Fear of the Dark! (What makes a really good horror movie?)

Name: The Daz

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Product:	What makes a really good horror movie?
Date:	24/08/07 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pure escapism.

Disadvantages: You won't want to sleep.

The classic image many might have of a horror film would be the Hammer House type - chilling music to the sight of Christopher Lee draining the blood from his newest helpless victim, but thesedays there seems to be a whole range of sub-genres for Horror.

Most popularly: Teen Horrors are generally gorefests, with either: a downtrodden/grudgebearing student/town recluse going around hacking annoying but pretty young teens to death (I'm fairly sure I know what you did last summer but i'll still need 3 films to work it out), or occasionally a weird creature (Jeepers Creepers) with an insatiable thirst.

Other films thesedays are often either extremely gory and violent: Saw, Hostel, Resident Evil etc. Or they have an added psychological kick to them - Vacancy, The Village. Some even build in logic/science - the Final Destination series is mildly scary, but mainly i was wondering who would die next and how.

A good horror should play on deep and common fears, and use tension throughout to cause us extreme anxiety. A twist would help - you know for instance that Teen horror films tend to end with the bad guy being Scooby-Doo'ed - (I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddlin' kids!).

Some classic Horror films like John Carpenter's Prince Of Darkness play on the religious theme - like The Omen, the fear of Satan or agents thereof still scares a lot of people - a terrifying force beyond our countrol.

Others scare but have relief built in - I found Tarantino's Dusk Til Dawn pretty scary until Cheech & Chong shot vampires with crotch mounted guns!.

I suppose that fear is pretty varied - Jaws still makes me jump even though I know the Rubber Shark gets blown up, but The Fog, with it's eerie, silent Pirates carving their way through a New England village, scared the daylights out of me all the way through.

So - after some rambling: I think a good Horror film needs to be tense, anxious, moody, and make me keep guessing about what might happen all the way through. I should be scared to go to sleep - otherwise it's just an Action film!

Summary: It should definitely make you check that you locked the door!