what scares you most about horror movies? i kno for me its the suspense and children.. not a good combo! would love to know what everyone thinks on the following conventions in horror films... 1. lighting 2. camera work 3. children 4. setting 5. costumes 6. looking for the source 7. sexual fears
Most probably the use of children and lighting. Both have connatatiosn of warmth,home and a sense of security. But when used in a distinctive manor such as conveying evil sonmething as innocent as a child to be evil forces the viewer to quesiton whether home, good, warmth and security etc is what it is, we beocme fearful of these thinsg that we now begin to oppose.
I think that the music and camera techniques play a very large part in making a film scary.
you could play a comedy sketch with horror music underlaying it and it would give the sketch a horrific feel. the camera techniques, if used correctly, can really help create tension and suspense depending.
an example of a film with good camera techniques would be Psycho. The camera stays practically fixed on the woman in the shower which gives us a natrual, calm feeling. but then when the killer comes, the camera changes position very quickly, switching between the killer and the woman in the shower; creating a very fast, horrific feel, full of suspense and helplessness.
I agree with Mr Anthony. I think music and camera teqhniques play a big part in a horror film.
For me the horror genre is lost nowadays. Certainly in popular cinema the emphasis seems to be soley on 'how we make audiences feel sick'(Hills Have Eyes etc) rather than 'how can we make people feel unsettled'. You just can't shock anymore with these sort of films as there's only so far you can push the envelope. Now we all know what a persons intestines/livers/gall bladders look like exploding through the air where do you go from there!
You can't beat Hitchcock in my opinion. Even in Rebecca - when he esentially takes on a love story - he manages to inject a claustrophobic eerie atmosphere. And when he takes on horror it is genuinely creepy. Let's face it - there's nothing scarier than a seagul flying into a phonebox!
1. FUTILITY- In "In The Mouth Of Madness" the struggle of the central characters is shown to be futile as the whole of reality breaks down into madness and nightmare. In "Hellraiser", the cenobites are portrayed as both unkillable and motivated entirely by gleeful sadism; you can't stop them and when they catch you they're going to hurt you forever. In both "In The Mouth Of Madness" and "Children Of The Corn", the central characters get lost on country roads,trying to get somewhere but getting nowhere;trying to escape horror but just driving round in circles. Similarly, in "Blair Witch Project", they go round in circles in the forest and as the plot progresses things get more hopeless. All this is like "Sisyphus and the stone", futility and hopelessness.
2.The Uncanny/Unheimlich - Sadako in Ringu crawling out of the well and TV in a twisted anti-birth; a child who is also a corpse. The stabbing phallic carving knife. The scary childs toy come to life as in Childs Play, the scary children in The Shining, the scary white halloween mask worn by Michael Myers in Halloween or by the various killers in the Scream Movies. The mother in Psycho.
3.Clowns: Clowns combine alot of symbolic elements. a)They are connected with childhood and thus are in the same uncanny category as scary living dolls etcetera b)They are connected with madness because they represent the anarchic,absurd(hopeless/godless)topsy-turvy world of the clown c)They are connected with glee and laughter and thus an evil clown is a symbol of sadism and the laughter of evil and cruelty. d)They wear a mask and are thus a symbol of the unseen or unknown.
4)The Unseen- Sadakos veil of hair in Ringu, Michael Myers in his mask or the voice on the telephone in Scream or when the victim or the hero in a horror movie just catches a glimpse of something in the corner of their eye or when we see the killer but they don't.
5)Vulnerability- What makes us feel weak and small and like a child for example in the house at the end of "The Blair Witch Project" when one of the central protagonists is seen facing the wall; we know from earlier on in the movie that the Blair Witch made her child victims face the wall while they "waited their turn" to be killed and,seeing the adult male being forced to face the wall symbolises him being made into a child and also being placed in a vulnerable position. Similarly, the two victims in Zodiac who are made to lie face down on the grass before being stabbed brutally in the back; we empathize with their vulnerable position which makes the stabbing even more shocking. Freddy Kreuger makes us vulnerable because he can enter our dreams when we are at our most vulnerable.
6)Madness- The one thing which we know we can rely on is reason but what about when you are in a Nightmare world where normal rules do not apply and where you have the normal world suddenly yanked out from under you. Being in a mad world, like one of Freddy Kreugers nightmares is scary and the rulers of the nightmare worlds of horror movies are always sadistic lunatics who only want to hurt you and cannot be reasoned with.
