Realism in Horror Films
Through my research I have found that people generally view realism to be one of the most important elements that can be found in modern narrative cinema today. This concept could be seen as rediculous as to why the filmmaker has to cater to the trap of realism, particularly in the horror/fantasy genres which allows an almost unlimited creative license. Realism is used so that we can identify with the characters and therefore go on the same ride emotionally. Some people prefer films to provide realism and therefore emotional intensity so that the film is a more thrilling experience which attacks the senses i.e. fear, sadness, happiness, confusion; where others may prefer films to provide fun and imagination, or even to be artistic and magical.

The question is however, how does an audience justify something as being realistic or not when it does not even exist? When we look at the vast array of creatures that appear in horror movies i.e. zombies, vampires, witches, killer dolls, monsters, giant sharks, gremlins, demons, werewolves, ghosts and mutants; noone has ever seen these in real life. So how does an audience define what creature special effects and appearances are truly realistic when the majority of them do not even exist in the flesh?

The true realism of these creatures is still debatable however they can be subconsciously related to a few main factors:

1. Realism is based on audience assumptions usually produced in modern film or literature. Although there have been numerous differing stories and appearances about mythical creatures from all around the world, people in modern day western society will instantly relate to images of horror creatures portrayed in modern film and literature. For example the modern day appearance of a zombie was set to what it is today through George Romero's imagination in Night of the Living Dead. There had been pictures and stories of zombies prior to this, however he set the standard for what we all relate to today; therefore when an audience watches a zombie movie they would subconsciously base its realism of that mental image of this imaginary creature which was actually created for Hollywood.

2. People may expect the majority of mythical creatures to be more human like in appearance as they can subconsciously relate to them, therefore can be seen as being more realistic. For example noone has ever seen God or aliens but we usually presume that they are of human form so if they were portrayed like this on film we would consider it realistic, where as if God was portrayed as giant penguin with a mohican on film, then probably not.

3. Other creatures in horror and fantasy films can be related to what we know about the animal and psychical world. Numerous horror icons in film are a distorted or magnified representation of things that already exist i.e. Jaws, Chucky the killer doll, The Thing. With these the portrayal created on film using special effects can often be alikened to how they look in real life, and more specifically, their ergonomics. Ergonomics relate to the way in which these creatures move and react in real life i.e. CGI may look unrealistic at times since it does not breathe, move, titch and react naturally as a genuine life form.

I'll will be looking into this deeper and producing a survey to aid my 3rd artefact.