Horror films can be terrifying, dramatic, exciting and entertaining. Horror film genre has been dramatically tainted with violence, death, monsters, pools blood, and ghosts. I had the chilling experience of viewing two dramatic horror films titled, The Others and The Changeling. Both films followed the genre of horror films somewhat, but while many aspects were different from each other. They also shared some similarities.
The similarities between these two films are easily identifiable. First, the setting is similar. In both films the setting takes place in a large, dark, gloomy, and secluded house that gives the viewers a sense of foreboding and mystery. Another element both films share is the eerie characters that come to inhabit the mansions bringing their own mysterious historical baggage with them. We are not quite sure whether we should fear these new tenants or the dead spirits. The relationship between the living and the dead provides an altered sense of reality. Typical to horror film genre on injustice has been committed causing the unrest of dead spirits. This leads to the film being eerie and mysterious.
The difference between these films is the gender of the main characters. In The Others, a female plays the lead and in The Changeling, a man plays the lead. Another major difference in The Others was that the real people are the dead, and in The Changeling the spirit has suffered an injustice death by the killer. The main character was in fact alive and not a spirit or ghost. These contrasts added strength to the plot of both the movies. Which made them more enjoyable to watch.
To analyze which of these two movies followed the horror genre more closely is difficult. But in my opinion, The Others did a really superior job of sticking to the horror genre. This was accomplished by creating a sense of being on a plane hijacked by terrorists making it a suspenseful and a very frightening movie, without the use of violence or blood.
