Key Elements of the Horror Genre

Protagonists:
Laurie (Jamie Lee
Curtis/Halloween)
Sydney (Neve Campbell/Scream)
Andy (Justin Whalin /Childs Play)

Settings & Décor: suburban/small town neighborhoods; schools, old haunted houses and places, outside open places which are normally deserted from the population

Stock Characters: Sydneys Father/Scream (Red Herring) Stupid/Sex Mad teenage girls & boys victims; ineffectual police, mostly people that are ignorant towards fear and intimidation

Lighting: In horror movies one of the most key elements that you see is the lighting, when there is a key scary part of the movies the lighting normally dims down or is continuously dark to create suspense

Examples of Horror Films:
Halloween (1978 john carpenter)
Friday 13th (1980 Sean Cunningham)
Scream (1997 Wes Craven)
Child's play (1988 Tom Holland) 
the Omen (1976 Richard Donner)
Nightmare on Elm St (1984 Wes Craven)

Generic Codes/Conventions: Grizzly Murderers; tense music; Low-Key lighting; cheap actors, production costs (Halloween) which sometimes result in mistakes e.g. summer filming or Halloween

Icons: knives, masks, big sharp teeth, scary voice, glaring scary eyes

Supernatural: One of the main things that scare people these days is something that's supernatural, examples of this is vampires, spiders, and scary looking monsters, things that people don't normally come across scares them, The unknown.

Hybrid Genres Examples:
Aliens (Sci-fi Horror)
SAW (Horror Thriller)
Scary Movies (Horror Comedy)
the Exorcist (Horror Drama)
Psycho (Horror Mystery)

Themes/Narrative: Peace initially, followed by disruption caused by psychotic killer(s) stalking & killing teen victims; final girls struggle to survive killer’s murderous obsession she fights back. killer(s) overcome or temporarily subdue to re-appear in sequel

Stock Situation: cat and mouse chase; stupid predictable teenagers are killed, by a masked killer stalking and killing teens, also locking hostages up and torturing them.