For this assignment, my group was given the short film ‘Parasomnia’. The short follows a man who experiences a sleep paralysis induced nightmare. I was particularly happy with this film as horror is my favourite genre of any media.

As a group, we decided to divide the slides by each different aspect of the film – Art direction, cinematography, sound design and the monomyth. Out of these, I chose to look at Sound Design as I believe sound in horror is often overlooked despite being a crucial factor.

First, I researched into the importance of sound in horror and I came across an essay by Jeffery Bullins – Hearing the Game: Sound Design in the Saw Film Franchise – which takes a deep dive into the impact the sound design in the Saw franchise. It was reading this essay when I was introduced to the term ‘shock cut.’ I looked further into this technique and found another essay by David Scott Diffrient, “A Film is Being Beaten: Notes on the Shock Cut and the Material Violence of Horror.” I learned that this is a technique that combines a quick visual action with a sudden noise or lack of noise to make the viewer jump out of their seat. This technique is used at the film’s climax.

Another thing I researched into was Surreal sound used in Horror. Surreal sound is a sound editing technique which layers and mixes a lot of different noises together to create an entirely new sound. In ‘A Review of Sound in Horror Movies’ by Zixiao Gong and Junchang Zhang, surreal sound is described to “express strange and supernatural things” in horror media and it is no different in this short, where the monsters growls were made with this technique.

I also read Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell, Kristen Thompson and Jeff Smith to get further knowledge on Diegetic and Non-Diegetic sound and the importance of it in film.

Finally, I looked into Sleep Paralysis to gain some extra context for the film and I was intruiged to find out about the three sensations felt during a sleep paralysis episode – Incubus, Intruder and VMS. Then, in a rewatch of the short film I found that there was a sound that could be interpreted as representing each of these sensations. For Incubus, the feeling of someone sitting on your chest, there was prominent heavy breathing; for Intruder, the feeling of someone in the room with you, there was the sound of creaking floorboards; and finally, for VMS, an out of body experience, I believe that the static noises that are featured throughout the short film represents this.

For my groups presentation, I looked into sound design and how it elevates the horror of our short film. Here are my slides: