The Beast Within: Perspective on the
horror film

Horror films are unsettling and created to frighten the audience. These films instill a sense of panic
and paranoia to invoke our hidden fears while entertaining the audience at the same time
entertaining the audience. These films deals with one’s vulnerabilities, a weirdest terror of
unknown (Neugebauer.A, 2018). There are many different types of horror films, which are further
divided into sub genres. The most famous and interesting sub genre is supernatural horrors. This
sub genre is related to ghost, spirits and demons. These types of films have elements of religion
and the different supernatural beliefs they follow. Common themes in the genre are the afterlife,
the Devil, and demonic possession. Though not all supernatural horror films focus on religion
and can have "more evocative and ghastly violence”. (Buffam.N, 2011) Some of the movies that
come under this sub genre are: “The Ring (2002)”, “The Nun (2018)” and “The Conjuring (2013)”.
All these 20 th century films have same essence but at the same time they are still different in terms
of stories, believe and culture.
All four movies are very similar with each other as all of them belong to same sub genre that is
supernatural or paranormal horrors. Starting with the ghost itself or possession on human soul,
all the movies has some sort of spiritual evil entity. “The Ring” has the ghost of the girl, who
kills after seven days of watching the video tape but the girl didn’t really possessed anybody
prior in the film. It was only the possession on the video tape with the cycle of seven days. Also,
the possession in the film comes in other chapter of “the ring” in which Amaara (name of the evil
spirit) possess the child of the journalist. Another ghostly or spirited movie was “the conjuring”

in which the evil spirit was in the new house the Perron family shifted in. In which the evil spirit
possesses Mrs. Perron, who was also the mother. On the contrary “the Nun” the evil entity was
actually a demon, who is a mythical evil creature explained in simple definition a form of devil
itself. The similarity of possession the “the nun” with other movies was that the demon wanted to
possess a human soul so that it could stay out of hell. But the demon wasn’t really successful in
doing that.
The motive behind each evil spirit or demon behind the killing or possessing someone is usually
that a demon wants to come and rule the human world, where as a spirit who is usually of some
dead human wants to come and live into the human world again as well as kill those people
because of whom he or she suffered when the spirit was alive. Also, there is fact of “mukti” a
Hindi word meaning discharge of human spirit after death. When this process of someone dead is
not properly completed leading to their spirit being there in human world. All three movies have
similar spirit’s revenge or why it is killing in the story. These movies usually represent bad or
evil spirits. This similarity makes all three chosen movies come under sub genre supernatural
horror.
How the people deal with these evil entities by calling upon ghost busters or in other words
saviors. In the end, each movie usually climax with happy ending with a certain twist for another
story or chapter leading to other parts of these movies but with different characters but same
saviors and the fact that all those saviors are usually women, demonstrating women
empowerment. All other movies have previous or further chapters. “The Ring” the video tape
mystery was solved by the journalist, who wanted to save her own child for being killed. In “the
conjuring” the saviors for the Perrons family were Warrens family, a couple who had been
studying and solving such mysteries for a long time and because of Mrs. Warren having some

sort of magical powers, the main savior of the movie is a woman too. Similarly, “The Nun’s”
happy ending was because of a woman as well, who was the young nun who yet had to take her
vows. All these women have similar religious believe on god. They hold faith towards their god
and family. They believe in the light of god over darkness. Therefore, they follow exorcism
technique in “conjuring”. In “the nun”, they take help of Lord Jesus only remaining blood to get
rid of the demon name “Valak”. Similarly, in “ring” journalist name Rachael gives proper burial
to get rid of the evil soul Amaara.
In all the movies location of the house is usually a creepy location or they are filmed around
homes that had been remodeled to look like the one in which the murders actually
happened. The locations were really similar in terms of description of a haunting house or
haunting church. Though the movies were filmed in different location throughout the
world, their horror settings in each and every location were actually same. In each movie
the spirit only appeared in that specific location at first because that spirit is somehow
connected to that place or church or house also known as haunting places. The reason of
possession of those spirits was to get out of the place they were connected to, also to take
revenge. In movie “ring” the horror was in the video tape rather than in some kind of house
or church, which makes the storyline very different from the other two.
In movie “ring” there was no possession involved, the spirit came from the television to
straightaway kill the person after seven days after watching the video. In the “conjuring”
and “the nun” on the other hand the demon and the evil spirit possessed the women in both
the film in order to come in the human world. Similar signs of possession were seen in both
the women in different films. From their behavior to language and there extra ordinary

body flexibility to change eye color, makes a person or human seem like she is possessed.
Both the movies have almost identical possession type.
Though, the killing pattern of the evil spirit in each movie is very different from each
other. In the “Ring” there is no consecutive order of killing. The entity mainly kills the
person who have seen the video in which depicts the story of how that evil spirit actually
died, in contrast to “conjuring” there is not much killing shown. It’s just possession and
how Mr. and Mrs. Warrens do exorcism to get rid of the evil spirit, who has taken over the
house because of the fact that the spirit itself died in that house and the movie shows that it
was killed by someone. Therefore, the motive of evil spirit is purely revenge and it wants
to take on those who will be living next in the house. Whereas, in “nun” there is a killing
but it actually kills because it wants to possess and takeover someone’s body and find the
main key to open the gates of hell in the story.
Other similarities in all four films were good ethics and morals of humanity which suggests the
meaning of having a family, a mother, faith in god as well as trust in yourself and the feeling of
strong team spirit. “The conjuring” represents the meaning of having family unity and strong
mother’s bond with their children likewise, “the ring” showed the same bond between a mother
and a child. The “nun” gives us moral of having faith in god and doing what is ethically right in
our lives. Most supernatural horror movies are mainly emotional. They have a sense of drama,
romance, thrill and suspense. In some movies they also have a bit of comedy, which is not much
noticed because of the fear that suspense instills on the audience. People really like watching
such movies because some of them like every emotion in the movie and that is the reason the
most of famous sub-genre is “supernatural horror” in terms of horror movies.

In conclusion, all three movies are very similar with each other in so many ways and forms that
have mentioned above. But those movies are different too because they have very different
stories and different motives. The structure of the films was same with very different directors.
All three movies appealed to different type of audience in different ways. Some liked one movie
where as some people didn’t really fine other movie very much scary or interesting or did not
like the storyline of the movie. All the similarities of the movies make them come under the sub
genre supernatural horror. People really like the feeling of thrill and surprise and that’s the
reason they all like watching horror movies. All three movie are really top hit of the Hollywood
industry. All directed by completely different director with very different mindset and very
different creativity. But all of those directors and story writers have common understanding of
the word “horror” as genre and there sub- genres which are many but the focused sub-genre is
supernatural horror.