Successful Horror Films - Part One

Successful Film From The Past Decade 

• The Devils Backbone
• Antichrist
• The Descent 
• Session 9 
• [Rec]

Primal Fears

Conventional Fears - Fear of being preyed upon and fear of paralysis

The Devils Backbone - Fear of being preyed on is shown, as a person from the orphanage tells Carlos that the ghost decides who to kill and when to kill them. This creates fear as Carlos does not know who the ghost is after and so is scared that he might be the ghosts next prey.

Antichrist - Fear of paralysis and loss of control, this is shown in the horror film because after the couple lose their son, they stay in a cabin in the woods where there is a darker side of nature and as the wife is already in depression due to her sons death, she loses control when nature takes its course and things go bad to worse.

The Descent - Fear of being preyed upon, shown because the group that were in the cave were being chased by zombies and demons as to which they were scared if they might get preyed upon. Fear of paralysis was shown too, as it was a very defined cave they couldn't move much and escape.

Characters

Conventional Character - Mentally disturbed characters 

[Rec] - Another character is someone who is shown mentally disturbed and distressed, this is shown when a young TV reporter and her cameraman go and found out about it as the thought it would be a trapped lady but turned out to be a mentally disturbed woman. Often shown in horror films that someone is psychologically unwell.

Antichrist - The mother, after losing her son, turns mentally unwell and goes into depression, this is a typical character as in horror movies, people who are mentally unwell have disturbing things happening to them or making things happen similarly to [Rec].

Conventional Characters - Characters who often are involved with the past/ history

Session 9 - The characters that are shown are that a persons files are opened and then their past is reopened too and to discover that people find ancient coins but then disappear. There's always characters that have their past involved in the disturbing things that are happening as to which it becomes a convention of the horror films.
The Devils Backbone - A person from the orphanage tells  Carlos about the past incidents that has happened in the orphanage and how the ghost kills targeted people. Similar to Session 9, a character is involved who is linked to the past or knows about it and tells the main characters about it.

Plot Events

Conventional Plot Events - Couple, family or a group of people go to an abandoned house or forest and characters get trapped and not able to escape.

The Descent - The typical plot is that the group of friends go to an isolated and abandoned cave where unexpected things starts happening which is also similar to Antichrist as the couple goes to the abandoned forest. Another plot is that people often get trapped and here the group of friends get trapped in the cave and cannot get out.

[Rec] - Another typical plot is when the TV reporter and her cameraman are trapped in a building with a mentally disturbed woman and then things started going weird and freaky. This is typical in horror films as many people do get trapped and that starts to make them panic and then disturbing things happen. 
Antichrist - After the couples son dies, they move into the woods which is isolated and abandoned and they have been hearing weird and disturbing things about it and this is when nature unfolds everything. A typical event that happens in horror films which is that a family or a couple always move into a haunted,isolated or abandoned area.

Differences

The Devils Backbone is a Gothic horror film which means that there are more different ranges of conventions as the other films have different sub genres within it just like this film. One convention would be to include the goth language or culture within the horror itself.
Session 9 is a psychological horror film which means that there would always be a character involved that is mentally disturbed and that would be one of the main conventions compared to a Gothic horror film.
The Descent is a British horror film which means that within the horror film there would be British norms and values embedded to it and this would show British history. For example when the group went to a historical cave, that would link to Britain as it is associated with the history.
[Rec] is a Spanish horror film which means that all the background of the characters would be quite similar as the main culture of the film is the Spanish culture. Which means within the horror film there would be Spanish traditions and guidelines which maybe portrayed differently in the horror film.