Evaluation Activity 1: Conventions of the Genre

We wanted to express the horror genre through the use of costume and makeup, sound and setting. The costume for the antagonist is all black, ensuring her identity is hidden. We used black paint to cover her hands and she wore a black hoodie to make sure the audience doesn't know who she is. This creates intrigue as the audience do not know who this is and will want to know more about who is killing the group and why. The costumes of Alex and Harriet's characters are relatively normal in order to relate to the audience better and show that it is just a regular day. This increases the tension as the audience can see that it is not a regular day as Sammie is following Harriet. We used special effects makeup on Harriet at the end to show her head injury which ultimately kills her. This is effective as it is not too gruesome, to ensure the film fits within the 15 rating we want, but it gets the message across that she is injured and someone is in the school killing people. This adds fear and suspense to the intrigue felt by the audience.

The sound we used throughout the film is quite spooky as it uses minor keys to create an eerie tune. We added this throughout Harriet's scenes and lowered it slightly when we added a classic horror boom to particularly important parts, such as when her phone is stolen. We took it away during the conversations in the scenes with the friendship group and this helped to highlight the fact that Harriet was the one in danger. Harriet's scenes are dominated with the silence and the spooky music whereas Alex's scenes are full of laughter and conversation - showing not only the contrast between the characters, with Harriet liking to keep to herself and Alex liking to be a part of something bigger, but also foreshadowing the mysterious death of Harriet.

The empty setting of the school is unusual as it is normally quite busy. This makes the audience uncomfortable from the beginning as they know something is going to happen to the girl that is all alone. The school is relatable to the target audience and shows them the basis for the characters as pupils and the film as an eerie killer inside a school, which is every student and parent's nightmare.