Mirror Mirror On The Wall....

...which scene is scariest of them all?




I predict the next big slasher/horror movie hit will be one that plays with mirror mirror expectation and convention and then turns it on its head. Or someone will just make a scary flick about haunted mirrors. Oh right...someone already has.

Manipulation, Anticipation, and 'The Bus'

Nice post from Lee A. Matthais at The Last Reveal about 'What's Scary...?' when it comes to film making. A taste:

So, the real question is whether the manipulation positively serves the story, whether it positively serves the audience. If said manipulation acts in service to the filmmaker’s intentions, and they are artistically reasonable and ethical as evidenced by a generally satisfactory result, then such manipulation is valid and acceptable. Notice that I did not say the result had to achieve its ends through honesty. Deception is an axiom in art. The question, rather, is, “Does it serve the work effectively and to the benefit of a satisfactory audience experience?” So, while there is bad audience manipulation, all audience manipulation isn’t bad. As we’ve said, all communication is manipulation. The operative term, then, is “mutually-positive”—for the story, and for the audience—manipulation.

Scary movies succeed for the same reasons all movies succeed: they satisfy their audiences. Audiences aren’t satisfied by ever-larger explosions, ever-more diabolical torture devices. They are satisfied by having their expectations exceeded, by being happily or thrillingly surprised, by being entertained, not shown new technology. They’re satisfied not by the quantity of blood, but instead by the quality of the experience.

So, how to achieve said quality? It’s a well-known principle that fear is far worse before the fearful event than it is during. That implies that what goes on in the audience’s mind is far more powerful than what goes on before its eyes.

The piece is primarily about the making of scary movies as opposed to the writing of them (I'm still trying to come up with that magic tip list that assures us when a screenplay reads scary it will also play scary on the screen, as opposed to always being dependent on 'the execution'), but is still an entertaining and educational post.

Read the rest HERE.

Scary Monsters...Super Creeps...(And Lousy Teasers?)

Been reading a lot of horror feature scripts lately...they've been ending up on my desk for development or story editing consideration. And frankly, most have been really disappointing.

First, they all start with a scary action 'teaser'...and fair enough, that's B-movie 101. But the problem with every one of the opening sequences in the scripts I read was that the 'teasers' weren't really connected to the 'story' at all. In fact, most felt tacked on after the fact.

And when I realized later that the opening had been just a bit of a wank, I got pissed. It's like...cheating.

Then we had 'the stories'. Now I don't expect the bar to be set very high, but the in between scenes (or plot) in most of the scripts I read just felt plugged in to get us from one supposedly scary, gross-out sequence to the next supposedly scary gross-out sequence.

Character development? Forget about it. Motivation? Not important. Logic? Hardly. Even suspense and tension seemed a secondary consideration...they were all just about trying to get to little scenario's that could shock or repulse the reader/viewer. Generating some squirm factor is good, but not just all about the squirm please.

And then there were the endings...ALL ultimately unsatisfying, much less surprising or even making any sense. I know endings are tough to make sing when there's generally only two or three ways these kinds of stories can go, but still...try at least. Sigh.

It's paint-by-numbers screenwriting. Imitating, not invigorating. Trying to marry and thus capitalize on two recent horror movie trends - the resurgence of the slasher film (mostly remakes though), and the 'success', I suppose, of goreporn like Hostel I and II, followed by Vacancy and Captivity (but thankfully that trend seems to be behind us).

And while I know you can go back to the original Halloween or Friday the 13th or The Hills Have Eyes or Last House on the Left or Texas Chainsaw Massacre and question whether those flicks had any of those elements in spades, I would argue that they still had more than a lot of these scripts. And those films in their day weren't trying to be 'hits'. Instead, they were designed to be made on the cheap and scare the shit out of teens at the drive-in, NOT be released in 3600 theatres after a month long 20 million dollar marketing campaign.

The greedy system is creating these new types of script 'monsters', whether it knows it or not (or cares or not).

I was discouraged reading most of these submissions. I felt the writers weren't bringing anything original to table. Okay, maybe original is too much to expect from a horror flick...but something 'special' then.

Because it can be done. Like my faves of the past five years...28 Days Later, The Ring, and Saw.

Yes, Saw.

I think Saw was a freakin' great horror movie. Part slasher/gore, part psychological thriller...it worked on a lot of different levels. And had a killer twist/reveal at the end. You can mutter about the quality of the sequels this picture has inspired, but you can't deny the originals masterful horrific simplicity.

28 Days Later was Night of the Living Dead on speed...and managed to not only reinvigorate the tired 'zombie' movie genre, but was an intriguing commentary on human nature.

