What makes a horror film scary for you?

[cinemalover]

So many of today's horror films are based on gross-out violence or the ugly sub-genre of "torture porn". Neither of these really appeal to me. What makes a good "horror" film for you?

Do you prefer the old days where the monster was merely hinted at until just the right psychological point of reveal? Do you prefer your horrors to be imagined rather than seen in explicit detail? Is the unknown more scary than the known, irregardless of how awful that known may prove to be?

What is it about horror films that "push your buttons"?

Or do you have no use for them at all?

Why have they been so popular throughout the years?

[Ollie]

I like monster movies to show the monster, early and often. Especially the Godzilla types - to me, a monster movie is NOT the genre to explore soap-operas, love triangles or human dialog much more than screams, yells and the occasional "Fire!" To me, the perfect Godzilla film is 90 minutes long - Godzilla comes up out of the bay, stomps and burns some city to smithereens, swims away after 29 minutes. A minute later, he appears in another bay, destroys another city for 29 minutes, and swims off, and then appears over the third town, and swims off as the credits role. I don't really want to know if Matthew Broderick gets the girl or if Harry Met Sally.

Then there are Jump Out Of The Dark horror films, where unending tension is only slightly offset by occasional jump out of the dark scenes. The original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD matches this criteria.

If the Monster Costume is good, then I like seeing it early and often. If it sucks, well, yes, hide it until a Corman-esque last 60 seconds of the film. And let me know, so I won't waste my time.

On monster movie DVDs, I've discovered one truth: if the front and back cover don't include a photo of the monster - only drawings - then I KNOW it's a really bad film. And I'll probably buy it anyway. After all, a Monster movie from the '50s has more appeal to me than most modern films.

I, of such low standards, STILL have some standards! ha ha...

As for button-pushing - I think the "tension relief" or Head Banging Effect fits. "Why do you bang your head against a wall?" Because it feels so good when I stop. "Why do you like rollercoasters?" The exhileration of the fear, the anticipation and the plunging changes in G-forces.

I believe these are the reasons I've loved scary films.

[cinemalover]

Ollie,
Great, detailed, well pronounced thoughts. I'm on the same page as you when it comes to monster movies, there aren't any terrible ones, some are just much better than others. Even the cheesiest of B-movie monsters have some lovable quality.

[Ollie]

I can't figure out why I can be so bitterly critical of some films (especially modern films) while so - as you note - "lovingly" accepting of other older films.

I believe I have a Sensibilities Checklist that kicks in on some films. Films that desperately try to be realistic (like the great CGI stuff we get to see) get particularly harsh treatment from me, as if my mood is saying, "So? So you can make the creatures LOOK realistic? Then why isn't your story HALF as good as some original or some classic film? You've had 70 years to improve on it, and you can ONLY come up with better drawings?!!"

Maybe it's tantamount to a Plastic Jug vs. an Incan Stone Jug. One is probably far more efficient in carrying fluids, but which will ALWAYS be the treasure?

I get the feeling the "Looks Realistic/Tastes Terrible" issues spill over into my visceral reactions to films.

[mrsl]

Ollie said:

"Maybe it's tantamount to a Plastic Jug vs. an Incan Stone Jug. One is probably far more efficient in carrying fluids, but which will ALWAYS be the treasure?"

What an absolutely PERFECT comparison.

Fifty years or more ago, the idea was to scare the beejesus out of the audience. Hitchcock's sudden appearance of the old lady in the shower scene did it, and years later, when the stupid shark machine wouldn't work, so had to be used very minimally, also did it. All the outer space monsters, out of the sea monsters, desert crawlers and below city dwellers were all scary, but nothing took our breath away like old mom with her knife. But now the tide has turned to who can gross you out the most. It doesn't take imagination, just lots of blood capsules, pea soup, and animal entrails.

Horror has become synonymous with blood and guts instead of fright. It is horrifying to imagine all those people burning to death in The Towering Inferno, or crashing in the plane in any of the Airport movies, but we don't include them in listings of horror movies do we? Yet, not all horror movies have a monster. How would you classify Outbreak, or the Andromeda Strain? Fail Safe, or Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones as fires consume L.A.? Try The Wizard of Oz - witches, tornadoes, monkey zombies, and POPPY SEED FLOWER FIELDS???

Horror movies should be re-classified from horror to monster, and/or murder/mayhem. After the pea-soup incident in the Exhorcist, suddenly Hollywood wanted to make the audience sick to their stomachs, and began a fight to see who could cause the most sickness. Don't get me wrong, if that's your pleasure, then you're welcome to it. I can change the channel, or go to a different doorway in the multiplex. I guess it's no different than the fools who slow down at an accident and tie up traffic so the ambulance can't get there, some people like to get that sick feeling - it must be an acquired taste - like scotch.

Anyway, that's my impression of horror vs. scary, and old horror vs. new horror.

Anne

[klondike]

I think the best example I can offer for what makes me get the jumpin' yips can be demonstrated by just one particular movie- 1945's The Dead of Night.
This has to be the grandaddy of the gooseflesh anthology subgenre, and each little unfolding vignette (cued up as stories shared in a manor farm between new acquaintances) helps to chill the connective framery just a little more, while introducing a different type of shuddery fear - the phantom hearse, the evil mirror, the haunted birthday party, the possessed lap-dummy (all but the topperish tale of ghostly golfers; that just lends a bit of morgue humor to help skew the balance) - and as the end approaches, the world between those tales and the current happening at Pilgrims' Farm begins to connect, and time itself starts to speed up to a non-pareil climax that tickles the back of one's neck like a cool cemetery breeze.

