How To Make a Horror Movie That Doesn’t Suck
By Rick Crawford, 2004
Everyone loves horror movies. Well, that’s not true. But everyone should love horror movies. If you don’t like horror movies I suggest you rent a few classics and re-evaluate your position. Unless the reason you don’t like them is that you are so terrified after watching them that you have trouble sleeping or refuse to go into the basement.
I have trouble sleeping and refuse to go into the basement after watching a good horror movie. But I still love ‘em. Horror is my favorite genre of film.
The trouble is it’s hard to make a good horror flick. It must be hard – how else to explain the comparatively tiny number of high quality horror films. And while good horror flicks are good for a variety of reasons, there are a few rules of thumb that must be followed in order to make your horror film rise above the pack.
Here they are:
Don’t Confuse Gory With Scary
Sometimes, nothing beats a good bloodbath. Guts flying everywhere, decapitation, the vomiting of entrails — what’s not to like? But these images don’t inspire fear, they inspire disgust. If you want to scare your audience, you have to do more than disgust them. So if your movie brings the gory, more power to ya. Just make the gore the gravy, not the meat and potatoes. See: Alien, 28 Days Later
The Score: Keep it Simple Stupid
Chk-chk-chk-chk. Ah-ah-ah-ah. Quick, what movie is that from? Shame on you if you didn’t immediately think of Friday the 13th. And who can forget the blood-curdling ee! ee! ee! ee! of Bernard Herrmann’s brilliant Psycho score? But like special effects, sometimes less is more when it comes to the horror movie score. In The Shining, when Danny first sees the ghoulish twins in their blue dresses, the scene is accompanied by complete silence. Kubrick doesn’t try to startle you. Instead he lets the fright creep slowly up your spine, to wonderfully terrible effect. Too many movies rely too heavily on the score. The buxom babysitter is home alone. She slowly opens the creaky closet door while the score grows louder and louder and faster and faster. And then… nothing. Nothing’s in the closet. The music stops. She turns around and OHMYGODTHEWITCHHASTHEBABY!!!!! You’re supposed to be scared when the score is building, and then be lulled into a false sense of security when the music stops. The problem with this is that now it’s just way too common and you can see it a mile away. See: Jaws, Psycho,The Shining.
Avoid Star-Trek-Red-Shirt Characters
In a typical episode of Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series, Kirk and Spock and McCoy decide to visit the surface of a planet. They beam down with some mysterious dude you’ve never seen before and who is lucky if he has three words of dialog during the entire episode. Without fail, this guy is wearing a red shirt. Also without fail, the guy is gonna die, and soon. Doomed characters in bad horror movies don’t walk around wearing red shirts, but you can still tell they’re doomed from a mile away. Good horror movies give all the characters – even the doomed ones – a bit of depth. See: The Omen, The Shining.
Fire The Special Effects Crew
Good horror movies never have dazzling special effects. Less is more when it comes to making a movie scary. This rule is simply without exception. See: Evil Dead, The Exorcist, and any other scary movie that is worth the admission price.
Don’t Give Up The Ghost
This is the single most important rule for horror movies to follow, and it’s why sequels to horror movies are almost universally a bad idea. You can follow all the other rules, but if you miss this one, your movie is going straight to video. The point in a movie at which you know exactly what is hunting/killing/chasing/eating you should be at the very end or not at all. Once you know that your cousin Mabel has gone crazy and she’s the one dressed up as a Quaker shuffling around in the attic, the jig is up, roll the credits. Don’t stuff in another half-hour of run-from-the-killer scenes. Just end it. Or even better, leave some mystery even after the credits roll. This is why The Blair Witch Project scared me so much when I first saw it. Good horror movies make you go what the hell IS it?. The Blair Witch Project never gives up the ghost: it ends with a big question mark. The degree to which you liked The Sixth Sense is probably directly proportional to how long it took you to figure out the ending. See: Blair Witch, Rosemary’s Baby, Psycho.
Notes:
I apologize for making a dinner analogy in a paragraph that also mentions the vomiting of entrails.
I first saw Blair Witch in the theater. Later on I watched it on Netflix, and I’ve never been so bored. Never before have I experienced such a sharp contrast between first and second viewings of a movie.