Is it possible to create a horror movie too scary to be commercially viable?

[veryfrank]

@Dung_Beetle

Although I enjoy horror, I would hardly describe my reaction to most of it as “being scared”.

This x100. I literally have an entire bluray rack devoted to the genre, and yet there’s nothing that “scares” me on it. There are some that creeped me out on first viewing: Ju-On and Insidious spring to mind. But I’ve watched them again since and I spot how the tricks work.

The ones that got under my skin and made a lasting impression have tended to be more disturbing than frightening. Though Buddha knows, were I one of the kids in Salò, my life would be one full of terror. I haven’t seen Irreversible yet, but I have watched A Serbian Film a couple of times. And one can debate the commercial viability of those films but considering they’d likely play (if at all) only in arthouse cinemas here, that may be a moot point.

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

The Exorcist didn’t really scare me — I was more horrified by the blasphemies. The original Dawn of the Dead, however, kept me awake for two days straight and gave me nightmares for another couple days — and I loved the feeling. I assume it’s the same feeling the roller coaster crowd experience.

[mbh]

In my opinon, you don’t make a film commercially unviable by scaring people. You make it unviable by offending them.

There is a grand tradition of blood and gore in horror movies. The traditional name for it is Grand Guignol. But people who don’t like it call it torture porn, and turn up their noses at it, not out of fear, but out of disgust.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Shalmanese

I am asking for a movie that is sufficiently well done in all other dimensions that it would be commercially viable except for that it is “too scary”

No, because there is no such thing as a film that is universally “too scary.”

You can have the morons in grr’s post who think movies are real and will be scared by anything all the way to people who don’t find anything in films scary. And what one person thinks is terrifying someone else will think is lame and boring.

Some people honestly claimed to be scared by last years film Skinamarink, which was literally nothing but fuzzy shots of ceilings and door frames and was one of the most pointless excuses for a film I’ve ever seen.

[FlikTheBlue]

@HMS_Irruncible

Going with the hot-pepper analogy, there is a market for these thrill-seekers. People intentionally seek out the “Ghost Pepper” experience to test their limits as a hobby. So it seems likely that we the horror film market should have/already has seen attempts at this. i.e. why do we think someone hasn’t already tried to serve this audience?

I think the answer is that they do their best. Horror filmmakers are always trying to make the “Ghost Chili” of horror films. But most of that terror depends on (a) unfamiliarity and (b) cultural context.

(side note, I wanted to go with “Carolina Reaper” above instead of “Ghost Chile” but the analogy here is so apt that the former might be confused with a horror theme)

The strange thing about horror movies is that sometimes less is more, especially with slasher movies. Take the Friday the 13th movies as an example. IMHO the first three movies are scarier than some of the later ones, like A New Blood and Jason In Space. Sure, the latter are more gory, but they’re so over the top that they become less scary. Going even further, like the Hatchet series of movies (the guy who gets disemboweled, strangled with his own small intestine while still alive, then gets his head popped off by said intestines leading to a gush of blood from the stump of his neck is the most over the top one I can think of), only makes them even less scary. The same thing goes for Halloween and A Nightmare On Elm Street.

[Sitnam]

Audition (1999) (maybe not the most terrifying, but gun to my head this morning that’s what I’ll go with)

People should preface their opinions, whatever they are, with the scariest film they have ever seen.

Both as added value for good recommendations and so I can pass judgment all before I hear the rest of your thoughts on the matter.

That is all.

[Sitnam]

Takis are revolting, but they are also way too spicy and way too popular.

Takis contradict the OPs theory.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

Torture porn was mentioned. Now, I find imaginative dismemberment fascinating and creepy, but I also find it manipulative and disgusting. What I don’t find it, is “scary”.

But, the DVD of The Ring had as a bonus feature the complete “video tape” sequence. I didn’t, wouldn’t, watch it. Too creepy. Best not take chances.

The civilized part of my brain thinks ghosts and horror are bunkum, but the animal part wants to believe. So much that when I drive in farmland at night, I avoid looking in abandoned farmhouses, lest I see a light. Better to not see it, than to see it and wonder.

[Akaj]

For me, reality is scarier than anything directors can dream up. For instance, when Nope started to drop references to an incident involving a child actor and a chimpanzee, I knew something terrifying was coming up because I’ve read about the horrific real-life incidents involving pet chimps and I never, ever wanted to see anything like that with my own eyes. The actual scene (once the film got around to it) was more suggestive than gory, and wasn’t actually as terrifying as the anticipation.

My answer to the OP’s question is no. If word got around that an upcoming movie might be too scary to release, the buzz (assuming it was a well-made movie) would drive lots of people to take that dare and go see it.

[Miller]

“Commercially viable” is a pretty relative term. The Saw movies made a ton of money, but they cost almost nothing to produce - they wouldn’t be commercially viable if they cost $400 million to make, but did really well with a ~1 million dollar budget. Horror movies are usually a niche product, and there’s probably a rough graph you can make that correlates how “scary” a movie is versus how much revenue it can be expected to earn, but I don’t think there’s a point where a movie is so scary it’s unviable at any price point. Assuming you can do it on a small enough budget, there’s going to be an audience for it out there somewhere.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Body Horror works.
And has it’s limits.

[Rilchiam]

Posting without reading, because I notice no one has mentioned Silent Night, Deadly Night. It was in theaters for one week (late 1984), and did not go straight to video, since home video was in its infancy. Over time, after it did get on laserdisc and VHS, it developed somewhat of a cult following, with a series of sequels (in name only), but I still wouldn’t put it on par with Texas Chainsaw Massacre as far as return on investment.