Short of the old what's lurking in the woods technique, this one portrait-perfect film just about sums up everything that means cinematic fright to me!

[Ollie]

First, let me say THANKS FOR THIS LINK. It's a great example for me to launch into another tirade, and it's full of good examples for me to pick at. That being said, I am VERY glad to see this and I'd definitely snag this DVD for my collection.

NOW, MY BITTER RANTS & RAVES AGAINST THIS 'TYPE':

This is a good example where my modern skepticism picks this clip apart.

Why are people trying to outrun it when they first see it? Why aren't they logically peeling away from it? Why aren't they trying to seek ANY form of shelter?

I would roll into the water, I would dive under it and flee the opposite direction but instead, all the extras are running ahead of it, packed like sardines. Even when the creature 'passes' them, they're still running the same direction. (This is, of course, the direction that the extras have, and the later insertion of the creature makes it difficult and more expensive to re-shoot certain crowd-chase scenes. So the filmmakers say, "OK, don't worry - no one pays attention to those details." Very lazy on THEIR part.)

Why does the monster run INTO the trailer's open doors that - to this creature - is only a dark opening? Doesn't it see Food running all around it? Why is it seeking to be trapped inside some painted-up trailer? (This is again a good way to leave the camera sitting in one location with an isolated field of focus for a day or two of cheaper shooting. Again, another checkmark for the filmmakers' laziness.)

So much of the Creature and Crowd-Flight scenes are polar-opposites to to logical Flee-From-Monster experience. (I'm SO sure all of us have tons of that! ha ha... But at least so many of us have WATCHED monster films before, so we're as GOOD of critics as the filmmakers are.)

I know the filmmakers wanted to applaud the visual realism. The gore, the effects, the well-drawn cartoon. Yet, as nicely drawn as this creature is, the behaviors that are written and directed are even LESS logical than Roadrunner and Coyote.

When Roadrunner would pick up a street sign and "toss" at the carnivorous Coyote, did we have ANY doubt that the ker-thunk would knock Coyote out? No. Yet, we see our bleached-out idiot doing that to this critter in the confines of some trailer park where he's never shown an ounce of intelligence. Why launch an offensive NOW? Just to look MORE dumb? I thought he was supposed to be the film's HERO? Is SHAUN and DUMB & DUMBER now the zenith of hero behaviors in monster films?!!

The critter's final dive into the water, among two small water craft, raises up all the splash of a 40-lb child. This is so poorly drawn. This looks like a creature that's, what? - 1500 pounds? A ton or more? But the water splash probably came from tossing in a summer's watermelon!

The huge amounts of unrealistic behavior bother me - the artists try SO hard to use the right colors of crayons in this 'cartoon', but the writers seem to have brains only to progress into Big Chief writing pads. It's like 12th Grade art students being led by pre-school writers.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Films that actually have the power to frighten, are ones that embrace the mind and work with your imagination where fear begins. While there are many shock horror films, these works often lose their disturbing power early on and while they might still be enjoyable--those initial thrills are gone forever.

Movies like Lewton or Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), spend most of their time dealing slight of hand horror which is quite effective, especially if you're working on a lower budget or simply don't have the technology to achieve your nightmare. Meanwhile, Bava and Argento have gone the other route, making gore and explicit scenes that are visually stunning and dare I say--beautiful.

As for the show or do not show question, I think it's possible to go either direction if you know what you're doing. A great example of both might be Don't Look Now (1973) where we spend much of the film piecing things together and catching small glimpses that may or may not be correspond with our deeper fears. As the film slowly builds, our apprehension grows until we are jumping at sounds and shots. When the climax is revealed, everything is explicitly shown and we are frightened in such a way that scares us deeply because the fear was built and cultivated in our heads well before the shock shot hit our senses. The result is one that haunts us for days afterward, lingering in the memory where it was initially constructed.

The Trailer:
[youtube][/youtube]

[myrnaloyisdope]

I like realism, not necessarily in terms of blood and guts, but rather the idea that something could actually happen.

The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre works because it's a bunch of hillbillies, not zombies, or the undead, or ghosts. I find Deliverance works in a similar way. It's the fear of the unknown manifested in real people. That's what makes it disturbing.

Gaslight kind of freaks me out, simply because of the psychological aspect, I can't feel anything but helpless as I watch Charles Boyer convince Ingrid Bergman of her madness.

I am generally pretty skeptical about the supernatural, so stuff like The Exorcist does nothing for me.

[vallo]

To me it's the Music that can change a Mediocre film into a good scary one. Try watching a Horror film with the sound off. The scare factor is gone. But add a Pulse-pounding soundtrack and you're on the edge of your seat.


Bill (vallo)

[mrsl]

I think most of us agree that the blood and guts are only for show, but the silence and shock are the scary things. I watched something recently (can't recall the name), but through several scenes of silence, I was saying to myself, 'something is going to happen, something is going to happen', and I was actually disappointed when nothing happened, until about the third silent scene, when finally a cat jumped through a window. That has happened before, but this director was smart enough to build up the audience suspense and then knock you on your ear.

A grown man may not be 'afraid' during a scary movie and go running out of the room like a little girl, but I don't believe that the right circumstances, music, and setting don't make even a strong man a little leary. Mr. L was an extremely brave guy, but one of my favorite things was right in the middle of a well set up scene while he and the kids were all holding their breath watching the TV, I would let go with a 'BOO' and all five of them usually literally jumped off their seats, while I, of course, sat there laughing my you know what off.

Anne