What makes us scared?

During many lessons we studied the code and conventions of thriller plus some horror trailers to help us understand what these imply and suggest to an audience. We started by noting and listing certain aspects of what make a thriller film, things such as the setting would normally be at night so it would be dark, raining, urban areas or quite places. Their would also be quite alot of non diegetic music throughout the film to create suspense while alongside this being fast paced editing. The narrative would be based around the investigation of an enigma which would create the sense of confusion for the audience while it also being realistic to keep the viewers on edge because they know in the back of their mind that something like whats happening in the film could potentially happen to them. It also stays in their thoughts after watching the film which leads them to tell friends and family what happened in it eventually leading them too to watch the film. The plot would normally have a hero (male) which is usually the only one to solve the mystery and reveal the truth while also having a damsel in distress type victim. 

Adding to this we listed common fears of people in the lesson, these fears ranged from the dark, the unknown, heights, small confined spaces and ultimately dying. These fears are always put into thrillers to directly affect the audience and get into their head.