tzarinna
Mamochka
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2006
- Messages
- 24,829
- Reaction score
- 327
- Points
- 73
Five tips to help filmmakers make movies that are actually scary
1. Final chapters: make them so
This is the hardest one for me to write, because I love Jason Voorhies more than some members of my own family. But it has to be done. Retire him and Lecter, Freddy, Chucky (I know, I just said he was entertaining, but if he gets to stay then everyone will want one more moment in the sun), Candyman, Jigsaw, Leatherface and the people who run that European hostel. I know all your tricks and you know that it gets harder and harder, with every passing sequel, to frighten the audience.
2. Kids are stupid: let them read Goosebumps
I saw Boogeyman with a bunch of 12 year-olds. You know why? Because it was rated PG-13. And I felt like the creepy old guy sitting in a multiplex full of middle-schoolers. (I resent having to explain myself in the first place, but in my defense I had to go see it because I review movies for a living and Boogeyman, like almost all the others, wasnt screened in advance for press, so off I went to the mall on opening day, and yes, I wasnt happy about it).
3. If its too loud then youre too lame
Speaking of The Messengers the rural Barn of Terror movie that opened last week and somehow made more money than anything else I sat in front of a group of rowdy teenagers (PG-13! Whoo-hooo! Lets skip school!) who openly mocked the film when the following sequence of events went down:
a) Teen heroine, in close-up, fills half the screen. The soundtrack is unnaturally silent. The other half of the screen is empty and waiting for a ghost to jump into frame, a bird to fly into a window, a toy to spontaneously animate without human help, anything to fill the frame all surprise-y and boo!-ish.
b) That other thing fills the screen after approximately three to five beats.
c) The soundtrack erupts in a digital thunderclap so loud that the audience in the next house watching The Queen all jump out of their seats.
4. Declare moratorium on remakes
I wrote about this once before on this very site. A whole article about it. I believe it was called I Spit On Your Horror Remakes and Sequels. It was pretty good if I do say so myself. Heres the gist of it if youre too lazy to go back and read it: remakes, save for Dawn of The Dead are no good. Ever. Never ever. They offer a cheap moment of almost-entertainment. Sometimes. But thats it. Like PG-13, theyre not about making anyone happy, theyre about making money. Yeah, I know that makes the filmmakers happy. But I dont care about them. I care about me. So knock it off.
5. Think fear
Some recent horror films that I thought were pretty decent? The Descent. And um ... hang on, still thinking ... yeah, The Descent. You know why? Because it upended the teen-star paradigm by featuring an ensemble of (admittedly interchangeable) adult women, it focused as much attention on the tense, suffocating claustrophobia and giddy panic of being trapped in a pitch-black cave as it did on the herky-jerky eyeless monsters that lived there, it was gory but didnt rely entirely on fake guts splattering every square inch of screen to make its point and, at least in its original UK release version, it came back-loaded with a bitter, brutal ending.
I didn't quote the entire article.
You want to add or remove something?
1. Final chapters: make them so
This is the hardest one for me to write, because I love Jason Voorhies more than some members of my own family. But it has to be done. Retire him and Lecter, Freddy, Chucky (I know, I just said he was entertaining, but if he gets to stay then everyone will want one more moment in the sun), Candyman, Jigsaw, Leatherface and the people who run that European hostel. I know all your tricks and you know that it gets harder and harder, with every passing sequel, to frighten the audience.
2. Kids are stupid: let them read Goosebumps
I saw Boogeyman with a bunch of 12 year-olds. You know why? Because it was rated PG-13. And I felt like the creepy old guy sitting in a multiplex full of middle-schoolers. (I resent having to explain myself in the first place, but in my defense I had to go see it because I review movies for a living and Boogeyman, like almost all the others, wasnt screened in advance for press, so off I went to the mall on opening day, and yes, I wasnt happy about it).
3. If its too loud then youre too lame
Speaking of The Messengers the rural Barn of Terror movie that opened last week and somehow made more money than anything else I sat in front of a group of rowdy teenagers (PG-13! Whoo-hooo! Lets skip school!) who openly mocked the film when the following sequence of events went down:
a) Teen heroine, in close-up, fills half the screen. The soundtrack is unnaturally silent. The other half of the screen is empty and waiting for a ghost to jump into frame, a bird to fly into a window, a toy to spontaneously animate without human help, anything to fill the frame all surprise-y and boo!-ish.
b) That other thing fills the screen after approximately three to five beats.
c) The soundtrack erupts in a digital thunderclap so loud that the audience in the next house watching The Queen all jump out of their seats.
4. Declare moratorium on remakes
I wrote about this once before on this very site. A whole article about it. I believe it was called I Spit On Your Horror Remakes and Sequels. It was pretty good if I do say so myself. Heres the gist of it if youre too lazy to go back and read it: remakes, save for Dawn of The Dead are no good. Ever. Never ever. They offer a cheap moment of almost-entertainment. Sometimes. But thats it. Like PG-13, theyre not about making anyone happy, theyre about making money. Yeah, I know that makes the filmmakers happy. But I dont care about them. I care about me. So knock it off.
5. Think fear
Some recent horror films that I thought were pretty decent? The Descent. And um ... hang on, still thinking ... yeah, The Descent. You know why? Because it upended the teen-star paradigm by featuring an ensemble of (admittedly interchangeable) adult women, it focused as much attention on the tense, suffocating claustrophobia and giddy panic of being trapped in a pitch-black cave as it did on the herky-jerky eyeless monsters that lived there, it was gory but didnt rely entirely on fake guts splattering every square inch of screen to make its point and, at least in its original UK release version, it came back-loaded with a bitter, brutal ending.
I didn't quote the entire article.
You want to add or remove something?
t
