Psychological Horror - Content (Lucy)

Horror is a large genre as a whole having many subgenres, one being psychological horror. Instead of constant scares and visual horrors it relys on creating a tense atmosphere and making the audience believe that they are seeing things when in reality there is nothing there. These play on the audience's fears such as creepy sounds, flickering lights and shadows in distance, small things that will make the audience feel tense about what is happening in the scene.

These films focus on metal state of the audience by making them feel just a vulnerable as the character in the film and they are looking for every detail to avoid being scared. These kind of films play mind tricks on the audience playing on common fears, however unlike regular horror films these fears are subtly shown to the audience instead of making the audience jumps and scream.

Some differences between regular horror films and psychological horror films are:

• Horror films are more likely to show the audience the threat during the film (such as killer, antagonists) whereas they will be subtly show the threat to the audience will sounds and images rather than showing it to the audience upfront.
• Psychological creates a tense atmosphere through out the film to keep the audience on the edge of their seat whereas a horror film will build up to a dramatic scene.
• Psychological horrors usually contain  plot twists to throw the audience off guard and make them re-think the film.
• Psychological uses small scares such as strange lighting and shadows, sounds and sudden movements to scare, usually in the same place as the character whereas in ordinary horrors' the can see the horrors first hand and sometimes before the main character.