How to Make a Successful Horror Film
A Recipe for Creating a Chainsaw Massacre not a Toolbox Murder
Feb 18, 2009
From the early days of Lon Chaney Sr. and Bela Lugosi, through to Hitchcock, Hammer and Hostel, cinema has been littered with the celluloid offal of countless horror films, some which work, most which don’t. For every film that leaves us sleeping with the light on for days on end there are a plethora that leave us feeling short changed and bored. And while fans of the genre may argue with critics over which releases are enjoyable or not, there is often a more general consensus over which films offer genuine scares.
Obviously there is no objective formula to scripting and shooting unadulterated terror. If there was then cinema-goers wouldn’t have had to endure the epidemic of remakes that have infected our screens since the turn of the millennium. There are, however, various tenets which seem to explain that while Jaws or Audition retain the power to shock and ensnare, FeardotCom will forever languish in the netherworld of car boot sales and second-hand shops.
Reality over Fantasy
While a successful horror film must necessarily demand a suspension of belief, going too far will invariably result in diminishing returns. After all, if anything and everything is possible then why should the audience be wary of the unexpected? Hellraiser will always remain a cinematic benchmark by virtue of Clive Barker’s imagination and stylish execution, but the shocks rarely transcend its own grotesquery and sadism. The antagonists, being visually fantastical and other-worldly, succeed in repulsing but never tap into our primordial fears of the unknown and unexplained.
Conversely a film such as Ring, among the genre’s biggest success stories of late, vacates the rational world by a far slimmer margin. While we may not believe in cursed videotapes any more than we believe in transdimensional demons, it is a medium that occupies a much more mundane and everyday level of our psyche. The image of a vengeful spirit emanating from a television is more feasible to a modern audience and resonates more strongly. Of course this can be taken too far such as in Eden Lake, which is more a horrific depiction of class war than a gripping exercise in terror.
Less is More and Silence is Golden
It is an oft quoted cliché that what is left to the viewers’ imagination is more appalling than what is actually shown. While strict adherence to this can just result in laziness there is an element of truth at its core. Witnessing Fulci and Romero’s zombies emasculate and disembowel an array of human prey has the power to launch a succession of gag reflexes but is it any worse than watching a particularly graphic hospital drama? Equally when a Freddy Kreuger character wisecracks his way through a vicious attack the intensity of the horror is subdued. After all, if a monster is in a chatty mood we can easily imagine talking our way out of the predicament.
Roman Polanski understood this better than most filmmakers. Possibly one of the few movies to successfully nail the ‘fleeting reflection’ shot, Repulsion excels in splicing long periods of routine and silence with genuinely terrifying moments. As a result the intervening scenes stop seeming so commonplace and transform into increasingly virulent crescendos of our own anticipation.
Plot is Still Vital
The element missing from the vast majority of horror films churned out over the years is an engaging story. Directors from the Eli Roth school of film seem to think that all that is necessary to create dread and tension is a succession of grisly deaths and the occasional POV camera shot. Of course no one expects the same level of multi-layered narratives from a slasher as they would from The Kite Runner but without any twists or suspense to suck the viewer in how are they supposed to care enough to be scared?
This is what separates such movies as the excellent The Orphanage from the instantly forgettable, though relentlessly lauded, Ils. While the former reveals itself gradually in between scenes of elaborate menace the latter relies only on out-of-the-closet set pieces. Without a plot to draw one in it becomes all too easy to drift off before the real scares come. Naturally it is possible to go too far in the opposite direction. A prime example would be Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween, which wallows too deeply in the antagonist’s history at the expense of John Carpenter’s original looming peril.
Paradigm
It is insulting to fans of the genre to suggest that this is an exhaustive or even accurate recipe with which to produce their favourite staple. However if filmmakers could at least dedicate an iota of their time and budget to investigating what makes a successful horror film and what makes a lame duck then we might be spared a potential Freddy Vs Jason Vs Killer Tomato.
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