighting in this setting is low key, and

audiences will connote this with danger, so they know this genre is

horror and will therefore attract horror fans.

TypographyThe audience will decode this title as scary and

match it to the horror genre.

Stock Themes

1. Isolation - A main theme in most horror movies is the

main character being isolated, and the audience are shown

this through several longshots of the character to reveal her surroundings. Horror fluent audiences will decode this

isolation as a sign of danger to come to the character.

Stock Themes

2. Low-key lighting - Darkness is the most common fear for

audiences, and therefore horror films will always use

low-key lighting to encode this fear. Audiences decode this lighting as dangerous and

scary, so audiences enjoy this as it gives them the pleasure

of being scared.

Stock Themes

3. Disruption - In every horror film there is a

distruption to the character, and more

commonly it’s a demonic being nowadays.

Audiences will decode this as scary and dangerous

towards the main character/s.

ColoursAll the colours in this short

are dark as horror audiences will decode this

as a common fear (the dark) and that the setting is

dangerous. Horror audiences will get pleasure out of these colours as they know what they represent

and enjoy the aspect of potential fear.

SoundThe use of silence builds suspense

and tension, so horror fluent audiences recognise this and

realise something bad is about to happen, and therefore the

audience will get pleasure out of this silence and tension building.

The eerie/atmospheric non-diegetic sound is read by audiences as a sign of danger, so horror fluent

audiences will get pleasure out of this as they will decode these

sounds as dangerous.