Horror

Horror stimulates fear in the audience psychologically. People find entertainment through horror to feel a sense of fear that most probably would not be able to experience in reality. Unexplainable and frightening situations do not happen to the audience, hence, horror in forms of media are used to experience what they would not want to in reality. This is done using elements of the extreme, imagination, sound, lighting, and venue.

Elements of the extreme usually concern gore, where the killer murders his victim in such inhumane ways that our minds wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Violence is prominent in this element as it is brought to a much higher level. Decapitation of the victim and many other forms of gruesome deaths shock the audience, because of the unexplainable physics concerning the dismemberment of the victim.

Imagination is the result of what is played on screen. The horror of what the audience has watched plays in their minds as they imagine such horrors happening in real life. The audience tries to explain the unexplainable but is making it worse for himself/herself in the process as he/she would be led to believe that this could happen to them.

Sound is captured with the sense of hearing and is an important element in the horror genre. Where lighting is scarce, humans would turn to their sense of hearing to aid them. Because hearing is amplified and concentrated on, sounds lead the audience to imagine what might be lurking around the corner.

Lighting in horror tend to be dark to force the audience to use their sense of hearing rather than sight. What scares them in the end is clear visibility of the horror inducing subject.

All these elements eventually build up suspense which is a main part of the horror genre.

Horror comes to life with real life disasters. Terror has become one such example where victims are executed in cold blood, bombs explode in populated areas. We live in fear of these. You ride an airplane, and you hand over your life to the pilot who steers the plane. You are unsure if the pilot is dependable or not and if human intervention causes the plane to crash.
Normally, death would be the real factor behind horror.