Sinister DVD Extra Experiment

Sinister DVD Extra

This feature was part of the bonus content from the DVD of my focus film Sinister.  Professor Brendan Walker is a credible scientist who has spent decades researching how emotions can affect our bodies and looking for physical ways to measure them. This credibility makes this experiment a valid source for my project. During the experiment, various spectators of the film Sinister are examined for responses to fear. Their body’s response to fear is measured throughout the film by monitoring heart rate, skin temperature and sweat production which are all closely linked to feeling scared.

Relevant research from the book: The Horror Reader by Ken Gelder

Relevant research from the book: The Horror Reader by Ken Gelder

(Page 84) Imagination and violent desires often originate from mythological roots or from an unfulfilled desire.Monsters we considered to be anything with missing or additional body parts which are why they are considered separate from humans.

(Page 87 and 88) Monstrous births were considered to be 'warnings to the public'.

(Page 97 and 98) Lack of personal profiles and only unfounded crimes make it difficult to catch a serial killer or predict their next movements, so it is often too late to stop the killings from occurring. Traditionally, a serial killer is given its name when they have claimed 'at least four victims over a greater period than seventy-two hours...distributing the murders repetitively and serially over time'.

(Page 100) The killer attempts to reconstruct society through pleasure killing and this creates the new social order desired by the serial killer.

(Page 148 and 149) The dehumanisation of a monster means that it doesn't follow traditional rules but instead creates its own rules. The monster cannot coexist in harmony society without a conflict at some stage. The presence of a curse complicates matters because society believes that they can maintain control when in reality the higher powers of religion e.g. gods and spirits actually have the control.

(Page 356) The spirit appears often in a dismembered/disembodied form and it is neither alive or dead, this heightens its power.

Other key points not specifically related to this book:

The killer usually has one strong motive that cannot be tampered with i.e there is no way of persuading the killer to abandon its motive. 

A traditional horror ending usually has a cliffhanger of some description to show the spectator that the threat is still present and unstoppable.

Relevant research from the book: Horror Films by Colin Odell and Michelle LeBlanc

Relevant research from the book: Horror Films by Colin Odell and Michelle LeBlanc

(Page 14) Horror films tend to follow the same three-step structure: 'order, chaos and reconstruction'. The reconstruction is where the monster creates a new order. Generally speaking, the monster tries to disrupt the current order and this causes fear and as changes in the situation occur, the audience is disorientated and this causes more fear.

(Page 15) 'Nature represents a primal fear. It is chaotic, unpredictable and...violent'.

(Page 16 and 17) 'The supernatural monster is either a fantastical bogeyman that cannot rationally exist...or it can represent religious spirituality that can affect a person's soul'. Supernatural is based on folklore and religious mythologies, and some of these tales seem real meaning that there is still some question to whether they exist/existed. The film usually expands, develops and defies traditional rules and this makes the supernatural concepts more scary and unpredictable for the spectator. Demonic possession concepts are harder to dismiss because they involve a 'violation of the body and the soul'. These concepts discover unknown worlds and can cause the spectator's 'imagination to run riot'.

Psychological approaches in horror are one of the most effective because the killer/monster is placed in the real world. The killer can have no logical explanation or cause for their actions and this makes it harder for the spectator to understand them. Sometimes the filmmaker relies on partially true/true stories and this emphasises to the spectator that can and did occur in reality as well as fiction and this increases the fear levels.

(Page 29) Europe has had a history of cultures and beliefs and this has lead to some clashes over time. Various wars, genocides and ordered killings were a result of religious disagreements and this inspired horrors like Blair Witch.

(Page 62 Witchcraft was a common and widespread belief in Western Middle Age culture and that belief continues to be remembered cinematically today.

(Page 100) Horror in America usually follows 'a subdued, creepy and emotionally driven story with only moderately explicit scenes'.Examples of this are The Ring and Blair Witch which rely on mainly psychological scares to fit with a current worldwide horror trend.

(Page 151) The Ring reminds us of the dangers of technological determinism through the use of technology-based horror.

(Page 184 and 185) The Ring also explores the psychological horror of humans behaving in an alien way e.g. through unnatural movements.'The lack of explanation and lingering dread' means that even survival cannot give 'a happy ending in Samara's world of madness and misery.'