Film Courage: What makes a great horror movie?
David F. Sandberg, Filmmaker and PonySmasher on Youtube: It kind of depends on what kind
of movie because the horror movies I’ve made have kind of been popcorn where it’s
kind of dry which is very satisfying because you get this cheering when the right person
goes or gets away and people are like laughing and then jumping and people are laughing about
jumping.
So in those movies like that it’s very much about the scares and
sound is super important and timing because of lot of people don’t take their time for
the creepiness and the scares because you can make anyone jump if you just have a loud
sudden noise.
But it’s that Hitchcock thing with the thing under the table and if something happens people
are going to go “Oh shout.”
But if they know that it’s something that is going to happen and you are sitting there
at the end of your seat.
I think that is something that will work very well on LIGHTS OUT the short film is that
we start right off with a big scare (the thing just comes closer).
Now we’ve scared people and now people know what to expect and then that makes her hiding
under the bed and hearing little things that that makes it much more effective because
then you set the precedent.
But then there are horror movies that again that are more art house like HEREDITARY and
BLAIR WITCH that are about scares and really like staying with you.
And again I really think that sound is very important.
I mean David Lynch…I mean he’s not a horror director but he’s made some of the scariest
stuff out there.
What I try to do is make it as bad for the characters as possible with this continuous
sort of escalation of it getting worse and worse and worse.
She runs into a bar and then she gets trapped in it and “Oh no!”
And then there is a scarecrow and it starts to come alive and it’s like “Oh no, this
is even worse!”
Like a continuous escalation of just making it worse and worse for you.
Film Courage: You are used to using a lot of things for the DIY when you were making
short films back in Sweden.
What were some of those things you would use for sound effects that you would use that
were inexpensive?
David: In our apartment we were blessed with very creaky floors which was great.
I have a whole library of me recorded of just creaking around.
And yes, just trying to find sounds like recording the air ventilation system like slowing that
down and you have this sort of dark drone.
That’s really effective.
Lights and sounds and this bucket light from an Ikea trash can or whatever we could do.
I mean a lot of it would be based on things we’ve seen of proper movies of like “Oohh…how
can I make a low-budget version of that?”
Which still sort of stays in my head.
Because I remember on ANNABELLE: CREATION they have these quasar lights which are basically
like tubes or whatever that are kind of expensive.
But just watching it I was like I could use that if I used a regular light tube and just
put it in the same way and put it in the same way.