ABSTRACT
As outlined, horror cinema has taken many different forms, and its characteristics have changed (and do still vary widely) across a range of subgenres or styles – from the supernatural and the Gothic, through stalkers, slashers and serial killers, to the gore film, body horror and torture porn. Yet as explored in the previous section, in defining the
horror genre perhaps its most important characteristics are the modes of affect that horror films are intended to create in their audiences. It is these emotional and physiological responses that remain constant while other characteristics and generic conventions evolve. Any consideration
of the range of responses involved in watching a horror film (and this is a wide range consisting of: fear, terror, fright, dread or anxiety; being scared, shocked or made to jump; to shiver, feel one’s skin is crawling or get the chills; to feel disgust, nausea or revulsion; to experience fasci-
nation, sexual or morbid curiosity, empathy, relief, and even laughter) must address how this works in practice. That is, how the technical codes of cinema are manipulated in order to bring these responses about. How do films actually create these intended affects?
