Scary movie sidebar

[ProdigalHorn]

The other thread got me thinking. What pushes your buttons? What subject matter is it that makes a scary movie for you - this obviously is going to be different for a lot of people.

For me, for a "monster" to be truly scary, there has to be some ground in reality. A movie is a lot more scary to me when it's a guy who THINKS he's a demon, or is trying to do something demonic, as opposed to the guy who actually strips his skin away and presto, he's an actual demon. (Alien is a good exception to this.)

Motive is nice, but overrated. One of the things that made Heath Ledger's Joker was that they didn't try to rationalize or justify what he was doing, or explain his motive. He did what he did because he was evil, or pathological or whatever.

Jaws was scary because you felt like you could be in that situation. Jaws 4 was ridiculous because you've got a shark chasing people from island to island and they never think to move... oh, I don't know... five miles inland?

Psycho was scary largely because the victims weren't just there to be served up as victims. It was as if the plot of the story was interrupted by an intruder that disrupted the order of things. That as opposed to "hey let's go spend the weekend at that old abandoned camp!"

Suspense and tension wins out over gore - definitely not a fan of the "torture porn" genre.

 

[Third Coast]

For me it's definitely edge of the seat suspense. Like walking down a darkened corridor and the anticipation of something jumping out at you.

 

[RomaVicta]

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[waazel]

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[RomaVicta]

The Strangers crossed my mind, too. One of the interesting twists was...



*******SPOILER************



















...as the movie wore on, I began to wonder if the couple in the house were actually going to be killed. The strangers seemed pretty content to control and manipulate them and their mistaken shooting of a friend explains all the blood at the beginning. Just when they give me hope, they take it away. Pretty clever.

 

[accuratehorn]

Really, it is the same with all movies. You want to be entertained, and you want to buy into the premise. It has to be plausible enough in the world they create for you to buy into the idea. Jaws could easily happen almost just that way, and that made it very scary. Alien is set in the future, but the world they create is very believable, maybe it's the consistency of the rules they make for the make-believe situation, and the conviction of the actors, the realism of the villians.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

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[AustinTejasFan]

"you've got a shark chasing people from island to island and they never think to move... oh, I don't know... five miles inland?"

Really?

 

[Bluepies]

For me, a chainsaw-wielding maniac isn't scary. I just figure there's a pretty good chance I could outrun him, or if he gets too close, just kick him in the nuts. The supernatural is a lot more scary because you don't know what they're capable of, and in all likelihood, you're overmatched.

In general, not knowing is what makes it scary. Not knowing who the killer is, why people are dying, what to run from, and what it can do. "The Shining" was a lot scarier in the middle than in the end. In the middle of the movie, you don't know what's going on or what's going to happen, don't know what to do, and you feel like something could come out and kill you at any minute. At the end, you only have to outrun the guy with the axe. OK, so run. Problem solved. Not that scary.