Not For The Weak-Hearted
Read the previous post in the Behind The Scenes series: Those Footsteps At 1 AM
“Not for the weak-hearted” – how many times have you not seen this boilerplate In blurbs for spine-chilling movies and stories? There’s nothing like some spine-chilling fare to set the heart pounding. Or better still, slow it down to a pace where it fears to beat.
So, how exactly do you achieve this effect? Long gone are the days when blood and gore used to do the trick. Today, readers and viewers gag at the sight of explicit violence or in-your-face horror. Vampires, ghouls, zombies, all have run their course and outlived their shelf lives. Just don’t work anymore.
I’ve found that keeping it subtle yet on the edge does the job most times. The specter of horror in everyday situations and everyday locations is far more gripping than outlandish locales and characterizations. There are three premises which you can employ to get that “hair-standing-on-end” effect.
First, it is about what “threatens” to happen, than what actually happens. Think of the scariest movie you’ve seen. More often than not, the scene will create a sense of suspense through a prelude of visuals or audio that heighten your expectation that something horrifying is about to happen.
Yet, when the horrifying stuff does happen, the effect is more of relief than horror, because you’re relieved that the prelude (where you were waiting with your heart in your mouth and your imagination was working overtime) to the horrifying scene is over.
Examples of such preludes could be minutes of silence as a character explores a dilapidated church (Angels and Demons), endless tunnels and the sound of something at the far end (The Hills Have Eyes), visuals of dolls rocking, running shot of a character lost in a jungle and the camera always following her at a distance (giving the feeling that someone or something is following her), and so on.
Second, it is about the “unknown” versus the known. The most notorious unknown is the dark. So, we have shadows moving in the darkness or in poorly lighted conditions, completely dark shot with the sound of someone stumbling through an isolated building (I Am Legend), staring down at pitch dark wells (Van Helsing), a pair of slit eyes lighting up in the distance in the dark (Outlander), and so on, pumping up the heart beat a few notches.
Another unknown is space. And you have all manner of aliens, spores, diseases, afflictions, predatory attacks, and outbreaks (The Alien series) making your heart skip a beat.
Strike all that and think about huge, swirling masses of turbulent water, and you have yet another unknown that can strike dread into the most strong-willed folks out there. Picture leviathan walls of water in oceans torn by gale-force winds and storms (Life of Pi, The Perfect Storm). Or, eerily still waters of a desolated lake (Lake Placid). Water is the other suitably scary unknown. What lurks beneath is what gets your bodily pores sweating.
Three, it’s about “little” or “weak” things having incredulously amplified power – physical or psychic. Think bent, old women unleashing hell with brute strength. Think young babies with devilish power. Think frail men able to suck the life force out of living beings.
Do you find there are other phenomena which are equally effective in spooking people and creating that spine-chilling effect? Write in.
Coming soon: the next post in the Behind The Scenes series.
