"Fear be my friend" newspaper article, The Guardian

Before reading the article I thought that horror was a wide, full of variety and unlimited genre.The endless ideas of monsters, zombies, psycho killers and abandoned houses, deep dark forests have given film makers thousands of ideas to scare the public once again. However after reading the article, Wes Craven the Director mentioned that horror is a limited genre because everything included in a movie has to appeal to its target audience. Therefore he can never really put any other new ideas in because the target audience (15-25) have a set scare factor that they look for when watching a horror movie. He quotes "You cant put anything in that they don't recognise" as if the target audience will not read the symbols intended from the movie if they are not familiar with some of the plot. This also made me question that audience sophistication may not be growing to the extent in which we first believed. If the target audience of this genre are still scared by the same things then it takes very little for a film maker to make another horror movie. They do not need to subvert the expectations of the audience as perhaps they first thought they should. This has influenced me and my filming because it showed me that successful horror movies can be created from something very little, a simply idea that triggers numerous fears in your mind. A silent room, or a point of view shot are examples of some of the simple ideas that create this uneasy atmosphere. As in my teaser trailer it influenced me to use simple factors, such as flickering lights, a door slamming to grasp the audiences attention. Combining reality and unreality and merging them together also disorientates the viewer into feeling scared by what is on the screen in front of them. It makes it a safe way for viewers to experience the horror of reality mixing with the supernatural because once the film is finished they know that it didn't actually happen to them.