Horror cliche's

• Horror films have a wide audience, they appeal more to men, but some females enjoy watching them too. They are generally aimed at an older audience compared to romance films, as most romance films are PG, or 12, but horror films are generally 15 & 18+. Generally the higher the age rating, the scarier they will be. Although every horror film is different in scare factor and gore factor, they all have the same kind of cliche's. One famous cliche is the scary location of the house where the character chooses to go stay. They generally go and stay in the scariest, emptiest house they can find, so a house in the woods and middle of nowhere. Or they just end up in the middle of nowhere. The scary locations appear in many horror films. ('The strangers', 'When a stranger calls', 'While she was out') Although the audience of the film knows how predictable it is going to be, they still enjoy watching it as they know that the film will still make them jump out of their seats never the less. 

• Another cliche moment is the hierarchy of the deaths. The main character is a lot of the time, a pretty blonde girl, who does not have a clue what she is doing. The blonde girl always seems to run into the 'baddy' and most of the time ends up dying first. The next person who dies is usually an obnoxious annoying person who the audience wants to see gone anyway, and the person who ends up surviving is the person you doubt from the start. The quiet girl/boy who didn't really get along with the other people is the one who doesn't end up with their guts slashed across the screen. This is effective to the audience as throughout the film you grow to like the quiet person, as they are not obnoxious and silly. They don't generally run into the 'baddy' like everyone else.

• Also during the beginning of the film, we don't really see the baddy much, only glimpses which help to build up the suspense of what he actually looks like. Also it helps build up tension of what he going to do as he sneaks around the characters. There are also the moments where the audience start to think 'did I just see that?!' when the characters almost run into the bad guy but they don't realise. These cliche moments are the ones that have the audience screaming at the TV 'how didn't you see that?!' 

• Another cliche is blood. Lots and lots of blood. When watching a horror film you KNOW you are going to see blood; if you did not, you probably wouldn't want to watch it because it wouldn't seem like a proper horror film to make you scared. The essence of blood attracts the audience to the film as they want to see what the 'baddy' does to the characters to make them bleed.

• A lot of times in horror films, the children are evil. For example in 'The Omen' and 'Orphan.' By having the children as evil it draws the audience in as they want to see how a young child can do something to make them jump, and just how evil they can be. Sometimes this is not an as popular cliche as the bad guy being older, but when it is used, it is a very effective cliche. 

• In the horror film 'Jeepers Creepers' the beginning is different to most. In comparison to 'Nightmare on Elm Street' the beginning is very boring. In Jeepers Creepers it starts off with a brother and sister driving down a road in the countryside in the middle of nowhere. This creates a calm, relaxed, maybe bored feeling for the audience. In a way it is an anti climax as it is just a boring car on the road. As the film progresses you see that they are driving way too fast, so possibly deserve to die as they should be sticking to the speed limit, as if you don't you could die anyway. 

• When the camera is put facing the two people, out of the back windscreen you see a car turning off in the distance. By this you are given something to consider as if it wasn't an important aspect it wouldn't be shown. After you have seen this you see another car start to appear in the distance which is going very fast, and all of a sudden catching up to these two characters incredibly fast. This is effective to the audience as they wonder what is going to happen to the characters or if there is just going to be some road rage. As the other car try's to knock them off the road, a tense jumpy feeling is created as you don't know why this other car is doing it.]

• As it passes the two main characters a sense of relief overcomes you as you think that is just the end of it, and he is not the bad guy. But of course as the characters progress on their journey, they pass an old abandoned house (cliche in the middle of nowhere) and slow down to look at it. Of course this is where the bad guy does his murdering business and sees the two in their car. As he sees them this stops the audience breathing for a while as you wonder if he's going to kill them now, as they have seen what he is doing and could report it to the police. The most cliche moment in horror films is then shown, as when they in fright go to ring the police, their phone has no battery, so they have no contact with the world. This cliche moment is effective, but sometimes annoying as you would think if you were going on a car journey you would charge your phone.

Overall the cliche moments are effective in this horror film as they are not always predictable, and it is not like many horror films due to the different beginning.