What are the Key Conventions of the Horror Genre?

There are several categories in which the key conventions of the Horror genre are categorized into and each of these contains a lot of recoccuring elements that can be widely recognised within a vast number of Horror films.
Often; the setting of horror is an abandoned building which later makes a reappearance as it has a history or hidden secret. Most of these buildings are set in a communal, suburban area or an isolated street so that it looks like the community has something to hide or it deserted for a certain 'spooky' reason- see image. This is the case in the 1978 movie "Halloween" where a girl is murdered in a typically safe street. Years on, the house is shown and nobody has lived in it since the incident; however the rest of street remains neighbourly. A lot of the time, medical institutions play a part and this is also shown in Halloween when the murderer has mental health issues and has escaped. Most of the scary scenes take place at night time or in the dark, so that during the day it is shown how the characters live their typical day to day life, before they were affected by the 'horror'.
The camerawork in horror films is different to many other genres at the camera uses a lot of different angles and can be canted so that a disorientating feel reaches the spectator. Usually there is a lot of depth during shots of the hero in the foreground so that the audience is at an advantage if they can see a monster or evil thing emerging behind; as the protagonist cannot see this themselves. One of the most common conventions is the point of view shot, in which the audience can see the victim through the eyes of the monster- see image. This shows us exactly what can be seen and shows us in what contex the monster is seeing the victim. For example in "Dracula" and "Nosferatu" which are films that have been made time and time again throughout many decades, the victim is always seen sexually and this is shown when blood is sucked from the preys neck(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2_dF7hn_hQ). The opposite to the point of view shot is the extreme close up of the victims face. Not only does this allow the audience to see the facial expression of the protagonist, it also builds up tension as we cannot see where the monster is. The camera can switch from the innocent to the evil, making the audience jump as this is an invasion of our personal space. The pace of editing indicates when something is about to happen as if it suddenly changes from constant and becomes very fast, you know the enigma of the storyline is nearing as tension rises.
Certain things such as props, costumes and colours relate horror in ways of common knowledge. Typically, anybody who see's weapons, masks and religious symbols knows that it is related to horror. This is because of the holiday Halloween which we are exposed to every year. Lighting is usually low key, as the atmosphere would not be scary if a monster was seen in daylight. Certain lighting techniques such as chiaroscuro and high contrasting could be used to emphasise certain objects or to show silhouettes and shadoes. A lot of lighting direction comes from unexpected angles for example in the movie "The Ring" where the main source of light comes from down the well. The moon is also a common source of light as it comes from above and can light below. The colours red and black connote danger and blood. This is almost unnoticed now during movies when these are seen as the audience is so used to seeing them that it is barely an unusual convention.
The classic Hollywood narrative structure of normality, enigma, path to resolution, quest, resolution and closure largely applies to horror although there may be certain examples when this is not the case (http://www.inpoint.org/pdf/LanguageofFilm02.pdf). For examples in all of the "Saw" movies, the end is left as a cliff-hanger so that there can then be a sequel to the film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJyvVMgl-p0) This is mainly a way of making money by having fans of the first film wait for the next to continue the story. Saw 6 has recently been released and this is an example of a very successful chain of sequels. This narrative structure is now based on Todorov's theory. Another theory is by Vladimir Propp who studied russian folk tales and found that they all had certain amounts of structural features (http://mural.uv.es/vifresal/Propp.htm). This was applied to the film "The Shining" by Kubrick and it was proved that some of these did relate. In the sub-genre of 'slasher' movies, usually a psychotic child returns to a past location on an anniversary to kill. This usually includes a gang of teenagers and the surviving final girl. Binary oppositions are used quite commonly to create a sense of innocence mixed with evil. This is the reason dolls, children and fairgrounds are used in horrors and this creates a changing atmosphere- see image.
Character types are very simple and usually consist of the main protagonist (who is commonly female) and is kind, virginal and ends up being stronger than it was first thought. She ends up being the final survivor and hero of the film. Other characters include the villain with a hidden secret or deterioration of mental health, children who need saving, a group of immoral teens which are killed off and police/member of the law who the audience think will help when in actual fact, they are useless.
The main themes of Horror are out of control science, which relates back to the beginning of Horrir in the 30's when mad scientists were created such as Frankenstein, the hidden evil, binary opposites such as good VS evil, known VS unkown and natural VS unnatural and the return of the repessed. This is a theory by Freud who believed that bad memories were put in the unconsious part of the brain which then tends to reappear in behaviour. This relates to Horror as characters could have a flashback to an unpleasant experience, adding to tension.
There is no single text that can contain all of the concepts of a genre and the boundaries are very blurry, therefore it can be hard to tell when one genre ends and another begins. Because of this we must consider genre to be more than just a set of textual conventions.