How to make a brilliant horror movie.

[ToastiestZombie]

So I've been thinking, what makes a good horror movie? We all know what makes a good horror video-game that will actually scare the player, but what about films? What are the scariest films you've ever seen and list some reasons why.

Personally, I think low-budget or mid-budget is the only way to go for a good horror film, some of the best were made with incredibly small budgets. A high-budget encourages more action-packed and technically amazing films when horror is at its best when it's well-made, but still noticeably wrong in some way. Not to say high-budget horror can't be done well (The Shining is an excellent example), of course.

So, what else makes a good horror film?

 

[Able Seacat]

Taking advantage of the imagination of the audience. The anticipation and build up is where the feeling of dread is made.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

What makes a great horror for me is a likable cast of characters that I DO NOT want to see die... and then they do...

I also like horror with elements of the Supernatural that are never explained

If the movie is actually trying to be scary I'd rather it take itself seriously. Moments of levity are okay but no "outright" comedy, otherwise you either get a great Comedy-Horror (Cabin in the Woods, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Evil Dead 2, Brain Dead) or a terrible horror movie that I end up disliking.

Lastly I'm not big on the straight up Torture Gorn stuff, in fact "gore" is hardly necessary if the elements of fear are right. Though I like my Horror-Comedies absurdly gory.

For references sake the best Horror Movies I've ever seen are...
Session 9
Hellraiser
Jacobs Ladder
The Thing (1982 Edition)
The Night of the Living Dead
28 Days Later
[REC]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original)
Videodrome
The Ring
The Descent
In The Mouth Of Madness
The Call of Cthulhu (HP Lovecraft Historical Society Silent Film from 2005)

 

[senordesol]

Avoiding cliches is a good idea. You're not going to be too terrified when you can solve the protag's predicament with 5 seconds of thought. "Gee, you heard a noise over there? Here's a tip: announce it to everybody and take a couple people with you when you go to check it out!"

Your protagonists should be likable or (at the very least) competent. Have them attempt multiple things to confront the horror only to have everything fail one-by-one. Have accidents happen and continually play with the audience (i.e. occasionally have something that appears terrifying be innocuous).

 

[Hero of Lime]

If there is a monster/demon/creature whatever, never let us see much of it. Not even at the end, imagining a monster is a lot scarier than seeing it, especially when you see what they can do, without seeing what they are. For me, once the creature shows itself, it's begging to be seen and it wants you to get comfortable with it. Not a good way to scare viewers.

Psychological human nature centered horror always works well, especially if it makes the viewers ask themselves what horrible, unethical, disturbing things they would do if put into the position of the characters of the film. Not a big fan of Zombie media personally, but it's more alluring when I have to think about what I would do in the hypothetical zombie apocalypse presented to me.

 

[Conner42]

The movie wasn't really even scary for me at all, but I did like how the Conjuring made you think that there probably isn't really anything supernatural going on, just a bunch of unusual things that have managed to happen in sequence.

Spoiler

Too bad they actually took the whole demon possessing story completely at face value. D:<

There's never really been a horror movie that actually scared me. I saw You're Next yesterday, which I found to be pretty good, though, I don't think the movie was trying to be scary, and good thing too because it probably would have sucked if it tried.

I've seen movies that can be creepy or gory and they can be fun because of it, but most horror movies I just laugh most of the time.

 

[Godhead]

Atmosphere and pacing. The utilisation of the audience's own fears and over active imagination also works charms.

 

[Sheik.Bazinga]

If there is a monster/demon/creature whatever, never let us see much of it. Not even at the end, imagining a monster is a lot scarier than seeing it, especially when you see what they can do, without seeing what they are. For me, once the creature shows itself, it's begging to be seen and it wants you to get comfortable with it. Not a good way to scare viewers.

I was strongly against this approach until I went back and watching movies that openly flaunted their antagonist. After the first reveal the monster/demon/creature whatever might as well be a kitten with a butter knife.

 

[Mangod]

Unless you've come up with a really clever deconsctruction and/or parody, avoid the slasher genre. It's been done to death, usually with way too little imagination, tainting the entire genre by simple oversaturation of crap. More so than the usual "90% of everything is bollocks".

