Locations

The location of a horror movie is very important, it can inform the viewer of the type of content to expect and the type of characters to see, for example;

Scream, pictured above, primarily set in a high school (full of classrooms, corridors, the campus and the students houses can generally assumed to be included) and the typical characters being the faculty staff and the students. The students houses are generally in isolated locations, as if to almost be welcoming the killer into This sets up expectations of a general slasher flick, not relying on clever ways of scaring the viewer.

In the film Gothika, set in a psychiatric ward (full of hospital rooms, abandoned wards etc.), you can expect psychological thrills over blood and gore, and the characters will be nurses, doctors, and insane patients. Other films which rely on psychological horror could include Jacob's Ladder.

Films such as Saw, with it's horror sequences normally set in very isolated rooms, give the fear of making the viewer feel as trapped and secluded as the victims.

;Jack Tomlinson