Horror movies, why are they effective?

[Zzz]

Zzz

[Prince Elite]

In my opinion, they're not effective at all and are rather annoying. They also happen to be all my family watches.

[Redeemer]

Zombie films aren't too interesting to me, but there is a huge exception. Rec. What a movie. But then again, the zombie condition is caused by a demon virus, which is interesting in itself because it gives a biological cause to possession.

 

What I look for in a horror film is more to do with ghosts, demons and maybe insanity. Satanic stuff isn't too interesting to me because I think it's overplayed.

[mjakob42]

DISCLAIMER(S): First off, while I love a great horror film every once in a while, I'm not a hardcore fan of the genre - like you said above; nothing but a bunch of remakes and abused cliches. Also, I'm going strictly off of personal opinions from watching a ton of movies, so maybe I'm totally wrong. But I figure I'd throw in my two cents.

 

To me, what makes a horror film truly frightening is psychological horror. And what exactly makes psychological horror work? To me, it all depends on how much the filmmaker forces the viewer to use their imagination. The example I'm going to use is the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from 1974, and I'm going to use the scene posted below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr4ueCHfSzw

 

The odd use of squealing pigs combined with the slow yet tense build up of wondering "what the hell's going to happen" stiffens us. The sudden appearance of Leatherface startles us enough because we don't expect him, but what makes this brilliant is the fact that Tobe Hooper (the director) shows us exactly what he looks like; no bullshitting around with hiding him in the dark. Even more brilliant (and amplifying the terrifyingly bizarre nature) is the odd mask and rough clothes. We don't know a thing about this guy, but just one look at him indicates trouble. And finally, I will add that we never ever see what the hell is going on behind that door; we only have two things; those bizarre touch-ups to only hint at the grisly murders going on, and our imaginations. Whether we use our imaginations explicitly or not, the mystery only unsettles us more.

 

Sorry to go on a rant, but you know me; a genuine film junkie who's fascinated with shit like this. Once again, this is strictly an opinion; what I find terrifying bores the living daylights out of others, so what scares people differs from person to person. But I figured I'd share an opinion.

[Snys93]

To me, what makes a horror film truly frightening is psychological horror. And what exactly makes psychological horror work? To me, it all depends on how much the filmmaker forces the viewer to use their imagination. The example I'm going to use is the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from 1974, and I'm going to use the scene posted below.

 

   Exactly. The imagery, the angle of shots, cinematic timing, all these play a key role in making these film either iconic and memorable. Watching the Youtube vid, I truly felt the stillness before the storm. Theres no doubt something is gonna happen, but to who? The girl, the guy, both? It can be a toss up and really do something really unexpected.

 

   I don't know if anyone noticed it at all, you can hear the chainsaw on idle the entire time but is not used for this scene.

 

   In a good horror film ANYONE can be written off, ANYONE. If not, then thats stupid.

[Drasiana]

I'm gonna second the notion that gore is gross but psychology is terrifying. That in itself is why the Alien series was creepy, not because the aliens were killing people but because the aliens killed people by raping them. My more successful horror films have been the ones that are more uncomfortable than "scary", and they're slightly more fun to write given the context. Jump scares might be fun for the occasional shocker but I find little is more effective than a constant, creeping sense of dread.

 

Of course, a lot of it is subjective and I don't think there's one "right" answer because different people scare for different reasons. I don't think there's one specific standard to hold horror movies to because there isn't one type of horror movie, there are tens of subgenres and niches that all have their own standards, tropes and methods.

[Dr. Orange]

​Suspense and curiosity. 

 

Honestly I've never been a huge fan of horror movies. When I get frightened, I flip shit. I prefer comedy. But when I see a commercial about a horror movie I'm like "Huly shet! What gonna happen next? Who was that guy? etc." Like if you seen the commercial about that movie "Mama," I see the small scenes where the ghost thing comes out and I can't she what it exactly looks like or what will happen next. So I'm driven to like find out. I want to know how the story ends. 

 

Zombie movies. The idea that all of humanity is wiped out by some pathogen. I believe it is less the idea of if this could happen or not but the adventure feel the fun of what would someone do during this situation and how would he/she survive. 

 

Ghost & Satan movies. The fun of imagining that there are stuff like that in this world and the story that follows. The suspense of "Will they survive what happens or will they die?" and the curiosity of how they accomplish that tasks.

