What makes a good horror movie?

[DeadlyXScreams]

I don't think anyone started this topic yet. I believe that most of the horror films today are stupid. They mainly consist of imaginary monsters and idiotic happenings. What makes a good horror movie to me is something that can actually happen, something that would make you afraid to sleep at night, because it's real. I know that there aren't many things to be afraid of in the real world, and most of the movies like this consist of serial killers, but the movie I'm afraid of so far is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre because it's real... and "It" because I'm afraid of clowns, but that's a different matter, anyway I was wondering about others opinions.
_________________
“When it hurts to look back, and you're scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there.”

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

[Pie32]

Just like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the movie Wolf Creek is based off of real happenings (I've never seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you see). And, Wolf Creek is far from being scary, even though it is supposed to be a horror movie that has actually happened.

Real horror movies, I think, should not necessarily be gory, instead they should cause suspense and creepy happenings.
_________________
[img]http://luneknight.com.ru/counter.jpg[/img]
Random Battle: [img]http://luneknight.com.ru/l.jpg[/img] vs. [img]http://luneknight.com.ru/r.jpg[/img]

[marinaroz]

Like any other movie, a good one will have a great script and good actors. Take nearly any of Stephen King's stuff - it's scary as hell.
_________________
Tarakana NET

[clpo13]

Suspense. The best kind of horror film does not rely on gory special effects or imaginative monsters. It taunts you with unseen noises and stressful situations. The "monster" (so to speak) isn't some horrid beast with long claws and bloody fangs; the antagonists are ordinary people who go insane or have dark secrets.

I agree with marinaroz. Pretty much any Stephen King story or novel would make for a good horror movie, as long as it stayed faithful to the actual story. I think The Mist looks pretty good, but probably not as good as the book itself.

Of course, the definition of a good horror movie changes from person to person. I'd probably be more creeped out by a Southern Gothic film than anything else because of the juxtaposition of the ordinary with surreal, overexaggerated characters and the supernatural. Come to think of it, any surreal film is going to disturb me much more than a gorefest.
_________________
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." --Thomas Jefferson

[img:cd1c8454aa]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y57/clpo13/anothersig1.jpg[/img:cd1c8454aa]

[Necromis]

I agree, the gore fest is the least element of horror movies in my opinion. I will tell you a movie that had me more on edge and that was Signs. It is possible in the sense of ETs but not the water killing them and not using tech. That part of it was jsut stupid.

[coralvalley]

I think it depends on what you are looking for in a horror film. I remember when I was younger when things would terrify me simply because I was young enough to really believe that some of the things could possibly happen in the real world. I wasn't smart enough to see that things like Freddy Krueger really could not come into your dreams and kill you. I will be the first to admit the first time I saw the original Nightmare on Elm Street it truly terrified the life out of me because when you sleep it was such a frightening idea that someone could come in and catch you in a moment of vulnerability like that and kill you. That scared the life out of me as a child.

Now a days I think that a lot of the time the whole horror movie explosion has gone one of two ways. On the one hand a lot of people will see a horror movie knowing that it is campy and that it is comical in it's own right because it is simply something that would never, ever happen. Sometimes I enjoy those kind of horror movies because even with the scary monsters or whatever else is going on, there is still a level of entertainment to it. It might be silly, foolish, outlandish things for plot to scare someone, but I do enjoy them still. It kind of goes hand in hand with me for horror films.

I also do like horror films where it is possible that something could happen to someone because it is enough to frighten you and make you think that yes you could really fall into that kind of situation if you aren't careful. Those are perhaps the most terrifying kind of films out there because they have shades of reality that are truly too eerie in a lot of place. However, I will admit that there is a fine line between a horror film and a torture film. While I can enjoy a good reality based horror film, I honestly cannot stand torture films. I think that especially these days in Hollywood the movie producers have realized that the supernatural has bored some of their audience so they are taking things to the next level and evolving into films where people are tortured throughout the whole film just for the sake of showing how far they can go. Those kind of films do not appeal to me at all and in that case I would take the typical Freddy Krueger or supernatural bad guy over having to endure something that seems so graphic and real that it makes me feel sick at the end of the movie. That to me is not the kind of horror I can delve into. A psychological horror is much more appealing I would suppose than the gory alternative for me at least.

[Auricaine]

Me and my friend created a scene of an horror movie before.
We thought that if you trash the place up like if its a room put stuff on the floor and move stuff around like dressers, tables, dishes. You should like have someone creating some noise on an instruments, and knocking, and bangs, And my personal favorite is Eyes of the killer. Its like if one person is facing the other way your killer is holding a camera in front of him while he walks towards you or to go away. Horror's don't always have to be blood and guts. Look at the original Halloween there was no scenes when it showed him actually killing someone. It requires storyline too. Also you need good scaring tatics to make the crowd scared and scream. Another thing is you need good actors/Actresses to perform in the movie as well you need a Director and producer. You may think I'm done my movie, maybe you should make like the eye of the killer music or something like that to spice it up. Another way to make a scary movie make it stupid. Make characters stupid and others smart and like there abilities have to get tested like Saw. Make it so its like you can know its coming but surprise the audience with a twist. People dont like scary movies that you can predict. You can even make it like Dead Rising or Saw 2. You are trapped in this house or mall, or something. Make sure you can always re-edit somethings like you are doing a snowy seen, you did one take and got it perfect but you put it together with the movie it sucks and you want to redo it but there is not going to be snow for awhile so review over your work at times and do more than one possible out come in your production so you can slip this with that. xD
_________________
[img:cbc26a4efc]http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee297/Fallingspark/Signatures/Andrewsig.jpg[/img:cbc26a4efc]

[blightyred]

[sprocker]

[martinz]

What makes a good horror movies is the ability for the movie to keep the audience in suspense through out the movie.