Point is, at the time, critics were aghast. Siskel and Ebert denounced it* on their show. Teenagers, as I was at the time, got mad cred if they had seen it during that brief window. I have never seen it, so I can’t address the violence/scariness/gore, by itself or vis-a-vis Friday the 13th and Elm Street. I do remember the gist of the outrage being that a killer Santa was just going way. too. far. Killer clowns, sure, but a killer Santa was un-American! Also, the Wiki article tells me that the movie doesn’t give the Catholic Church a great character**, so that was also a factor.

I think I can see a subconscious trigger, too. Jason wears a hockey mask; Michael Myers wears a blank-face mask. Freddy is burned, and a clown is wearing full-face makeup. So the victims don’t really see their killer. But Santa is a familiar face, smiling and grandfatherly. He’s safe, even to adults. Seeing Santa snarling instead of smiling, just before he horribly murders someone…well, that hits the audience too much where they live.

*Yeah, they also denounced the first Police Academy movie, and look how many sequels and $$$ that engendered.

**Remember the Satanic Panic? Remember how a lot of the signs that Your Teenager May Be Possessed were also signs of depression, or ADD/ADHD, or just signs of being a teenager? And so many parents chose to keep Satan at bay by pushing their kids into church activities. I wonder how many of those children were “helped” right into the hands of a predator.

[Sitnam]

Capsaicin is a chemical that burns, I can always add enough to any food to make it physically inedible.

In contrast fear is internal, film only excites an emotion you have but it has to come from your personal vault of horror. That’s what trigger warnings are all about. Rape is horrific, but since I’ve never been raped the fear I get from seeing it is capped at what I can feel through empathy. For a victim of rape, watching even portrayed rape on film understandably resembles PTSD for vets.

Jump scares are external, but the more you do it the less effective it is. It’s also a stretch to call that ‘horror’, in the same vein that your older brother making you flinch doesn’t mean you are afraid of him.

[veryfrank]

@Miller

The Saw movies made a ton of money, but they cost almost nothing to produce - they wouldn’t be commercially viable if they cost $400 million to make, but did really well with a ~1 million dollar budget.

This is the only reason Paramount churned out Friday the 13th movies pretty much annually throughout the 80s. With a built-in audience, they were pretty much guaranteed a $20 gross off of a couple million budget, I think the studio ultimately got pretty embarrassed by it, and when Jason Takes Manhattan continued a downward slide in box office, they happily sold it off to New Line.

[Saint_Cad]

@HMS_Irruncible

I wanted to go with “Carolina Reaper” above instead of “Ghost Chile” but the analogy here is so apt that the former might be confused with a horror theme

I claim dibs on the concept of a killer called the Carolina Reaper that kills his victims (across N & S Carolina) by making them eat hotter and hotter peppers until they die of capsaicin poisoning. Here’s the twist. The killer’s real name is Scoville.

[LSLGuy]

As long as he finishes the victims with a scythe I’d be an early investor.

[SuntanLotion]

I think Helter Skelter was scary precisely because it really happened, it wasn’t our imagination.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@FlikTheBlue

The strange thing about horror movies is that sometimes less is more, especially with slasher movies. Take the Friday the 13th movies as an example.

The examples here are endless. As you said the first Nightmare on Elm Street was a classic of the “don’t show the monster” genre. Unfortunately the sequels showed the monster so much that it was diluted to the point of campy parody.

Another dimension I appreciate is what I call “did I really see that”. Again in Nightmare on Elm Street there’s a scene where Freddy is walking down the street, in shadow, and his arms seem to reach the entire width of the street. It was a quick shot, but I found myself confused - did I see what I saw? Was it shadows? Was it the character’s distorted dream perspective? Are the long arms a superpower of his?

I’m not sure if that was ever adequately explained. I think it’s better that it wasn’t. It was just an element than enhanced the whole “am I going nuts” aspect of the thing, bringing the viewer into that blurred boundary between reality and unreality.

[Knowed_Out]

There’s one element that contributes to the effectiveness of horror movies, and that’s the Obnoxious Expositor. This person will approach the main character and warn them something bad’s about to happen, but they will be regarded as a kook and dismissed, because they are so obnoxious.

Usually, the main character will be going about a normal daily routine, then the Obnoxious Expositor will turn everything upside down and make the experience uncomfortable for the viewer. For example, in The Omen, Father Brennan approaches Robert Thorn and abruptly tells him his son is the devil. OK, so the priest could have started his pitch with a little more tact, but chooses instead to go in Thorn’s face. Being the ever polite Englishman, Thorn responds noncommittally and hopes this insane person will go away, but it doesn’t happen. The Obnoxious Expositor continues to badger the main character until he meets a fatal accident, bringing relief to the viewer that this butthole won’t be around the rest of the movie. But then the main character starts to realize something’s wrong and things gets steadily worse.

So there’s craft in setting the viewer up for the scary monster, instead of just immediately throwing gross and gory crap in the audience’s face. It’s the anticipation and buildup that scares the most effectively, not just the scary monster.

[simster]

@Akaj

My answer to the OP’s question is no. If word got around that an upcoming movie might be too scary to release, the buzz (assuming it was a well-made movie) would drive lots of people to take that dare and go see it.

I remember such a buzz about Hellraiser