Stock Characters

Stock characters are characters you expect to see within a specific genre category. Looking into horror movies, there are several recurring archetypal stock characters with definitive characteristics that make up the cast. To help with creating characters that will compliment  our film trailer I have conducted research reggarding these common characters and their characteristics.


The Wanderer: A character who often strays away from the group to investigate something, and at an odd time. On his or hers journey they are often murdered by the antagonist or kidnapped. The term/phrase "Ill be right back" on many occasions results into them never returning. A good example of this is Andy  in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003. He searches for his friend and is eventually kidnapped by Leatherface, as well as, the death of Kia in Freddy vs Jason. 

 


The Popular Girl: Tends to withhold negative characteristics such as arrogance, rudeness, generally an attractive female, predominately hated. She often commits selfish doings, resulting in negative consequences. Additionally she tends to be romantically linked with one of the jocks and often acts promiscuous. An example of this character is Jennifer a new cheerleader turns into a killer who specializes in seductively murdering her male classmates in the film Jennifer's body.


The Jock: A masculine sporty male, who is stereotypically portrayed as unintelligent however, still has a high status within the group. Due to his social status he is respected and listened to, others weaker individuals tend to fear his phasic. He is known to strive in a heroic nature yet occasionally fails by the near defeat of murder. An example includes Nick Jones from the House of Wax. 

 
A male who breaks the archetypal Jock stereotype is Tom from My bloody valentine. Aside from just being the cliche good looking jock he is used as the killer which is an interesting benefit due to him being close to the victims. This technique is an interesting alternative to common conventions. Below, I have added the scene from the film which reveals the killer.

The Final Girl: A traditional horror film convention that specifically reefers to the last female to confront the killer and in many films  survives to tell the story, yet many films are known to have no survivors such as the decent. There are endless examples of a final girl. A minor number of these are Julie James in I know what you did last summer, Nancy Thomson in A Nightmare on elm street, and one of the most known survivors is Sidney Prescott in Scream who has survived the entire quadrilogy of the series. 

 

Pandora: The pandora is a fraction of the movie were something  that is important gets discovered/ revealed. An example of this is who the killer is or the reason why certain things are occurring. This includes a sequence within 'The Tortured' where the prisoner John Kozlowski, who is known to have murdered the couples' son was not the victim being tortured however, was in fact another former prisoner that was in the same van as the real criminal. There is a reveal towards the end stating that the couple had mistaken both criminals and actually tortured the wrong man, yet it all works out in the end when the real murder commits suicide in front of the couple. 

The Pervert: A character known for their mischievous and odd behaviour of watching an individual or group of character without their recognition and as a result eventually is murdered in slasher horror for these doings.