# What makes a horror film GREAT?



## JustJimAZ (Aug 19, 2010)

Most movies, from where I sit, are crap. This goes for comedies, sci-fi, action, and horror. Sometimes, though, a gem shines in the pile.

What separates John Carpenter's Halloween from "My Bloody Valentine"?
Why does The Night of the Living Dead work where so many zombie films fail?
Just what factors combine to really make a horror film great?

The more examples, the better. Is it writing? Show us great writing. Is it lighting? Point us to an illustrative scene. Is it acting? Let us know what made a performance great - maybe link to a clip?


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## Night Watchman (Aug 15, 2009)

This is what I think. One thing that makes a good horror is the unknown. Not seeing the shark in Jaws until later in the movie was cool. The opening seen when Chrissy gets attacked is cool and I never see the shark. The second thing is not knowing the "Why". Why is Michael Myers the way he was, there is no reason, and why was he after Laurie Strode. You don't know it is his sister in the first one, it seemed random which is scary. Seriously, in Friday the 13th 3 through 10 I am curious how Jason comes to life and how he dies the rest is the same, a bunch of teenagers die. I know who the killer is, I know what he looks like and I know why he is doing it ... BORING. The last thing I think makes the movie good is the music. The theme from Jaws, or the music/sound from Friday the 13th. It is memorable and haunting.


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## charlie1s (Sep 19, 2010)

I'll second the unknown asspect as with the original Jaws movie. It seems with C/G effects they show you the whole monster during the opening credits...


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## GrimmEverafter (Feb 2, 2011)

What makes a horror movie scary and not just another splatter, in my opinion, is the psychology. That is why so many movies (and even some games) fail when it comes to scaring someone, and not grossing them out, aka disgusting versus disturbing.

To make something truly disturbing, you need to have something that is twisted, whether it be in how it thinks, kills, or looks. When I saw House of Wax, it was disturbing to think that someone was using real people to make his sculptures more realistic, for no other reason but that. That made it terrifying, because it was a group of random people being killed, not a specific target. Watching some of Romero's movies, that unknown about what caused the zombies and why they did not die with otherwise fatal shots made it frightening as well.

Watching a majority of horror films now, they focus too much on startle and splatter. Yes, I jumped during 28 Days later, but that was because of how loud the Infected were. Same thing with a large portion of modern zombie films. Then they go and show you all of this exploding brains, gutting people and whatnot, and (call me a sick puppy or not) all it leaves me with is a hunger for pizza or something equally messy.

People tend to think as well that you need gore in order to make a movie scary. I refuse to watch the film Juon (the _original Japanese and 100% scarier_ version of The Grudge) alone, and even then, only in the daytime with a convenient blunt object nearby for fear of being attacked. That movie was actually frightening because it lacked gore, but the psychology behind it was intense.

To sum it all up, you need something to be believably frightening in order to make it work with gore. Otherwise, you've just got mind-numbing splatter that doesn't do much except desensitize people to it when that one diamond in the rough of horror actually comes along.


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## JustJimAZ (Aug 19, 2010)

That is interesting. So the anticipation of the horror is scary? Not seeing the shark, or knowing something bad is coming but not knowing when or from where?

I remember Alfred Hitchcock said that suspense is not watching someone get blown up by a bomb, but showing the audience a ticking bomb under the table before the couple arrives. I would think that you know a movie is supposed to be scary going in, so the value is in making us anticipate the direction and form of the horror.

I have to agree that sound and lighting are huge factors too. I often think of the X files for lighting. So often everything was backlit in blue or had a blue cast. It never would have taken off in natural lighting. And what would it be without that soundtrack?

I haven't seen Halloween recently enough to remember the lighting, but I remember the soundtrack. And The Omen too.

IMO, the old Universal movies were masterworks of lighting. Nearly every shot, and certainly every shot meant to terrify, was dramatic right down to the shadows.


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## Johnmonster (Sep 4, 2009)

Excellent points made by previous posters.

In addition to those points-

Resonating image(s). Michael Myers breaking into the closet in which Laurie Strode hides. Leaves blowing in the wind as she and the good Doctor look down to see he is gone. The kind of images that stick with you and act as mental "thumbnails" for the movie in your memory. The witch's lair in PUMPKINHEAD and the final scene in the old pumpkin patch. The werewolf climbing into the upstairs window in DOG SOLDIERS. Images that thrill and excite the imagination.

Iconic characters. Whether the protagonist who lives to tell the tale, or the deranged, unstoppable killer, this is the character who is told and portrayed so well that you want to know what happens next. What new adventures or misadventures lie ahead. Ash from the EVIL DEAD films is a perfect example.

I realize that these apply to all film genres, but when captured properly in a horror film, they really make it a cut above the rest.


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## Night Watchman (Aug 15, 2009)

Another thing I thought of after watching some movies. A sense of possible realism. I think this is in the mind of the viewer. If a person thinks that there is a possibility, even remote, of it actually happening the sense of fear goes up. If the premise is so far fetched than the movie becomes stupid.


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

A great movie has great characterization. If you connect with the characters, believe in them (regardless of whether or not you like them), then you're scared for them. As a friend of mine once said of Stephen King's writing, "It's not what happens that's amazing, but that it happens to such interesting people."

