When exploring the themes I realised how broad they truly were. They each have some defining characteristics but could be influenced by almost anything.
Below is what I could think of that fit in each theme, most of these are from things I enjoy or am interested in myself..
I took from a variety of sources, not just games, to try and diversify my sources. My goal was to see how much variety I could get in each main theme, and what I knew. below are my perspectives and the things I learnt from the research.
Horror
Horror is a genre based on the creepy and frightening, but there are many different ways to take this from slasher films to psychological horror to comedy.
This was the theme I was previously least familiar with.
Slashers are often gory, following characters trying to survive a monster or murderous person who’s killing them in creative ways. I personally struggled to get into the genre as I have a phobia of blood, but still found unique ways people used the genre for instance it was common to use the villains as metaphors for various issues and push messages. For instance, the film X followed an elderly couple killing a group of young porno film-makers and used that as commentary about fears of ageing and losing beauty and agility.
Psychological horror was a lot more chilling and stuck with you, and more based itself on being unnerving and chilling rather than gory or full of jump scares, although those could occur. A personal favorite was the YouTube video by Brain David Gilbert titled “Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan ’97”
It’s an eerie video about Jake rewatching a recording of his now-deceased father, from his childhood, shot from Jake’s point of view. The video is unclear but in a good way, allowing for theorizing but still getting the message and themes across. For instance, it’s unclear how Jake’s father died, although I think it could have been in a home invasion of some kind. The fact it’s not explicit and instead focuses on the emotions and grief makes it more poignant and unnerving.
Finally, horror-comedies, come in two styles. Horror has been considered either silly or ‘camp’, maybe due to poor acting or writing or strange visual choices, thus this genre is quite commonly spoofed upon. A personal favourite is ‘what we do in the Shadows’, I will use the TV show in this example. A Mocumentuary that follows a group of vampires, and their familiar, who all live together. It jokes about many vampire troupes from older horror media like ‘Dracula’, or even folklore and more recent takes on vampires like ‘Twilight’. In some episodes, they also introduced other horror staples like werewolves and witches.
Horror is also often combined with other genres like fantasy or comedy to create something unnerving and more impactful as they are generally considered more friendly themes.
Sci-fi
Science fiction, or Sci-fi, is a genre based on fictional sciences. This can be anything from physics to space to machinery, this genre is very broad.
The classics people think of often revolve around space like Star Wars or Star Trek, while these are fun and allow for lots of creativity by allowing for the creation of new cultures on different planets I don’t enjoy them the most as I don’t find space the most engaging setting, I also find space horror incredibly terrifying and existential so thus not the most appealing to me.
These are often used to tell grand adventure stories or dystopias of some kind, often for critiques of capitalism or politics. An example is Cowboy Bebop, which primarily is a fun series about a group of space mercenaries but still has undertones in it talking about how capitalism prevails through the main characters being down on their luck, forced to work and hunt people down for money to feed themselves.
I personally prefer much more down-to-earth sci-fi (da-dum tshhh). fictional machinery and sciences are very broad and can cover a variety of subject matters and aesthetics, it is also often combined with fantasy or supernatural elements. a personal favourite is Dirk Gently’s Holistic detective agency on Netflix. The show combines supernatural elements like superpowers with sci-fi like the advanced technology, the infinite power machine and the electrified weaponry used by the cult, which intensifies the mysteries and weirdness of the show.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre about the unreal; usually magic. This is an incredibly broad definition because the genre is incredibly broad. The classic is medieval-style high fantasy like Lord Of The Rings, which is in a medieval European-based world that is full of fantasy creatures and magic, but there are lots of examples outside of this.
First of all, fantasy can be on a gradient from high-low which focuses on how much fantasy is in the story. If we use two pieces of media focused on magical creatures you have The Fantastic Beast movie series which is full of magical creatures, witches and wizards.
But, a world that’s relatively normal with a small amount of magic like the anime ‘Tamako Market’ which mostly focuses on the day-to-day life of a normal girl called Tamako who comes across a magical talking bird, apart from the bird the show is fairly normal but it uses the bird to give it a unique take and make it stand out.
Despite a common misconception fantasy can be in any time period or aesthetic; not just medieval, so there are lots of sub-genres of fantasy like Urban fantasy which is a fantasy set in modern-day cities. But there are also many examples of media using other settings like Baccano, which follows people with magical powers and follows 3 interconnecting plots set in 1711, 1930 and 1931 respectively.
Fantasy can be used in a variety of ways, sometimes it’s just to tell a fun adventure story other times it can be commentary or something, like a magic system can be a metaphor for something, for instance in Epithet Erased, a show where one in 20 people has a magical power called an epithet the characters with epithet superpowers are often more privileged and get more opportunities and are held in higher regard despite not necessarily being better people than the people without epithets. An example of this is Gorou who gets put in a position of power, the town’s sheriff, because he’s the only person in the town with an epithet despite the fact he has no knowledge.
Historical
Historical is quite different from the above as it’s very much based on evidence and facts, the creator’s imagination does not limit it, but there is so much history across so many cultures to it remains quite broad. Although, a lot of historical events are held close to people because of impacts on their life or cultural significance to them, so it has to be treated with quite a lot of care.
I personally loved learning about ancient Rome so was very attached to ideas based on that, as I already have a lot of knowledge on it due to reading about it as a child. So I made sure to open myself up to more time periods, I am also somewhat aware culturally as a British person I am very used to Western history and not much else.
When it comes to showcasing these historical periods and events I can still look at other media for inspiration.
For instance, there is Horrible Histories which is a sketch show based on historical facts and events, aiming to educate children, but still entertaining, they combine history with modern references, like modern music parodies.
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