Which of these horror film ideas do you think are the best or have the most potential?
Which of these would you see if they were actual films?
I can elaborate on any of them if necessary.
1: A highly advanced sadistic alien forces a group of young people to fight to the death for his amusement in a high tech death maze.
2: A mass breakout occurs at a mental hospital and a motley crew of deranged and violent patients head to a nearby circus on the same night that it’s being visited by a high school field trip.
3: An assortment of monsters and villains summoned by magic attack a grocery store.
4: A group of psychopaths play a game called Devil’s Delight where they compete to see who can get the most points committing increasingly evil and depraved acts.
5: An injured supervillain on the run befriends a bullied child and gets revenge on his tormentors.
6: 15% of the world’s population turns into bloodlusted maniacs that retain their intelligence and want to kill everyone not like them.
7: A lonely, angry and miserable young man struggles to keep his psychopathic superhuman alter ego dormant as he begs to be set free in the real world.
8: An amateur serial killer partners up with an legendary killer who mentors him on the ins and outs of serial murder.
9: A twisted circus devoted to depravity and carnage created by beings from another universe appears in a city.
IMO the best horror creates a few interesting characters first and then layers on the horror. Rooting for or rooting against the characters makes the horror more visceral.
I’d watch these, but the idea doesn’t sound all that new or interesting.
If this was a comedy like Army of Darkness it could be good.
Out of all of these this one seems to be the most interesting. There was a movie similar to this that I can’t remember the name of where people were given money to do things and they got worse and worse as time went on. I think there might have been a threat of if they didn’t do it something would happen to a loved one.
Eh, I could take or leave it.
How would this one work? Would it be a mass type kill thing like zombies, or would it be people hunting others down? I think it would be far more interesting to see where these people ‘hunt’ for people and occasionally go nuts killing lots of people. Something along the lines of Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer would be interesting.
Sounds like the back story to Homelander from The Boys, which could be interesting.
There is one like this called Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon that’s actually quite good.
As someone else said there already is a movie like this.
There are a few very similar movies to this already out there, with the only difference being. that. instead of an advanced alien, the sadist is a group of depraved humans. The Saw movies fit this definition. So do the Escape Room movies.
#2 might be fun if even more cliches were added, a sort of battle royale of horror villains battling it out amongst themselves (so not like Cabin in the Woods).
#4 could indeed be very effective, depending on the kind of acts, how they are chosen, the framework of the story. Now I think of it, there was a 90s horror where a kid played a video game where the murders turned out to happen in real life, and he had to continue killing.
#5 this may work as well.
#8 could work also as a comedic horror (imagine a training montage for serial killing, noob mistakes…).
The others seem too close to what is already available.
Except in my idea the beings from another universe are humans from an evil civilization and actually invite people to attend their macabre circus unlike the aliens in Killer Klowns. They use kidnapped people in their depraved performances with the violence being passed off by the ignorant audience as simply good special effects before mayhem ensues and the villains begin killing the crowd en masse.
I’m sure if you search through the ocean of popular and obscure media created you could find similarities but the same goes for basically every show, film, comic book etc. As an avid horror and pop culture fan I recognize some of the connections that could be tangentially made (the circus villains are similar to the Cenobites in Hellraiser for example) and I did take inspiration from elsewhere but overall they’re unique ideas or at least unique spins of old premises. I wouldn’t bother to post ideas that I know for sure have already been done before with no room for improvement or variation. It’s exactly why in the OP I added that I could elaborate on any of the ideas if needed.
True, a new spin on an old idea may lead to a great movie. I like the ideas you outlined and think they may turn out well. I do believe some have more potential than others.