What Makes A Good Horror Film

When it comes to the question, what makes a good horror film, there is a fine dividing line between genuine terror and comedy.

A good horror movie makes you glad you were wearing your brown corduroys. A bad one makes your sides split.

This writer has a family member who having watched a horror movie in which the baddie hides in the back of a woman’s car - only to decapitate her later whilst she’s driving along - now always checks the back seat when driving alone. And that’s still happening, six years after the movie in question. 

I can also remember the first Alien film. I must have left ten fingernails in the cinema seat as I staggered out into the night air, looking widely around for any hideous creature that might have landed in the nearby Huddersfield NCP car park. They were tough times.

But is there a formula for a good horror movie?  Many people think there is, although people tell me that Blair Witch was a breakthrough in scary cinematography; I just thought it was a bloke doing it on the cheap who couldn’t hold the camera still.

But back to the formula.

Apparently, the stars of a horror film should look everyday and mundane. Having Barbie and Ken mincing about just doesn’t do it, although you need a Barbie for the teenage boys to gawp at and she should die showing as much thigh and cleavage as possible.

As with many movie formats, the baddie has to be believable. I once watched an obscure German horror movie in which a short, uptight guy would spot couples in their cars at inner-City road junctions. The car would stop, the couple would swap passionate looks and fondle each other’s knees, and not noticing the dribbling pervert who had rode up on his chopper (it was in the 1970s).

The couple would then drive off and the scene would change to the countryside, as the couple shed their clothes and got down to it. Of course, behind the nearest tree was the pervert, axe in hand (or was it something else). And whilst he sprang out and hacked the unsuspecting couple to death, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the thought as to how did he manage to get from the traffic lights, following a quite speedy hatchback and make it some ten miles out to the countryside, on his chopper, and then have enough time to axe the couple, perform some highly unpleasant personal act and then get back in time for tea with mum. Fair ruined the film for me.

So, your baddie has to be realistically bad, and not someone that cause’s the audience to scream with laughter every time he appears.

Also, horror fans say that events based on a true story are often better than those made up. This didn’t seem to set back the Alien franchise of films, but then that might be about to happen.

The setting is key, with deserted houses, woods and lonely islands the favourite. Which helps the audience cope with the fear of course; most of us don’t choose the garden of a haunted house as a good place for the family picnic.

Music is also vitally important, as without some guy strumming on a violin, you might just miss the point when the dagger penetrates Barbie’s flesh – and that just wouldn’t do.

So, for all those aspiring horror movies makers, get yourself some pig ugly actors, spend the cash on a Barbie doll with minimal clothing, take them all to a dark wood, based on what your mate told you down the pub about his fright the other weekend, grab the local busker and get some handsome bloke with a personality complex (and interesting things to say) to start the butchery. Sounds a breeze actually.

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