The best example I can think of is _The Exorcist_. We're given two main characters, Chris MacNeil and Father Karras, who are put through the wringer and react in very human ways. He's losing his faith and she's losing her sense of what's real. They crash together in the scene where she demands, "I want you to tell me that you know for a fact that there's nothing wrong with my daughter, except in her mind! You tell me you know for a fact that an exorcism wouldn't do any good! _You tell me that!"_ The clip is at the 1:00 mark of this trailer:






It's a brilliant moment. For all the wonderful mood and photography and pacing and effects, it's that characterization that pushes the film to the next level.

Pick a great horror movie and you'll find great characterization.


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## haleysmith (Mar 23, 2011)

The best horror movies are the ones that really scare the hell out of you and leave you breathless, not the ones that make you fell nausea because of too much internal organs and blood!


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## Rahnefan (May 1, 2009)

Depends on the nature of the film. At one level (the highest level?), it's neither gore nor shock. A believable concept with a good balance of unanswered questions and intriguing details. The Wicker Man is a great example.


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## JustJimAZ (Aug 19, 2010)

Rahnefan said:


> Depends on the nature of the film. At one level (the highest level?), it's neither gore nor shock. A believable concept with a good balance of unanswered questions and intriguing details. The Wicker Man is a great example.


I don't believe I ever heard anyone say anything positive about The Wicker Man before. I'm not disagreeing, I just never saw it.

Seems like most people agree that it's not about gore and splatter. Are the other elements so hard to achieve that most movies still resort to these anyway?


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## Marrow (Feb 23, 2011)

Atmosphere.
Darkness.
Not revealing the monster/killer too soon.
A John Carpenter soundtrack.


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## nixie (Sep 17, 2008)

I love to be creeped out, to have my mind messed with, especially if the effect lingers long after the movie is over. I don't like to be grossed-out and shocked, to me that isn't scary. The Others is my favorite. I love how the entire atmosphere of the film is so eerie, even the innocuous pieces of the story and setting give you chills. I must say, I'm also a sucker for a good plot twist, even if I figure it out part early in the film, I still have to keep guessing till the end.


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## Headless (Sep 4, 2011)

I don't like gross-out movies either - for me it's that movie that has me looking over my shoulder and afraid to walk past the window on the way to bed. I love a good plot twist as well Nixie and the suspense of knowing something is going to happen, not being able to look but not being able to look away either.


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## OtisDriftwood (Oct 6, 2011)

I love a movie that takes you to level 10 of anxiety, than holds you there for what seems like forever swimming in the insanity before the scare happens. Perfect example is the original Texas Chainsaw massacre. I also love when they only show very subtle quick glimpses of the killer, messing with your head until the final reveal.

I just saw the trailer for Silent House, and it looks promising.


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## Nick Nefarious (May 5, 2010)

To add on to some of the previous posts, I think that an essential element in making a good horror flick is the element of the unknown. An example for this is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre versus the remake. In the original movie, the killer (Leatherface) was not explained away, neither were his motives. People freaked out at the possibility of a deranged lunatic with a penchant for mutilation could actually be out there. This aspect was utterly killed in the remake when Leatherface was explained away as merely a disfigured kid that was picked on as a child. Most horror fans don't need some sympathetic connection to the killer or creature. It kills because that's what it does. Evil for evil sake. That to me is far scarier than some bullied kid that turns into a homicidal maniac.

Also, I would like to add to the original post that movies like Night of the Living Dead and Halloween were fresh and original in their debuts. The concept of flesh eating zombies had not been touched on at that time. It was revolutionary. The same could be said for the original Halloween. Sure there were movies about murderers back then, but nothing like what John Carpenter brought out. People at the time had never seen things like this before and were intrigued and terrified at such new concepts.


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## austenandrews (Aug 22, 2010)

NOTLD and Halloween are interesting contrasts. NOTLD took B-movie horror and played it straight, more bleak and graphic than most horror of the day. It was innovative in the way it expanded the genre.

Halloween went the opposite direction. It took a genre that was well-established - mad serial muderers, a staple of Italian Giallo flicks (think Argento and Bava) and making headway in America - and distilled it down to its fundamental elements. In a way it applied the lessons of Jaws to serial killers, transforming the (also beautifully distilled) intensity of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre into something more suited for mass consumption.

Note that both movies had a solid understanding of suspense and storytelling. They hold up well decades later. I don't think that's a coincidence - they had horror elements that were novel, but it was the combination of novelty plus fundamentally sound filmmaking that put them on a higher level.


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## Sawtooth Jack (Apr 9, 2011)

AA, agreed. 

Both films (and Jaws) also did something that most horror films of today fail at miserably, and that is maintaining a constant state of outright dread throughout, even when nothing much was happening on the screen.


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## Night Watchman (Aug 15, 2009)

I have to agree totally with the last few posts. The sense of the unknown is the thing I agree with most. I posted earlier about why was Michael Myers the way he was. In the remake they spend half the time explaining it to me and the rest of the movie showing me gore. Not scary to point where as I watched it I thought ya the kid should go crazy. In the first one they don't explain anything, they leave it to your imagination and I think that is scary. Speaking of gore I recently watched a video on the making of Jaws and in it there was a deleted scene that Speilberg said he took out because he thought it was too gory. It was the scene in the estuary where the shark swims at Michael Brody and veers off. What they had was the guy in the sharks mouth, as he bleeds from his mouth, pushing Micheal off to safety. If your a fan youtube it.


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