What's scarier?
A breaking news report of hundreds of zombies running wild in a distant town...
Or There's a Zombie inside your child's bedroom...
It's a different feeling, isn't it?
Why is one more horrific than the other?
While I was searching for the roots of cinematic horror.
I looked up "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari".
It's a German expressionist film made in the 1920's.
It is widely considered to be the first true horror movie ever made.
The visuals are quite striking and the nightmarish art direction succeeds in evoking feelings
of unease by presenting a distorted reality.
I wanted to compare (For my own personal curiosity) the similarities between modern horror movies
and something made close to century ago...
Is there something that carries over?
Something universal...
Thematically or aesthetically?
As I was reading the reviews, I found an interesting quote that summed up what I was looking for:
All a horror film need promise is horror -- the unspeakable, the terrifying, the merciless,
the lurching monstrous figure of destruction.
It needs no stars, only basic production values, just the ability to promise horror.
So, I guess my next question is: What is this "promise of horror"?
As a by-product of the late 80's, whenever I would think of horror, my mind would immediately
go to Jason, Chuckie and Freddie or even the old universal monsters.
I lost several nights of sleep imagining those movie villains waiting for me in a dark endless
corridor or peeking through a slightly open closet door, ready to rip me to shreds and
swallow me whole.
When I grew older, the evil monsters lost their appeal, but in its stead torture porn
became more popular.
The focus was now placed on the natural visceral repulsion of the destruction of the human
body.
But in my adulthood, I realised this isn't horror.
Horror is not a monster or the extravagant gore it can cause...
If that were true then any movie brandishing a mindless slasher, tearing out people's innards
would be considered an achievement, but we know this is not the case.
You see, the most effective horror movies are the ones that manage to make horror into
a personal experience.
Just like the scenario I gave earlier.
Having hundreds of zombies ravaging a distant city is indeed worrisome but having one already
in your house at arm's length of your children is immediately terrifying.
In this video, we're going to take a look at three movies that have successfully told
an effective horror story by respecting the balance of three key elements:
The characters, the adversary and the audience.
They managed to blur the lines between metaphor and reality by removing the focus from the
monster and placing it squarely on something we can all relate to...something we can all
recognize.
Family.
Home is where we should feel safe, our parents and our family are supposed to give us unconditional
love.
What these movies do is grab these universal themes and turn them on their head by slowly
deteriorating them and taking away their safety.
But first it grounds the storytelling in family drama.
The core of the three movies is wrapped around families dealing with grief.
The Babadook, is about a mother that secretly can't stand her own son because he reminds
her of the death of her husband.
In the Witch, we see a family of puritans struggling with the abduction and death of
their youngest child.
In Hereditary, two characters pass away early in the movie and we see the family dealing
with the aftermath as it slowly turns them against each other.
We get to know the characters, the geography of their home, where they sleep, their routine,
their jobs and we start caring and attaching ourselves to them.
Even their pets.
Now why is this important?
Because we need to establish a bond before things start going wrong.
-Horror films are much more upsetting and frightening if you are invested in the characters-
It was always just very important to me that these were people that you cared about so
that when things happened to them it's no just spectacle, but it feels like a betrayal.
The emotional connection starts being used against you.
As dysfunction sets in we begin to feel unease.
We become resistant to the family erosion.
Tensions rise and the scenes become increasingly uncomfortable and upsetting to witness or
be a part of.
If you don't feel anything for the characters, then the movie is doing something wrong.
Since the focus is on the families, the adversary is lying in wait, hiding within every frame.
At first, its presence is small and almost doubtful but as the movie progresses, the
entity grows in size and begins take up space.
It's in the atmosphere the movie creates, in the shifts in music, in the darkening of
a room, in the coldness of the scenes, the paranoia of the characters, until its presence
is undoubtful, palpable and oppressive.
It builds in your mind and not on the screen.
In each movie there is a specific adversary The Babadook - An evil entity from a book.
The Witch - A coven of witches in the woods following the whims of the devil hiding in
plain sight as a Billy goat called Black Philip.
In Hereditary - A pagan cult devoted to king Paimon.
At first glance the adversary of each movie seems different but the way they go about
destroying the families is similar.
It's doesn't physically kill anyone because its purpose is to corrupt.
They're not motivated by revenge or mindless carnage.
Monsters want your blood, while the adversary wants your soul.
This is about destroying them from the inside out.
It infiltrates the members of the family and corrupts them to the point that they will
be the ones that will do the deed themselves.
What's worse?
A monster killing a child ...or having the mother do it?
Deteriorating the family (without ever being seen) and making them the antagonist.
The adversary grabs what's important too them - their children, family, beliefs, virtues,
sanity and makes them destroy it.
The adversary is something you can try to fight...but never defeat.
In the Babadook the mother learns to live with the entity.
In the Witch and Hereditary they end up joining it.
The adversary is not a simple villain, it's a concept, it's intangible, it lies in the
unknown, it can't bleed, and it definitely can't lose.
It can't be understood, it has no rules, no boundaries no shape it just is.
Once you know of its presence, it becomes unescapable.
The characters become pawns of the unfathomable, they either die or they end up serving it.
The less we know of the adversary the more power it retains.
The audience is very important to the success of a horror movie.
They can't just be waiting for the next scare.
A good horror movie manages to involve them in the story.
The movie should be a mystery.
Just like the characters, they should be trying to figure out what is going on.
Give them clues even more than what the characters can see.
Odd character reactions, off handed remarks, or even close-ups of information that will
be relevant later.
Show them but don't explain it.
The audience should be actively trying to complete the puzzle, this puts them off guard
...so surprise them...disorient them...that's when horror can be most effective.
In the Babadook we're left questioning the mother's sanity.
Was this all a mental breakdown?
Did she make the book?
Was she losing her grip on reality?
In the Witch, how did it all start?
When were the kids bewitched?
What other animals were familiars?
In Hereditary, how many people were involved in the cult?
When did she start being possessed?
Did the family ever suffer from mental illness?
Make them doubt themselves, throw them for a loop but let them put the clues together.
The puzzle pieces should lead to an answer even if there's none given at the end.
It makes a second viewing much more enjoyable.
Ultimately, the sign of an effective horror movie is when it succeeds in gaining real
estate in your mind.
As an audience you are involved in the movie, seeing the characters as your surrogates dealing
with inhuman events but once the movie is over and they meet their end the attachment
is broken leaving an unsettling feeling...and you exit the theater thinking you're done
with the film...but it's still not done with you.
You forgot you spent the whole movie building a monster in your mind.
One that doesn't go away.
It grows when you lie in bed at night with every unwanted sound and dark silhouette.
You see the most effective horror movies are the ones that intrude in your psyche...and
never leave.