what makes a horror movie good

hii!! Before you read this essay keep in mind, this is a solely opinionated piece. It's 100% fine if you disagree, this is not fact it's subjective. With that in mind, please enjoy and respond with your thoughts. 

The horror genre has been around for hundreds, possibly even thousands of years. Folk stories of monsters and demons terrorizing the mortal plane is not a new concept. However the film by Georges Méliès, "Le Manoir du Diable" or "The House of Evil" (1896) is widely believed to be the first horror movie. It is silent, 3 minutes long, and is just a pantomimed sketch of different ghouls and phantoms. But the human fascination with evil has been around way longer than the mid 1890s, dating all the way back to the stone age. 

There are 4 main subgenres of horror: Killers (slashers), Monsters, Paranormal, and Psychological. But I believe Stephen King puts it best in his explanation of the different types, "The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there..." 

Horror movies have been an iconic part of everyone's childhoods, whether you enjoy them or not. Maybe it was something amusing like Child's Play (1988) or maybe something more psychologically disturbing like The Shining (1980). Regardless, these iconic films hold a special place in a lot of our hearts.

But what makes a horror movie good? I mean anyone can make a horror movie but that doesn't mean it's good just for being a part of the same genre. So I'm going to break this report into different pieces of what I think make a good horror movie (a lot of these also apply to just movies in general).

Building suspense:

It's common for a lot of newer age horror movies to riddle their movies with constant jumpscares. But the truth is, a good movie needs to plant the seeds earlier into the movie and build up the tension as the film goes on. It makes the jumpscare/reveal significantly more terrifying.

Famous horror director Alfred Hitchcock when asked the difference between surprise and suspense he said, "surprise is when two people are sitting in a coffee shop and a bomb goes off under the table; suspense is when we see a man place a bomb under the table and watch the two people meet to have coffee." It's that knowing something bad is going to happen and that helplessness that a lot of audiences enjoy.

A movie I think does this really well is The Ring (2002) directed by Gore Verbinski. In the beginning of the movie we see a video tape of disturbing but seemingly random images. As the movie goes on, the story slowly starts to blossom and reveal the meaning of the different out of order clips. The mystery is fascinating and has a chokehold on the audience's attention while also creeping everyone the hell out. The reveal and jumpscare is significantly more scary than the one in the beginning of the movie because it has a lot of context and build up. 

The movie is patient to ease you in but isn't drawn out and boring. The scenes all have purpose, not just pointless filler. 

When a horror movie tries to shove the horror down your throat from the beginning, we become desensitized and the movie becomes progressively more and more boring. Alternatively, drawing out the movie is frustrating and the audience attention starts to wander. When setting up the story, it's important to give us a general foundation of the characters and/or the rules of the universe they live in.  We can show more about the character's personality without dedicating entire pointless scenes. You can show a character's personality while also progressing the plot, pointless filler that doesn't serve a purpose other than time is a big no-no.

It's okay to let your audience breathe. This can be done through establishing shots. Establishing shots serve 2 purposes: they allow breakage in the plot and they help establish where the story takes place. It isn't pointless but it isn't a ton of overwhelming information.  

music

The use of music, in any film, is vital. Obviously we all know of iconic eerie melodies in horror movies and stingers. But what a lot of lower rated movies fail to do is utilize sound. More of, the lack of sound. 

Lack of music and sound usually indicates something is going to happen, that moment you hold your breath because it's uncomfortably quiet. You start to miss the unusual piano melody riddled throughout the film and you know something is about to happen. And maybe it does or maybe it doesn't, but it does a good job of making the viewer uncomfortable. 

In my Analog Horror essay, I briefly go through this concept of utilizing sound and silence. Silence should mean something. Again, it shouldn't be pointless. Music is there to help set the mood of the scene, when there isn't any music it should be uncomfortable. However, you shouldn't not use music throughout the entire movie to attempt to create an uncomfortable atmosphere. Because you need the first part; you need sound to have the effect work. If it doesn't have sound at all it's just boring.

Show not tell

This is generally good advice for all writing, but particularly horror. We don't need a constant of the characters talking, we need to see the action and see the expression. This is where good directing comes heavily into play: what the director chooses to frame, their angle, the music, the lighting, facial expression, body language, etc. These elements are important throughout the whole movie, but it's also a good way to show what the character is feeling without deliberately saying it.

My favorite quote when it comes to writing has to come from Russian playwriter Anton Chekhov, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." what he's saying is that instead of constantly stating what's happening, it's better to paint a picture for the audience to see for themselves. 

Final thoughts/conclusion 

Coming up with opinions on this topic is quite difficult. Mostly because, it's nearly impossible to write a perfect horror movie. I mean, no movie is perfect, but especially horror. I think it's not because nobody has mastered it yet, I think it's because you can't master it. Everyone is scared of different things, you can't scare everyone. Even if you have the best story, amazing directing, great casting; it's impossible to effectively scare everyone in the audience. 

I think everyone has these theories of what makes a good horror movie, but the genre is too broad and it's very difficult to create something joltingly scary without relying on jumpscares. Even the best of the best authors such as Stephen King fail to scare me personally. I enjoyed The Shining and Carrie but all his others I never really cared for, and even in those films I had flaws to pick out. I know no movie is perfect, however, I think horror has the most kinks in its writing then any other genre (well.... i might have an essay on romance...). I think a lot of my criticism is general advice for all writing because I believe the story is the most important part of the movie. I think what makes a good horror good is thought provoking concepts and moral or ethical dilemmas. But then again, that can be applied to any film.

The truth is I don't think my opinions are fact at all, but for me those are components I prefer to see in horror. whether that be literature, film, podcasts, anything. So yeah the title is a bit deceiving since I don't think there's any actual way to guarantee a good horror film. 

What do you think? Do you agree with my preferences? Do you have different preferences? Do you think it's possible to "master horror"? let me know!