Rambling About Horror
Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:31 pm
Horror - painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay; aversion or repugnance as per ye olde dictionary. Google adds shock to the list, but I trust the actual dictionary when it comes to defining words. Shock has its place in horror films, but it's often used as a crutch to the point where I see it more as a symptom of bad filmmaking rather than proper horror. Take the average five year old and ask them what they would do to scare someone. They would likely jump out at them from around a corner, possibly making a silly face, and shout "hah!". The average horror fan is not a five year old child. We can do better.
Imagine this scenario: you are walking home along a dark street. No one is around, not even headlights in the distance. You look away for a second, but when you turn back, there is the dark figure of a man standing in front of you, roughly twenty feet away, facing your direction. This, in and of itself, is not scary, though the sudden appearance of the unexpected can cause you to be more alert. Now, let's take this man and change how he appears to us. Surprisingly, making it less threatening would be to have the person walking in your direction at a casual pace rather than standing still. Normalcy very rarely invokes fear. The standard jump scare method is him suddenly appearing directly in front of you accompanied by a loud noise. Startling, yes, but we are looking for horror, not shock, as google would have you believe.
Irregular movement, be it changing the speed at which he moves, having joints bend in ways they shouldn't, or even the total lack of movement adds a sense of uneasiness. Something's not right.
Instead of a sudden loud noise, maybe he makes a noise that should not come from a human(such as a distorted mewling sound) or a sound that's human, but not that of a full grown man(such as a baby's wailing cry). Even a quiet murmuring, or a little tittering laugh is likely to cause a bit of dread.
These are just a few very basic ideas that are much more effective than what has been put of film in recent years. Yes, there are exceptions, but they should be the standard, not rarities. I want to feel the tension, the dread, the absolute fucking fear the characters are dealing with. Maybe I'm old and just don't get it. But if you jump in front of me and shout, you're more likely to get punched in the face than for me to cry out in fright.
Imagine this scenario: you are walking home along a dark street. No one is around, not even headlights in the distance. You look away for a second, but when you turn back, there is the dark figure of a man standing in front of you, roughly twenty feet away, facing your direction. This, in and of itself, is not scary, though the sudden appearance of the unexpected can cause you to be more alert. Now, let's take this man and change how he appears to us. Surprisingly, making it less threatening would be to have the person walking in your direction at a casual pace rather than standing still. Normalcy very rarely invokes fear. The standard jump scare method is him suddenly appearing directly in front of you accompanied by a loud noise. Startling, yes, but we are looking for horror, not shock, as google would have you believe.
Irregular movement, be it changing the speed at which he moves, having joints bend in ways they shouldn't, or even the total lack of movement adds a sense of uneasiness. Something's not right.
Instead of a sudden loud noise, maybe he makes a noise that should not come from a human(such as a distorted mewling sound) or a sound that's human, but not that of a full grown man(such as a baby's wailing cry). Even a quiet murmuring, or a little tittering laugh is likely to cause a bit of dread.
These are just a few very basic ideas that are much more effective than what has been put of film in recent years. Yes, there are exceptions, but they should be the standard, not rarities. I want to feel the tension, the dread, the absolute fucking fear the characters are dealing with. Maybe I'm old and just don't get it. But if you jump in front of me and shout, you're more likely to get punched in the face than for me to cry out in fright.