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Author: Subject: What Makes a Horror Movie Scary?
scootz

posted on 10/6/12 at 09:20 AM Reply With Quote
What Makes a Horror Movie Scary?

Was having this discussion last night... seems most were terrified by monster / alien gore-fests. For me these type of films have an absurd comedic element (I can still enjoy them... I just don't get frightened by them).

The films that make my heart pump a little faster tends to be the likes of The Shining (a film about a mans decent into madness, but with a little hint of the super-natural).

Which camp are you in?





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gottabedone

posted on 10/6/12 at 09:38 AM Reply With Quote
The zombies in 28 Days and 28 Days later freaked me a bit but then I've got a home cinema and they were behind me .... .oh no they weren't
(oh yes they bloody were!!)

Steve

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theduck

posted on 10/6/12 at 09:57 AM Reply With Quote
For me its the unknown, psychological stuff is far more powerful than visual.

Big scary monsters etc may make me jump but dont truly scare me. Gore doesn't scare me at all though makes me cringe at the thought of it, and I used to avoid anything over the top just through a dislike of it, however I watched saw2 ad as much as I disliked it found it strangely addictive and now want to watch the full series.

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scootz

posted on 10/6/12 at 10:08 AM Reply With Quote
In the right directors hands, the Saw and Hostel movie's could have been VERY good... instead they were just 'meh'!





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snakebelly

posted on 10/6/12 at 10:08 AM Reply With Quote
Blair witch project scared the bejesus out of me and no gore at all that I can remember
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mookaloid

posted on 10/6/12 at 10:09 AM Reply With Quote
I don't know - I don't watch them .....

The thought of them scares me







"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."


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flibble

posted on 10/6/12 at 10:38 AM Reply With Quote
What you don't see on the screen is the make or break of a horror for me, no amount of cgi will fill in for a good imagination. It's the 'not knowing' that makes me walk up the stairs a bit quicker after having flicked the lights off at night after a good horror flick
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tegwin

posted on 10/6/12 at 10:44 AM Reply With Quote
If the horror is believeable... IE 28 days later then it can actually be quite disturbing.... If you are watching a scary movie where the monester is so unbelieveable..... well there is no hope..


If you want a proper horror movie.. you should watch Troll Hunters... its in norwegian with subtitles but its hillarious!





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steve m

posted on 10/6/12 at 11:30 AM Reply With Quote
Im with Mookaloid on this

Excosist (spelling) payed havoc with my head, when she spins her head round

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Slimy38

posted on 10/6/12 at 11:56 AM Reply With Quote
I don't think I've had a proper scare for a very long time. It is usually the 'what is not on the screen' ones that have the most impact on me, so paranormal activity scores very high for me.

One thing that did stick out as an interesting idea was 28 days later. Not necessarily the story, or the zombie concept, but more the fact that they weren't portrayed as wobbly slow moving things. Having a zombie that actually moves faster than the target was a real 'ooh, thats new' moment.

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A1

posted on 10/6/12 at 12:13 PM Reply With Quote
I find most horror films now boring, cause you can tell by the music when somethings going to jump out, oh and surprise surprise its the friend...
One that I like thats quite psychological, and is filmed really well, gets the perfect atmosphere and messes with your head is house of 1000 corpses... the sequel (devil rejects) aint so good, but aint bad...
Gore fests like saw just have comedic value cause its so stupid
oh, if you want another good un, check out I spit on your grave...

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bi22le

posted on 10/6/12 at 12:28 PM Reply With Quote
Its always the anticipation that gets me.

I Dont watch tge though as tge characters are always idiots. "lets go in that big house where the murder lives and we heard scream"

Why not just go to the park and play football?!?





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Irony

posted on 10/6/12 at 12:35 PM Reply With Quote
What truly scares me is my own imagination. In my opinion great scary movies use this to its full advantage. It's just the unknown. For me M Night Sharmalammamamanana (silly spelling) 'SIGNS' with Mel Gibson was very frightening. Blair Witch scared me as well. Gore fest slasher movies that make you jump......... well I just don't bother.

