Colour in Horror Games

Well, the last time I had to make a blog for a university project, the first post was about one of my favourite video game series- Silent Hill.
It seems I will be making this into a tradition, since the first post here is going to be about this game series, together with other horror themed things too.

So, colour, as we know always has an effect on the mood of people, and often has symbolism in media.
In horror, especially, colour has a big role too.

Though we don't actually realise its presence in this genre often, due to the wrong understanding that only the bright, pure colours are "real" colours- we call brightly coloured objects "colourful", but never the dimmer, washed out colours, despite the fact that they still, indeed are colours. And these are the colours we often see in the horror genre- washed out tones/ broken colours of brown, blue, green, sometimes, they are very saturated or "take  over" other colours to make the view monochromatic. Oh, and their dark tones too, and lots, and lots of black. They are often bent and exagerated to underline the unusual, horrifying situation/surroundings the protagonist is in.

And, also horror is always tied with the warning sign of all warning signs- the colour red.

Red is mainly the colour of blood- this is probably the main reason why people feared it since ancient times- because if you see the red stuff come out, you might be in big trouble- depending on how much of the red stuff comes out.

Red in horror can both be overused, to a horrifying effect, and used very subtlely, to even more horrifying effect- it depends on the author and the viewer.

Sometimes, it can be replaced by a completely different colour as a sign of warning- like bright white, or green or whatever.


Either way, horror often uses the effect of something bright and alarming in the backdrop of dull, dark surroundings.