Supernatural horror sub genre

Supernatural Horror

Introduction

Supernatural horror is a sub-genre for the widely loved film genre, horror. Elements of a successful supernatural horror movie are ghosts, spirits, demonic/religious events and possession. Supernatural horror films tend to consist of jump-scares throughout the film as well as tension and suspense. Good and famous examples of supernatural horror are; The Others (2001), The Uninvited (2009), The Conjuring (2013) and Sinister (2012).

Characters

Bathsheba ~ The Conjuring

Bathsheba Sherman, born Thayer, was born in 1812 and was claimed to have been related to Mary Towne Eastey, one of the many executed for witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. In 1863, Bathsheba married a rich farmer under the surname "Sherman" and gave birth to a child. When he was a week old, her husband caught her attempting to sacrifice her baby to the Devil. Exposed, Bathsheba climbed to the top of a tree, proclaimed her love for Satan, and cursed all those who would take her land. Bathsheba then hung herself, committing suicide. Bathsheba's spirit continued to reside in the land, haunting her former homestead. True to her curse, Bathsheba would haunt the families that would move into her house. Bathsheba would torment the family continually, and finally possess the family's mother and kill the children before forcing the mothers to commit suicide. The spirits of Bathsheba's victims continued to reside in the house, along with her, living in constant fear of her curse.

Bughuul ~ Sinister

Bughuul, also known as The Bogeyman or The Eater of Children, is an ancient pagan Babylonian deity who consumes the souls of human children. Bughuul would possess children and kill their families and by consuming their souls, Bughuul is able to sustain his mortal force and sustain his ghostly ever-presence. Bughuul would possess one of the family members and kill the others whilst living inside the killing child. After the murders Bughuul would paint the walls with the blood of the murdered family and paint the symbol of his presence. After the murders have been complete and Bughuul has fed, he would then take the possessed child and disappear into the camera used to film the murders and wait for his next victim to stumble on the tapes.
Mister Babadook ~ The Babadook

The Babadook usually appears as a towering, shadowy figure wearing a black coat and hat, with long, claw-like hands and a pale frightening face. The Babadook haunts whoever reads its poem and hides inside a pop-up book that mysteriously appears in random homes. As its prey becomes more frightened, the Babadook becomes more monstrous. When its prey become frightened they often try to burn the book, however, the book cannot be destroyed and the more you try to resist the Babadook the more it’ll haunt you. The hauntings of the Babadook begin to take over its victims minds and it can even possess its victims and follow out murderous attacks. A way to survive the Babadook is facing your inner demons which attract it and feed it, whilst the Babadook can’t actually be destroyed if you face your fears and inner demons the Babadook can’t haunt you.

Storylines

The ConjuringIn 1971, Roger Perron and his wife Carolyn move to an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their daughters. Soon they are haunted by noises and ghosts and Carolyn meets the famous paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren. Ed and Lorraine investigate the house and discover that it is haunted by a malevolent, satanic witch. The investigation shows that the witch sacrificed her seven-day baby to Satan and has possessed other mothers that lived in the real estate to kill their children. The history discovered shows that the witch is the dark spirit of the wife of the farmer who used to own the house, he discovered she was into demonic and satanic rituals and always tried to sacrifice her child to satan. The wife died by cursing the land decreeing that she will haunt whoever lives and steps foot on the land and will especially possess the mothers, she then hangs herself. True to the curse, Bathsheba the witch possess Carolyn and tries to kill her youngest daughter, fortunately Ed and Lorraine use all of their powers to stop the witch, save the family and perform exorcisms to condemn Bathsheba back to hell.

Sinister
True-crime writer Ellison Oswalt moves himself and his family into a house where a horrific crime took place earlier, but his family doesn't know. Ellison stumbles across videos of brutal murders in the house and begins researching the crimes so that he can write a new book about it to help his flailing career. Ellison thinks he’s struck a goldmine but instead he’s struck a gateway for a pagan demon to unleash hell. During his research, Ellison discovers pagan symbols and a ghostly figure in ever video- a ghostly figure that comes to life and haunts his family. Bughuul is unleashed with a hunger for possession, the pagan demon possess Ellison’s daughter and through her kills the Oswalt family filming the sequence so that it can be added to the collection. Bughuul then takes the daughter and disappears into the video the murder to keep the child, feed, and wait for his next victims.

The Babadook

Amelia, who lost her husband in a car crash on the way to give birth to Samuel, their only child, struggles to cope at being a single mum. Samuel has a constant fear of monsters and demands a story every night before bed to help sleep. One night Samuel picks an unknown book called Mr. Babadook that Amelia didn’t even know they had, this mysterious book turns out to be a dark sinister book telling the story of an evil monster that lurks in the shadows of the house. Amelia is even affected by the book and its dark tale, although the book’s story turns out to be a foreshadowing of the ghostly apparitions that begin to happen in Amelia’s life. Amelia starts to see the Babadook and she begins to grow mentally ill and weak so desperately tries to destroy the book. However it cannot be destroyed and things only get worse. The Babadook almost tears Amelia’s life apart until she learns to face her fears and face the Babadook, the Babadook is defeated when Amelia’s stands up to it instead of fearing it. However, the Babadook cannot be defeated only hidden and ignored...and the book lives on, on a new shelf.

Settings/Locations

The Conjuring

The Conjuring film is based on the haunting of the Perron family in Harrisville, Rhode Island however the actual movie itself is filmed in North Carolina. The film used a range of different locations for the varian scenes of the movie but predominantly stuck to EUE/Screen Gems Studios and different locations dotted around Wilmington, North Carolina. The University of North Carolina Wilmington was one of the sets used for filming and the scenes were shot during the Spring Break which allowed the campus to be free for filming with students helping out as extras. The film was shot in chronological order to the film and the filming took Warner Bros to many different locations in Wilmington across the 38 day filming length.

The Woman in Black

The ghostly, eerie, frightening Eel Marsh House in The Woman in Black was portrayed through the redecoration of Cotterstock Hall near Oundle, Central England. Essex also held the location for the Nine Lives Causeway that led up to the spooky house. In the beginning, James Watkins planned on filming the horror film in 3D but this idea was later scrapped. The Woman in Black is a British film and was filmed all over the country, locations including Oundle, Essex and the Yorkshire Dales. When search for the perfect Eel Marsh House Watkins scoured the country to find a building that could bring his imagination from paper to screen and eventually stumbled across the beautiful Cotterstock Hall which in actual fact the producers degraded it and tore parts down to give the old, broken, gothic appearance to add to the scare factor. The garden itself was transformed from a pristine award winning lawn to a tangled, overgrown decaying forest full of weeds, statutes and rusting gates that Watkins and his crew planted. Moving onto the interior and different windows were placed in as well as different eccentric furniture and forgotten room designs to emphasise the gothic aspect of the film.  

The Babadook

The primary location for shooting The Babadook was Adelaide, South Australia and Jennifer Kent shot most of her film in the Australian city as city state funded most of the film as it would promote the Australian city. The main house in the film where all the haunting happens was a special house that was built for the film to bring the eerie Victorian feel to the horror film. The film was originally designed to be filmed in black and white to bring a heightened feel to the film however Kent eventually changed her mind. She then worked with Alex Holmes and Radek to design the film’s sets specifically to give the movie a claustrophobic feel. Differing from the black and white style, Kent used gels on the camera lens to give the movie its final colour.

Sound/Music

Psycho

Despite the fact this piece isn’t actually Psycho’s theme song it is instead Psycho’s most iconic piece of music. The sharp, screeching violins matched with short, speedy cuts emphasise the terror from the scene and the rising tension. Furthermore, the screeching violins emphasise the scare factor and give off a piercing and uncomfortable sound. 

The Exorcist
Being one of the most iconic films of all time; the music and theme song for this infamous horror film is equally as iconic. The score was originally rejected by director William Freakin but the score is perfect for the film and adds to the creepy feel given off by the film. The cold tone and pitch from the piano gives a horrifying and uncomfortable atmosphere surrounding the film and the horror of the Devil’s power is brought through by this eerie score.

The Omen

The deep base tone in The Omen’s score gives off a religious and ritualistic feel to the horror film. With Damien, the main character, allegedly being The Devil’s child and has the ability to see dead people the religious theme to the score conveys this and eerie echoing sound of the ritualistic verses and orchestra create an uncomfortable side to this demonic horror.

Iconography

A supernatural horror film guarantees ghosts or poltergeists, a demonic or religious past or symbol that has conjured up the spirit that haunts the family in the film as well as ghost hunters who practice ouija boards and seances to try and rid the malevolent spirit before condemning it to hell. A lot of horror films at the moment are focusing on the religious aspect of horror and closely looking at pagan deities or cases of demon worshippers who conjure dark spirits that result in hauntings. A popular choice for producing a horror film is basing it on a true story; with exaggerated hauntings for added fright factor and successful scares, James Wan bases his horror films around the true cases of Ed & Lorraine Warren; films such as Annabelle, The Conjuring 1 and 2 have all been based around their work. Following on from Annabelle, dolls appear to be a popular choice of prop for horror films along with shadowed setting and religious symbols. All of these attribute towards a, nowadays, popular and successful scary supernatural horror film.