I am soliciting dopers here and now to share their opinion on the genre.
What are some things that you like to see in horror movies? Things you don’t like.
If it’s something you like or don’t like please cite a movie that uses it.
Name a horror movie that you really like and why.
Unless the kid is the killer, I don’t want to see a kid (or a family pet) in a film. After all, no matter how much danger he is in, the film-maker will not have an animal, (or a kid) die, so I know how all the scenes where the kid is threatened will turn out.
I like real suspense. If there’s a monster, don’t show it all right away. To be really scared, you have to know that whatever the creature does is truly horrific, but one, or possibly two, good scares and after that you don’t need much gore. Give a quick “Grrrr!” as the creature confronts someone, then cut away. What your imagination then invents is infinitely worse than anything that might be shown on screen.
It helps to have a decent plot and actors too, of course, and a little humor.
The two Alien movies(III and IV never actually got off the drawing boards, IMHO), are good examples. In #1 John Hurt gets offed in the famous chest bursting scene, but after that, until nearly the end, there’s very little blood. In #2, you already know what’s going on, but when the Marines are munched, it’s so fast and dark your eyes can’t follow, but your brain creates all these Godawful images. And when the one female pilot is bringing the shuttle down, she has just enough time to look over her shoulder and see the alien. There’s a cut away and you see only a few drops of blood spray across the control panel. Not even a scream. Urk!
In Jaws you didn’t even see the shark until about a third of the way through the movie. And to me, one of the scariest scenes is one in which nobody is hurt, and you never see the shark. That’s the one where the guys go “fishing” for the shark with the roast, which is hooked to a big chain. Shark takes the bait and the dock the guys are standing on goes out to sea. Then it slows down, and slooowly turns around and heads back for shore, while the two doofuses are scrambling to get on land.
In the remake of The Blob it got a kid. Pretty grotty too. But I agree, that for the most part having a child in jeopardy is not suspenseful…
I’d like to see the geek get the girl.
[dies horribly]
The Blob remake is surpisingly good. Not only does it have the kid get it but the heroic jock who is established as one of the leads… gets it as well after 20 minutes in. So the preppy girl and the greaser kid become the heroes.
So if a kid were to actually get killed in a horror movie would the kid’s presence then be okay?
No more teenagers as protagonists. That’s very, very tired. Yeah, I know it’s to market to teens. I’d still rather have adult characters.
I’m all about psychological terror. Give me “Night of the Hunter” any day. I think “The Shining” is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The way the tension builds, with surprisingly little blood, is perfect.
Less gore, more psychological horror. Freak me out, give me bad dreams, but **stop ** with the gallons of blood and stuff all over the walls. Probably why I read a great deal more horror than I’d ever watch.
Of course this all goes out the window if you’re talking about Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2. Sam Ash*! swoon
I have Bruce Campbell’s autograph on his book! On his autobiography! I met him! He’s cute.
But it’s so much fun to watch them die! 
I love conspiracy, “is it me or is it them?”, intelligence, atmosphere and the sense of horror in everyday surroundings. While it’s extremely dated (and everybody on Earth knows its twist ending), I love the movie Rosemary’s Baby because it had these things.
I also loved Blair Witch, though many didn’t. The horror was all psychological (there was no gratuitous gore or even nudity), there was a sense of realism and of the “horror in everyday surroundings”, people (as in Rosemary’s Baby) coming to find that there really are things that go bump in the night- they’re just sort of simmering out of sight, and a sense of history (also as in Rosemary’s Baby).
And lots of hot 18-26 year old frat-boy nudity.
Horror movies I can’t stand: slasher flicks (with the exception of Scream 1 and Halloween 1).
I also loved The Others. There should always be some revelation at the end- it doesn’t have to be a Sixth Sense type twist, but something should be found out that makes other parts of the movie make more sense. Working in of the primeval horrors (lost in the forest, witches, ghosts, etc.) with the modern ones (homelessness, downsizing, Mad Cow Disease, etc.) also cool.
If I were writing a horror screenplay, I would:
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First establish my characters and their relationships.
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Roll dice to decide which of them die. No sparing (nor killing) this or that one just because he/she is the most important or sympathetic (or odious) character. That’s how it would work out if a serial killer or other threat appeared IRL, isn’t it?
I love psychological horror. The original Manchurian Candidate (1962) is one of my favorite movies for this reason. Awesome movie. I’m not sure if it counts as horror, thriller, drama, or war movie, but I LOVE IT.
I love dreamy, nightmare-like horror. I love Ringu, The Ring, A Tale of Two Sisters, Jacob’s Ladder etc. I like that disjointed feeling. Japanese horror is GREAT for it.
I DO NOT LIKE realistic puke in movies. It’s one thing to have a character go Bleagh! offscreen, but to show puking in all its realistic glory is too much for me. I can’t watch it. One of the Wishmaster movies has one of the worst puke scenes I’ve ever witnessed, and although I love it, I have to fast forward through that scene in The Witches of Eastwick.
I’d like to see more kids killed in horror movies. I know, that sounds bad. But I think it would really throw the audience off. They’d be sitting there, “knowing” the kid was safe, only to get a nasty shock.
By the way, for anyone who’s read Stephen King’s Desperation, he says on his Web site that he’s seen the “director’s” cut of the TV movie and he says that it’s very graphic and frightening (although he imagines it’ll be toned down a bit before it’s broadcast). That makes me wonder if they’ve left in the murder of the little girl which happens toward the beginning of the book.
Really? I’d reckon a few hundred gallons of the stuff got out of that elevator (but I get what you mean).
As long as they don’t leave in all that
[spoiler]yeast infection stuff. Egads.
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I want my horrors (and I’ve seen a lot) to have interesting characters, killers with motives, fer chrissakes, and humour (though it need not be self-referential).
I could really do without excessive, gratuitous female nudity and characters who’ve only been hired to take their tops off. I also don’t care for Psycho-style epilogues.
I want to see gratuitous, excessive female nudity. I don’t want to see gratuitous, excessive male nudity.
I second nudity. And I’m serious. Of the gratuitous, and non-gratuitous varieties.
I watch horror films to appeal to my baser instincts. I like watching a girl get into a bathtub because sometimes I get a boner when I see young, wet, naked women AND, if done right, there is a totally increased level of vulnerability to the victim when she’s being chased nude.
I want to see beautiful (preferably scantily clad0 teenaghes get hunted down one by one. Preferably, it is some crazed maniac with an axe.
What, you say this has already been done? But who wants to see UGLY teens murdered by axe-wielding psychopaths?