For me I think the scariest movie use the watchers imagination and then if the directors uses something truly horrifying as the subject matter then you have a proper scary movie. This is one reason I believe Alien and Aliens were very scary movies..... That bit in Aliens where Ripley and Newt are trapped in a room with a face hugger..... Or the bit at the end of Aliens when the second elevator opens.......shudder

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morcus

posted on 10/6/12 at 02:34 PM Reply With Quote
I'd be mostly in the off screen camp but the thing that makes things scariest is how possible it seems. Something totally unbelieveable isn't going to have the same effect as a film about something you remember happening.

The other thing though is films that are just really weird to the point that they unnerve.





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Dave Ashurst

posted on 10/6/12 at 06:54 PM Reply With Quote
Not a horror movie, but related.... Why was this so disturbing for these people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_M7J7hoLzY

(little girl scares hotel guests)

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Peteff

posted on 10/6/12 at 07:48 PM Reply With Quote
Some of the X files made me twitch, I don't really watch horror films any more since the Hammer films stopped being made.





yours, Pete

I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.

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Jasper

posted on 11/6/12 at 02:25 PM Reply With Quote
Asian horror films really get me, especially the original Dark Water - ghost stories really - and the 1st remake of the Grudge with Sarah Michell Geller, Audition, Premonition etc etc.

I think they work so well because they have a much lower budget than the usual Hollywood fair, and they have a big history of ghost stories.

Check some of these out:

http://www.asian-horror-movies.com/

And they do some truly twisted films too, my favourite being Old Boy, an amazing movie with an awesome story line:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/

My favourite western films like others have said have been 28 Days and Weeks Later - properly scary .....





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shaft

posted on 11/6/12 at 03:06 PM Reply With Quote
I agree with the OP. The OTT horror movies i find comical and tend not to bother watching them.

I do find a film rather scary if i can relate to it being actually possible in real life.

Hostel for example, that's a film that could well be based on true.

Not quite a horror, but a film i found disturbing for the same reasons as above was
Misery.... Imagine being held by a psycho in the middle of no where? And when she smashed his
ankles with a sledge hammer! Now that's worrying!





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flibble

posted on 11/6/12 at 03:54 PM Reply With Quote
+1 to everything Jasper said, the japanese have a good hold on horror.
Old boy might not be scary but oh my is it twisted!

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locogeoff

posted on 11/6/12 at 09:17 PM Reply With Quote
I'd agree that "The Shining" is proper scary, i puts the shitters up e from the first scene to the closing credits, of the Alien films the first is just a scary monster film for me but the second hits a fear note somehow, especially when the marines first get their buts handed to them, I think it's the panic that gets to me. The first time I saw it I must have been really engrossed in it as when Ripley opens the door and she's in the the loader machine thing I let out an uncharacteristic cheer knowing she had a chance against the alien thing.

This probably says a lot about my psyche.

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TheGecko

posted on 13/6/12 at 11:42 AM Reply With Quote
I don't know about "The Shining" - this trailer makes it look OK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6TjRR-0DQ






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craig1410

posted on 13/6/12 at 12:59 PM Reply With Quote
Yeah the more realistic the better if you want to scare me. I need to be able to imagine myself in that situation and not see an obvious way out of it.

Something like Open Water where the divers were left behind and slowly nibbled at by sharks then eaten. That certainly raised the hairs on my neck! There is something about being a rational, intelligent person and yet being powerless to save your own life and that of your partner.

Other films which tend to raise my pulse a little bit are things like Event Horizon which has a nightmare-like quality to the horror. This isn't "realistic" in the same way a Open Water but it does feel familiar to anyone who has had nightmares in the past.

Lastly, but most frightening for me is any film which portrays the loss of a close family member, especially a child. Depending on the actors/actresses being convincing, this is one of the few things which can really unsettle me. I suspect for any parent, the loss of a child is the worst horror imaginable.

Combining zombies with my last paragraph brings me in mind of the Cinematic Trailer for Dead Island on XBox. I really found it quite harrowing, especially some of the facial expressions between the father and daughter. Here is a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AAtOEyb3g

Craig.

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A1

posted on 13/6/12 at 01:04 PM Reply With Quote
What about that one...its set down south about a couple who go camping and come across a group of chav scum, the dog accidentally gets killed and they end up killing the guy, she survives and goes to get help in a village, then meets the parents... I dont like that one cause it could totally happen...
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