Elements of a Horror that Make a Film Scary...Part 2

    I decided that I should probably investigate a couple more elements to see if I could incorporate it into my film. I figured that the more elements that are added onto my film, the better chances I'll have of scaring my audience AKA Cambridge, and then that will hopefully increase my score for the final project.

Dismemberment

    People fear being dismembered because losing an arm or a leg, for example, is essentially losing a part of yourself as a person. Not only that, but just the thought and pain that occurs when losing a physical body part is enough to make a few pass out in horror. This is one reason why the Saw franchise is so popular among horror fanatics. In the movies, the only way to escape the traps set up by the sick genius known as John Kramer, or simply Jigsaw, is to cut a part of your body, or the traps will do it for you, except death is guaranteed. 

Saw III (2006)

Suspense

    You might be annoyed with the amount of times that I've mentioned suspense within my blog. But, it plays such a huge role in horrors that it needs to be mentioned often so that I do not forget to include it within my piece. Suspense is a most for horrors because it makes the audience anticipate ahead of time that something terrible will take place, but they do not know when. Sometimes, suspense is used in a horror in such a shocking way, such as the main character getting killed in the end, for example, that the audience is still surprised by the events that took place.

Us (2019)

Creepy Music (Score)

    You can't have a scary movie without the music in the background that helps make everything scarier and more suspenseful. That's what music in horror generally does; it creates moods and emotion. Music in horror can be creepy to frighten the audience, or it can be used to flow along with the actions of a character. For example, an eerie sound can play as someone slowly approaches a dark closet; as they get closer to the closet, that eerie music gets stronger until it is blaring at full volume. In this case, the music is meant to make us feel tense because we know something scary is about to occur, and shocked once it finally does happen.

Psycho (1960)

Lightning and Thunder

    Children are generally afraid of what they do not know. When we first see lightning or hear thunder, we have no clue what we witnessed. I remember when I saw lightning for the first time; I really thought the world was ending. And then the deafening sound that came afterword shook both me and the earth below me. As stated previously, fears we have during childhood may go away when we become adults, but that feeling will come back if horror movies utilize it correctly. The flash of light that goes off before hearing a sort of "CRACK!" pierces the skies. The quick flash and loud sound that it creates make the audience startled and raises their blood pressure. Although it rarely happens, lightning is capable of striking down on someone and ending their life, which is another factor of where most of that fear derives from.

Fear of the Unusual

    Lastly, similar to the idea of being afraid of disfigurement, people are also scared of what we perceive as different or unusual. Some horror movies use this technique to make an everyday item such as a doll into a terrifying source of evil. By taking something not considered scary and making it into something out of our nightmares, it becomes unusual to us and therefore scary.

Anabelle: Creation (2017)

    I definitely will use some of these things for my horror movie opening. I could give my villain a doll that he carries around, and seeing that would make the audience scared and confused; however, that also means having them try to fit into that role. Also, because we live in Florida, I feel it can be relatively easy to incorporate the sound of thunder and lightning into my opening. If I get lucky enough, the weather will begin to start lightning while I'm filming, so I can simply add that to the piece. Furthermore, I am also planning on finding some sort of suspenseful music to make certain scenes stand out more. For example, towards the end, I plan on having one character be on the floor, when suddenly they are dragged out of the screen while screaming. The minute they start moving out of frame, I could add some sort of screeching violins like they did in Psycho in the hopes that it enhances the scare factor I am trying to go for.