 

The curiosity surrounded by the ideas of the unbelievable are fun to imagine.

[Thu'um]

Personally i have noticed it all to be in the music the creates a mood. Watch that shit on mute, and well, its hardly a scary movie anymore. Inless of course its purely gory, and you are deathly afraid of people having their guts ripped out  

[Xortberg]

Personally i have noticed it all to be in the music the creates a mood. Watch that shit on mute, and well, its hardly a scary movie anymore. Inless of course its purely gory, and you are deathly afraid of people having their guts ripped out

 

That's not necessarily true, though. Non-horror example, but there's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where there is, I believe, absolutely no music played at all, and that in itself pretty much just pulls you out of your comfort zone and makes the entire episode more intense because it's so different.

 

Same principle could easily apply to a horror movie. A total lack of any music in a situation where we've been conditioned to expect it is jarring. It's similar to all those times in various movies and books and such where someone notices something is strange because there's no nature sounds going on in a forest, or whatnot.

 

However, I'm a total pussy and have not watched enough horror movies to have an example to back myself up, but I don't think I'm entirely wrong. If you're watching what you know to be a scary movie, and it seems to be an intense scene but there's no music playing, your mind is gonna be free to focus on all the ambient noise both in the movie and in real life, and that can be utterly terrifying itself if you're subconsciously looking for scary noises.

[Vy'drach]

For me, horror movies, especially ones that rely on gore, require a reason. What I mean by that is what they're trying to pass off as scary needs a good reason to be scary. I don't mind gore or anything, and in fact am annoyed when it's intentionally not shown despite circumstances where it would be everywhere. However, I am also less than impressed when the entire point of the story or what not is the gore, such as with Saw or Hostel. Using it as a tool to convey something is perfectly fine, and not showing it when it should be is just pulling punches. But it shouldn't be the meat of the movie. Now take who is perhaps my favourite author, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, more commonly known as H.P. Lovecraft. Dras, I seem to recall you saying, many a moon ago, in a different topic about horror, that he had a "less is more" approach to violence and gore. Turns out, that wasn't actually the case, as a few of his stories at the time were denied publication a few times due to being too violent and gory for the time (though by today's standard they're mostly tame by comparison, unless you go the extra mile and truly visualize it, then things such as a man's face being gnawed/clawed off creatures that a few generations prior could be considered human, a vengeful cadaver chewing through the Achilles' tendons of a man who had sawed off his legs in order to fit him into a rickety coffin that had been intended for a shorter man, or, from my favourite Lovecraft story, strange creatures that devoured human flesh, either from pillaging graves, or snatching people away in the night, including small children, as the one was shown to be feasting upon, these become less tame if you actually picture it). However, while still being considered exceptional at the time, those examples weren't the point of the stories. That's not what made them scary, but merely helped amplify it somewhat.

 

Now for something in movie format. As a wee lad, I saw plenty of horror movies and what not. I had seen PREDATOR and Alien(s, 3) before I was five. I believe. Definitely before eight. Point is, I was damn young. I had also seen things such as IT, Amittyville Horror House, plenty of the Friday the 13th and Halloween movies, Hellraiser, the list goes on. Some scared me, some did not. Let's focus on one that did (at the time). Stephen King's IT. This scene in particular scared me as a young'un, because I couldn't see how funny Tim Curry could actually be as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't scary because I was afraid of clowns, but instead, the movie made me scared of clowns until I went to the circus.

 

http://youtu.be/GURIb2ml8OM

 

What scared me about this scene as a child was the idea that no one else can see or hear or really interact with Pennywise. It's only Harry Anderson here. That means no one can help you at all, and even mentioning your problem with Pennywise might get you tossed into an insane asylum. At that point, you wouldn't be able to run, hide, or even fight back if need be. You'd just be a sitting duck. The idea of having a problem like that, and either having to solve it yourself somehow, or fail and die, was damned scary to me. 'Course now that scene is just humour to me, and if you watch carefully, even some of the background actors couldn't keep a straight face through the scene, such as the guy at 1:43.

 

Anyways, you don't make a scary creature or scene and what not and say it's scary just because. Why is it scary? What are the reasons it's scary? It can't be scary just because.

 

Also, I'd like to say that most of the examples of horror movies I watched as a young'un didn't really scare me, and I'll go into more detail about it later.

