I hate horror cliches. Don't save the children. Kill the children!

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

Do a search on the net for cliches and reverse a few of them. Nothing is scarier than knowing what will happen and then being proved wrong.

Beyond that show the villian less than you want to. leave the imagination to run wild. It's cheaper and scarier. Love or hate Blair Witch they built an entire movie on that premise and some folks thought it was terrifying.

Pay close attention to lighting and pacing.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

1. Make sure the 'good guys' are sympathetic characters. There's nothing much worse than a horror movie where you're rooting for the bad guys because you want to see the 'good guys' die.

That doesn't mean that you can't make the 'bad guys' sympathetic so we're deliberately rooting for them, but don't do it by mistake when we're meant to be sympathising with their victims.

2. Horror movies generally require that people stay in a dangerous situation that most people would run away from. Be sure they have a reason to stay there.

3. Remember that most people have cell phones now, and you'll need to explain why they don't use them to call the cops.

4. Try to make the 'bad guys' as interesting as characters as the good guys. Look at the 'Hellraiser' movies, for example... well, at least the first two before they went crappy.

5. Gore without plot might be popular for a short period, but it will be forgotten much faster than a horror movie with a good plot and characters.

Not sure what would be the next five of the top ten list :).

I think a gritty realism works very well in horror movies, especially when you're British. I really hate those movies that end with one of the victims suddenly becoming really heroic and defeating all his enemies. Actually, that raises a good point. What makes a good horror movie ending?

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

Depends on the film, but I love the bleak, desolate endings; like in 'The Thing'.

quote:

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What makes a good horror movie ending?

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One where the bad guy doesn't come back from the dead six times :). Well, unless he's literally indestructible anyway.

A good horror movie ending is when you leave the theater with the feeling that danger is still out there. Watch Halloween, the first one. The end had Michael Meyers missing. The movie was resolved, our heros were safe, but he's still out there to threaten and kill movie-goers on their way home.

This was not written to set up a sequel but to scare people and it was remarkable effective. Later that same trick was turned into the last minute villian pop-up which provides a jump and resolution. Not the same thing, which is why it works in Action movies (that require resolution) but doesn't really work in horror which is why the Friday 13th movies got increasingly less satisfactory as time went on. They started off right in the first one, sort of, and then quickly drifted to the worst-case examples.

Another good example, I hate to mention it again because I didn't really like the movie, is Blair Witch. The only thing the movie had going for it was the ending. The unresolution left the viewer feeling creeped out in a way few movies manage.

If your movie is a zombie movie they tend to have very bleak, the world is over endings which is a different animal altogether.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Oh:

6. Make sure your characters are distinguishable, so you can tell who's alive and who's dead. That's particularly applicable to war movies (e.g. 'The Bunker') where the characters are all in uniform, so it's extra hard to tell them apart.

In that particular movie there were a couple of points where characters reappeared who I was sure were dead, and I took a while to realise they weren't zombies or something and someone else had been killed instead!

First of all. Your horror movie must a story. Look at movies like Freddy vs Jason. Or Amityville Horror. Give your character and your killer layers. The good guy, should have a fear, and in the end he over comes that fear. Say he is afraid of hights, Let him grow so that in the end he is not afraid anymore. If made a few horror films.
The important thing, that you need to remember. is that you don't make a movie for yourself. It's all for the audience. Make them shit their pants. Have great music, that is parrallel to the movie. Repetion of music. Like in Jaws. Everytime you hear that music, you know, Jaws is coming. All elements of making a great horror movie.

Kill anything and everything you possibly can and in the most grotesque ways you can dream up. Run a garden house down someones stomach and turn the water on, have a pack of rabid water buffalo eviscerate someone. Interesting and exciting deaths = great scares for audience. Analize the unexpected then exploit it and throw in something different.
I WANT BLOOD! I WANT GUTS! I WANT CHILLS! I WANT KILLS!

See if you can kill more people then Steven Spielberg, only all in one movie.

And at the end, if my pants are full of piss, you have triupmhed.
Or it just might be time for me to change my catheter bag...but thats another story...

That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough! I'm going to clown college!

Here are some quotes from director Eli Roth about horror movies that i found enjoyable:

"If I don't come home covered head to toe in fake blood then I haven't done my job as a horror director."

"...It's the single best date movie you can go to, because you're guaranteed to be squeezing that person for the entire film. And if the movie works, your date won't want to go to sleep alone. Horror films are an aphrodisiac. 9 months from now I predict a wave of 'Hostel' babies."

in case you dont know, he is the director of "Cabin Fever" and "Hostel" and for those of you who saw "Grindhouse" he was the mastermind behind the "Thanksgiving" trailer

What I like about Eli Roth is that he has this streak of dark humor to him. And in my opinion you need that in horror movies. You should be scared 95% percent of teh time but there should also me some odd humor in them. The humor usually goes with one of the characters which causes the audience to like that character that much more.

"Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling." - Stanley Kubrick