And even though it's a remake (a better remake) of a Japanese hit, The Ring succeeds with many of the same elements (though with less of the slasher/gore).

All were scary as hell but ultimately 'about' something... morality plays...loaded with complications and dilemmas....characters we could understand and even relate to...created rules and logic that tracked within the context of the story, and all told with loads of tension and suspense.

That's what I'm looking for.

Lately, we've been subjected to constant 'reimaginings' of twenty year old slasher flicks, or remakes of foreign (mostly Japanese) horror hits.

Think about it, and naming only a few...'Halloween'...'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'... 'Amityville Horror'....'Black Christmas'...'The Fog'...'Prom Night'...'The Hills Have Eyes'...even 'Psycho' for crying out loud?!

And then there's all the foreign remakes...'Dark Water'...'The Eye'...'The Grudge'... 'Mirrors'...'Shutter'....'The Invisible'...'Quarantine'...

So many do-overs. So few originals. No wonder new writers don't feel like they have to work too hard.

Be special. Be inspired. Be scary.


Keep me running, ruh-ning scared.


Happy Halloween.

Scaring Up A Good Score

Yesterday was a brief overview of scary movies....today, some soundtracks that helped make those movies even scarier. And not surprisingly, a lot of the most haunting or unforgettable scores are from a lot of the same films.


First rule seems to be LOTS of minor keys...major notes or chords, not so much.

Next, refrain from resonance...add plenty of dissonance.

Then bring on the cacophony...leave the harmony on the shelf.

And finally, a LOT of repetition...drilling it into your head over and over...this is scary...this is scary...this is scary...

As for classic horror movie soundtracks, there's the obvious ones..John William's Jaws... the theme from The Shining... Bernard Herrmann's score from Psycho...Mike Oldfield's theme from The Exorcist... Krzysztof Komeda's score from Rosemary's Baby ...Jerry Goldsmith's The Omen ...

But even though clearly influenced by Oldfield (in the case of Halloween) and Berrmann (in the case of Friday the 13th), for me the two most memorable have to be from the 'original' modern slasher films...

John Carpenter's theme for 'Halloween':



...and Harry Manfredini's theme for 'Friday the 13th':



Ki ki ki ki... ma ma ma ma

Ki ki ki ki... ma ma ma ma

Scary.

The Horror...The Horror...

Saw V did over 30 million at the box office this weekend, proving once again that public appetite for such 'horrific' fare still reigns supreme, especially when All Hallows Eve approaches. Also in the spirit of Halloween, my tweenage son and I watched Will Smith's I Am Legend on Friday night.

Bad idea.

Now I am old and jaded, so it didn't do much for me (not to mention an abundance of CGI which, however well it's done, always tends to push me out of a movie as opposed to draw me in), but it freaked my son out. A lot. He's since woken up from nightmares, and when awake hasn't stopped talking about it - ("...what if world got wiped out by virus?" "...what if a virus turned us into flesh-hungry zombie-like creatures?"). What if. What if. Gak.

I will admit I'm feeling a little guilty for subjecting him to it (even though he was the one who said: "Let's watch something scary!")

"I Am Legend", like most contemporary horror films, isn't 'original'. The story is adapted from a 1954 sci-fi novel by Richard Matheson, which has been filmed twice before, as "The Last Man on Earth" (1964), and "The Omega Man" (1971) starring Charlton Heston.


And I do remember "The Omega Man". Oh yes. It freaked me out when I first saw it...probably around the same age as my son is now. And like him, I didn't even see it in a theatre but on late-night television, and it still freaked. Of course, checking it out now, it seems pretty cheesy...but way back when...Omega Man...."shiver".

Sticking with when I was younger, the two movies constantly referenced as well-made pictures that also managed to scare the crap out of the audience were "The Exorcist" and "Psycho".

No argument here...but when I eventually saw them, I'd either heard too much already or my expectations were too high, and I felt let down. I wasn't 'fugged up'.

"Jaws", on the other hand, freaked me out quite a bit, but most wouldn't really categorize it as a horror movie. The first "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" all had their moments, but they were just good candy-coated popcorn...tasty in the moment, but generating very little of the residual 'wake up screaming covered in sweat later that night' factor.


No, the two that really did it for me it were John Carpenter's "The Thing" (1982)...







...and "Alien" (1979).


I suppose one could debate whether they are 'horror movies' in the classic sense as well, but I would say so. At their core they're 'trapped in the house with a monster' movies...relentlessly suspensful and tension-filled...and they accomplished horror's highest grade - they scared the bejesus out of me.

More on contemporary horror later this week, but now that you've read this far --- scariest horror films ever?