[Redeemer]

I'm a really huge fan of horror, in fact it's my favourite genre. I've seen so many horror movies that I now struggle to find one I haven't seen. The most fucked up one I saw was Antichrist, but that wasn't scary, it was just... So many levels of what the fuck... I despise it, actually.

 

My favourite horror films include The Thing, Alien, Rec. and Silent Hill. The last one is due to my support for the games, please note.

 

One thing that the first three I mentioned there have in common are the creatures. They're all human-like. In my opinion, the more human-like something is, the creepier it is. I think the risk of mistaking it for a person is terrifying, plus seeing deformed human shapes are rather disturbing. Take a look at this:

 

 

Isn't that just absolutely, completely, utterly fucking MENTALLY DAMAGING?

 

 

Also, on the note of music, sometimes no sound is enough. There is one moment in particular I'm thinking of, but it's in the video game Project Zero 3. Here's a video, the only one I could find. Skip to 14:30, you'll see what I mean. Try to ignore the screaming guys, because ingame, this moment is completely silent.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2o6GYRjLVU

[Vy'drach]

A horror movie I recommend Red, is Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf. Not that it has almost human creatures or anything. What it's about, is really a two-parter. First off, there was a serial killer who fashioned himself after the Big Bad Wolf. Had a big suit of iron made to resemble a wolf complete with retractable claws and a spring loaded muzzle that works like a bear trap. And, because he's the Big Bad Wolf, he targets little girls, and killed plenty of them, and he always left a message, be it in blood or carved into scenery, that said, "Are you the Woodcutter?"  Well one of the girls he killed was done pretty much right in front of her brother, and he went on to be a cop because of this. Well years later, when the guy is a cop, the killer resurfaces, since he was never caught. Well, he eventually ends up catching him, and the guy's lawyer is able to get him landed in a mental institution rather than sent to death row. Well, the institution is the home for dangerously, criminally insane folks. And while the cop is there, the inmates manage to escape. So a bunch of citizens and the cop are trapped in an asylum with all these mentally unstable and highly dangerous folk.

 

The movie got criticism for having unbelievable and stupid acting, which I highly disagree with. The actors actually did a pretty good job, in my opinion. Much better than most big name, feature film horror movie actors.

 

Now the movie does get a bit gory during one scene, but not really throughout the entirety of the movie. It's bloody, one pretty gory scene, then bloody again.

 

And one thing I loved about the movie was the design of the Wolf suit. And the way the actor moved in it. The suit itself, if I showed you the picture of it in a brightly lit area, doesn't look that great, and even somewhat silly. But in the movie, where it was very dark, and with the lighting they used for it, where it's rarely seen fully, and usually it's covered in shadow and you're more seeing the silhouette of it with a streak or two of it outside the shadows, by god did it look fantastic. And whoever was wearing the costume in the movie did a fantastic job with moving around in it, because he did not move like he was a human. It almost reminded me of the kainde amedha in Aliens, how he moved.

 

Ah well. Long story short, that movie got my seal of approval.

[Thu'um]

That's not necessarily true, though. Non-horror example, but there's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where there is, I believe, absolutely no music played at all, and that in itself pretty much just pulls you out of your comfort zone and makes the entire episode more intense because it's so different.

 

Same principle could easily apply to a horror movie. A total lack of any music in a situation where we've been conditioned to expect it is jarring. It's similar to all those times in various movies and books and such where someone notices something is strange because there's no nature sounds going on in a forest, or whatnot.

 

However, I'm a total pussy and have not watched enough horror movies to have an example to back myself up, but I don't think I'm entirely wrong. If you're watching what you know to be a scary movie, and it seems to be an intense scene but there's no music playing, your mind is gonna be free to focus on all the ambient noise both in the movie and in real life, and that can be utterly terrifying itself if you're subconsciously looking for scary noises.

You might actually have a point, silence can be disturbing. But pay attention. Usually an auto-track of deep breathing, or a high E is playing. You don't often times take notice of it because its so well built into the scene. And if nothing is usualy being heard it often times leads into that sudden type of Spook with random stuff popping out. 

[Drasiana]

The idea that's been gotten at here is that sound is useful in horror, be it the sounds themselves or the absence of them. This is true of any genre but it is definitely a huge factor in horror.