Also, avoid gore for its own sake. Unless you're making torture porn, gore should be used to horrify; to enhance the threat of whatever spooky thing's going bump in the night. If you're just throwing buckets worth of blood at the screen whenever you feel like there's not enough stuff happening on screen, the audience gets desensitized, and the blood loses its effectiveness as a horror devise.

Also, have you watched The Haunting (1963)? Watch it. It's amazing how creepy that movie gets without ever resorting to a monster, or a human antagonist, or gore, or anything that you expect from a modern horror movie (Though I might be biased; film student and all).

You should start with a half decent story. If your story makes no sense then it can kill the anticipation and dread because your audience won't care what happens to the characters.

... pacing is important, if you just bombard the audience with scares, they aren't going to enjoy the experience as a whole, and just being scary isn't enough. You need to give them a break from scares, to give them more impact when they happen.

This. I cannot emphisize enough how important good pacing is to a story as well. To (miss)quote Jim Sterling on "sad" moments in gaming; if you never show me a character being happy, then I won't care when he's sad. Same thing with horror; you need to show us the characters acting like normal people in normal circumstances, otherwise the monster appearing will just be status quo.

Jaws is an excellent example; normal people acting normally, then a shark shows up, people react like how you would react when there's a maneating shark in the 'hood, and then he pops out. People don't continue running around in hysterics; they calm down, they react like normal people, they behave like you'd expect people to react, and then OMG TEH SHARK RUN PANIC PANIC PANIC WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! Shark stikes again, and the tension mounts because people are being forced into a situation they've never been in before.

 

[Galletea]

You should start with a half decent story. If your story makes no sense then it can kill the anticipation and dread because your audience won't care what happens to the characters.

Not showing the monster/whatever too much is a big one. Mama was pretty good until it showed you what she looked like, and then every other thing she did just made the audience laugh. Especially the wig on the floor scene, that was just silly. Also I liked The Conjuring, but knowing it was based upon reality, the doll they used in the intro was entirely unbelievable, as real dolls are not that scary, so you have to be careful not to go overboard on making things look scary. I did like the films pace, and pacing is important, if you just bombard the audience with scares, they aren't going to enjoy the experience as a whole, and just being scary isn't enough. You need to give them a break from scares, to give them more impact when they happen.

 

[Strazdas]

By not trying. The best horror movies are those that do not try to be horror movies.

 

[Kyrian007]

For references sake the best Horror Movies I've ever seen are...
Session 9
Hellraiser
Jacobs Ladder
The Thing (1982 Edition)
The Night of the Living Dead
28 Days Later
[REC]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Original)
Videodrome
The Ring
The Descent
In The Mouth Of Madness
The Call of Cthulhu (HP Lovecraft Historical Society Silent Film from 2005)

That's a good list. I'd add that action or scifi/horror can be effective horror as well. Pitch Black was decent, even though it brought us Riddick. Event Horizon was better at being "Hellraiser in space" than Hellraiser: Bloodlines... which was ACTUALLY "Hellraiser in space."

Still, maybe it's just the traumatized childhood, but the scariest horror I've ever seen is the made for TV mini Steven King's IT. Something about Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter in clown makeup as the human avatar of a Lovecraftian horror...

Yikes, they all float.

Still, I like Yhatzee's idea for a survival/horror game as a movie as well. A near future game (or movie) on a cruise ship where the main character is blinded (probably by whatever is terrorizing and stranding the ship) but can plug his brain into the security feeds so he can watch himself in static 3rd person (almost like RE:1-2-3) get around the ship and survive.

 

[Carlos Grigg]

while every one's point are wonderfully valid their is one thing that all truly horrifying horror films have.
the fact that the Monster/serial killer/zombie hoard/whatever, could in theory be hunting a killing you. that in itself ties into the whole put your self in the protagonists place, but i don't view that as necessary.

 

[piinyouri]

For me, it's all about atmosphere and what is not shown to the audience.
You get those two going in a nice synergy and the human mind will take over and do the rest.

 

[Bat Vader]

I have always wanted to see a horror movie from the monster or killer's point of view. Especially after the people he/she or it is hunting start to fight back and injure him/her or it.

I gotta admit one thing I hate about most horror movies is that the antagonist is always overpowered or really clever. Just once I want to see the people that are getting hunted have an overpowered or equally clever character that is able to match the monster/killer blow for blow.

