Unrestricted narrative provides the audience with more information than the characters through techniques like foreshadowing danger or revealing backstories. Restricted narrative leaves some details unknown to keep the audience engaged by presenting "enigma codes" for them to solve. Enigma codes can be created through fast editing, flashbacks raising unanswered questions, or important props whose purpose remains unclear. The use of both narrative styles aims to engage audiences in horror films by balancing revealed and unknown information.

1. More on
Narrative

2. Unrestricted
Narrative
Unrestricted narrative is when the audience know more and see more than the characters themselves.
In horror movies, the audience will usually know more than the victim. For example, we will know when someone is standing
behind the victim and what they are about to do to them due to the weapon they are holding.
They want to give the audience some hints as to what is going on by giving them a backstory. This will engage the audience as
they feel like if they know more than the character, it gives them a sense of dominance
To help/hint to the audience, titles will usually
pop up just to give brief information to help
them understand more. This also gives them
more information than the characters.

3. Restricted
Narrative
Restricted narrative is when not too much is revealed to also keep the audience wanting to watch more.
In horror movies, they use restricted narrative as they want to give the audience some enigma codes so they can figure things
out for themselves. However, some enigmas are never solved and this keeps the audience wondering about alternative
endings if it had been solved.
The Conjuring
In this trailer, we can see that
the character is trying to figure
out where the evil spirit is,
where it came from and why
it's haunting that particular
house. All of these are enigma
codes which will make the
audience want to watch the
whole film.

4. How are enigma
codes created?
One way enigma codes are created is by using fast pace editing. This is so that the
audience won't have time to fully absorb everything, so it leaves them wondering what
happened.
Use of flashbacks could also raise a lot of questions amongst audiences. This is because
although background information is given through them, they want to know how it has
affected their lives in the present.
Props could also create enigma codes. For example, if it’s a very important item, the
audience would want to know where it came from and why it is so important.
The audience would expect these types of enigma codes from the horror genre as it is
quite an in depth genre with a lot of thought put into it.