I suppose the way I would make a brilliant horror movie is by not showing the monster except for rare scenes where a small part of it can be seen.

 

[floppylobster]

Don't explain shit. As soon as you go into the background details, the who, the where, the why this thing is happening it ain't scary anymore.

 

[Warachia]

This same logic is used by the other Raimi film 'Drag me to Hell' as well as the more recent 'The Conjuring' which is like stepping into a time period where Linda Blair's head doing a 360 was the freakiest fucking thing on the planet.

I don't know about that, "Drag me to hell" completely forgot what horror was, mistaking it for "disgusting". Any time anything possibly scary would happen at all something disgusting would happen like rotten saliva dribbling into the characters open mouth.

I want to know what consequences in a film make people scared, are they afraid that the characters are going to die? Or are they afraid that really horrible things would happen in general?

If there is a monster/demon/creature whatever, never let us see much of it. Not even at the end, imagining a monster is a lot scarier than seeing it, especially when you see what they can do, without seeing what they are. For me, once the creature shows itself, it's begging to be seen and it wants you to get comfortable with it. Not a good way to scare viewers.

I was strongly against this approach until I went back and watching movies that openly flaunted their antagonist. After the first reveal the monster/demon/creature whatever might as well be a kitten with a butter knife.

Watch The Thing (1982), it flaunts its monster constantly but the reason it keeps you on the edge is because it's a shapeshifter, it can take whatever appearance it wants, and it never shows up in the same way twice.
Another thing that really helps in that movie is that the monster is smart, it's only slightly less vulnerable than the people it's hunting (possibly more) and it knows that the people in the movie can and will kill it quickly and easily the instant it gets spotted, so needs to rely entirely on ambushes.
I suppose that's not entirely surprising though, the entire reason the movie even started to get made was because John Carpenter made a bet with somebody that he could make a good horror movie with the monster on full display.

 

[Warachia]

Don't explain shit. As soon as you go into the background details, the who, the where, the why this thing is happening it ain't scary anymore.

I disagree, watch Pitch Black, the reason that works is because they explain what's going to happen and why before it happens, then it turns into the characters just trying to survive.
Spoilers for plot in the movie, what they do and why it works:

Spoiler

They find out that the creatures hunting them are native to the planet they are on, and sunlight hurts them, but an eclipse is coming that will leave them without sunlight (for an entire year I think, impossible to wait it out anyway). Then the eclipse happens, and because they need to get off the planet they need to get to a functional ship (theirs crashed) and get off the planet.

They also explain a great deal about the creatures, they fly, are hurt by light, and cannot see directly in front of them (small blindspot that they have to deal with), but the movie uses all of these to create tense scenes, what's in this black room? This character is caught by a creature and is trying to stay in its blind spot, this character is left without any light source, how are they going to get make it to the ship?

Another reason that it was a good film was described by Yahtzee, Riddick is a killer, and throughout the film you're not sure if he's motivated by compassion, or if he only wants to protect the people he's with just so he can personally kill them later.

 

[Warachia]

I have always wanted to see a horror movie from the monster or killer's point of view. Especially after the people he/she or it is hunting start to fight back and injure him/her or it.

I gotta admit one thing I hate about most horror movies is that the antagonist is always overpowered or really clever. Just once I want to see the people that are getting hunted have an overpowered or equally clever character that is able to match the monster/killer blow for blow.

I suppose the way I would make a brilliant horror movie is by not showing the monster except for rare scenes where a small part of it can be seen.

I've recommended it already, but watch The Thing (1982), there's an argument you could make that you are watching the movie from the monsters view, because the monster is doing it's absolute best to blend in with the people it's hunting, who are also doing their best to hunt it, as soon as they find the monster, they can kill it quite easily with fire, not to mention the main character could be the monster.
It doesn't do well at all in any straight up fights, and it sees and knows pretty much everything the audience sees and knows at that time frame of the movie, it can't prepare for some of the strategies they make because it didn't know some things about itself that they end up exploiting.
Only thing about it is you see the monster the entire movie, which in this case isn't a bad thing, since they remembered that because it's a shapeshifter they can do literally whatever they want, so they never have it appear the same way twice.