The Art of The Scare

IT, unsurprisingly, is killing it financially, over performing to a laughable degree, and even though it's domination of the American Box office has taken a pause due to Kingsman: The Golden Circle, it's not far behind, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's back at number one next week. On its third weekend I went to see IT again, big shocker, but this time I took my older brother, even paid for his ticket, not a big ask when I get in for free, but while his reaction to IT was something I saw coming, the extent of the damage staggered me quite a bit. About half way through the film, and again after the screening, he exclaimed to me that it was "fucking shit" and "one of the worst films [he'd] ever seen." People are entitled to their opinions, this I hope you know I support, but where this transcends simply being a matter of opinion and becomes him being objectively wrong is the part about it being one of the worst films he'd ever seen. Now, either he's only ever watched Se7en and Schindler's List, or that statement is actually as wildly stupid as it sounded when I heard it, because for a long time now I've had a theory that my brother has no idea what constitutes a good movie, he thinks The World's End and Don't Breathe are pieces of shit, but loves Daredevil, the Ben Affleck Daredevil. These examples are a bit scatterbrained, so let's focus up. I showed him a trailer for Life, a film I described in my review as a brilliantly creepy and bleak horror thriller, and he thought it looked shit, and responded with a trailer for Escape From Cannibal Farm, a film that is a prime example of the classic low budget, low talent, shameless ripoff horror film, and thought it looked great, describing it's hideously awful trailer as "wrong as." This is a tangent now, I know, but, sorry bro, trying to make out that I'm self aggrandising and 'always right' because I review movies as a hobby isn't going to work, one of us is just better at appreciating good cinema, I have no doubt you'd kick my arse at a debate on Football. But my brother's objectively inaccurate statements about IT, (he literally liked nothing, thought the kid acting as bad, called Pennywise "pathetic" and even described the Georgie death as weak and "sad") got me thinking, what makes a horror movie scary, what do good horrors get right that bad ones don't, it's something I've been thinking for a while, and today I intend to answer it. So I'm taking scenes from horror movies I adore and breaking down why I think they're scary, this is entirely a think piece, so I'll try to make it make sense, but no promises.

One of the scariest games I've ever played is Dead Space, why's that relevant, because Dead Space nails an aspect to good horror that I'll be discussing a lot; tension and atmosphere. The USG Ishimura is brilliant setting for the game, a massive ship riddled with dark corridors and many, many vents. This makes for some good opportunities for jumpscares, which Dead Space certainly has in abundance, but what I found scary wasn't the jumpscares themselves, but the down time between them. The brilliant use of lighting and sound, mixed with the grotesque imagery and the old, rusty aesthetic of the ship generates atmosphere, it's creepy to play Dead Space, not because of a jumpscare, but because of the fact that a jumpscare could happen at any moment, that you are inches from the scare for every second of the game. This brilliant use of atmosphere creates a situation where you've got your gun drawn at all times, where you're paranoid about every door or vent, and where you hit every corpse just to make sure it's really dead, that dread makes Dead Space a brilliant horror game, and one I'd highly recommend. But that building of atmosphere works the same in a lot of films. So let's look at one in particular, Alien. Like the Ishimura, the Nostromo is a haunted house in space, a dark, creepy structure inhabited by a monster that you do not and can never know the exact whereabouts of. The same rule applies here; it's not the scare itself, but the apprehension of the scare that makes it effective. It's why my favourite scene in the film, the scene when Dallas enters the vents, is so frightening, because you know it's in there with him and you know it has the upper hand, but the film just leaves you in that state of peril with Dallas, anticipating the inevitable moment that the penny drops. Also like Dead Space, this scene in Alien doesn't show the Alien, like the fear that a Necromorph could be ready to strike from underneath any floor grate, the Alien could be at the very next junction, and you wouldn't know until it was too late. This scare is entirely predictable, you know that Dallas is going to die, predictability being one of my bro's complaints about IT, I think it's something I should address. You know that he's going to die, but again what's scary is the apprehension, the knowledge that any second could be his last, and the anxiety that comes from that. Now compare that to a film like Alien: Covenant, the Alien is shown running around an open, outdoor area in daylight, you can literally see it coming from a mile away, this isn't scary at all, because in the light of day, the Alien's movements are, ironically, more predictable, and when it comes for our heroes, and we see it running after them, there's no anxiety, no apprehension, no tension, this is why I've come to dislike Alien: Covenant, because of its complete failure to get what was scary about Alien. You can again see this in Covenant's final act, when the Alien is loose on the ship, and they know where it is, again ruining any and all tension.

 This is where my brother is wrong about predictability, because predictability isn't the right word, it's apprehension, let's make another point about Alien, specifically the chest burster scene, by far the most brutal scene in the film, probably even the series. The audience is left apprehensive about what exactly the face hugger did to him, they know something's going to happen, but that's the point, they don't know when or how the penny will drop, just that it will at some point, so when he starts choking, the audience bunkers in for the scare, a horrifically violent and painful kill that they probably weren't prepared to see. Now let's look back to Covenant, and see how not to do this same scene. ignoring for a second the shitty CGI, the tone of this scene is completely fucked, whereas the first one had no music, this one has a pathetic music choice, as if it's trying to imply that the birth of this thing is somehow magical, whereas Alien displayed a horrific and agonising death, complete with a ludicrous amount of gore, Covenant tries to romanticise the creation of the Alien, resulting in the complete loss of the scene's tension, and because the convulsing only starts after the burster bursts, there is no sudden build up of anxiety as with the first. With that in mind, lets look at one of my favourite scenes in the reason I'm writing this, IT, specifically, the basement scare. The apprehension stats as soon as the light comes on in Georgie's room, but when Bill enters the room, there is no scare, instead we get some emotional character development, directly showing Bill's grief for Georgie's disappearance, yet the apprehension persists as a shadow leads Bill, and thus the audience, down into the basement. The emotional undertones at the start of this buildup are vital in establishing the tension, Bill loves his brother, but cannot except that his brother is dead, this is a very relatable place to put your character, and actually gives him a good reason to go into the basement, which in any other context would be the stupid thing to do. The apprehension persists when Bill see's Georgie grinning at him from the corner of the basement, the atmosphere here is important, the basement is dark, yet Georgie's eyes are twinkling, he's grinning, this subtly establishes a sense of discomfort, something is wrong about this situation, and the anxiety is palpable. Georgie starts rotting, and we see Pennywise, now the audience is left hanging, they know the scare is close, but Georgie continues to rot, leaving the audience hanging, and letting that anxiety build even more, that sudden rise of anxiety I mentioned in the chest burster scene from Alien is very observable here. Sound is very important here, at the height of the tension, we are left with just Pennywise and Bill, all the sounds briefly drains, before the main event happens, Pennywise charges at Bill, the previous few minutes of build up pay off here, as Pennywise screams and sprints at Bill, causing Bill, who the audience has become sympathetically attached to, to panic, and this panic is imposed on the audience, as Pennywise is shown hauling arse at the camera in a mid shot, replacing Bill with the audience. This scene also immediately follows the bathroom scare, where we see the same pattern of emotional build up, Bev is put in a position of emotional weakness, before being lured in by something anomalous, we see the sudden build up of anxiety as the hair constricts her to the sink and starts pulling her in, before the blood brings the scare to a close, with the scares I've discussed in this section, the use of imagery is important, be it an Alien ripping itself out of someone's chest, an absurd amount of blood, or a decomposing child, these are all inherently shocking things, and add to the anxiety of the scare.

Now let's look at the only part of the film my brother thought was scary, the most disappointing scare in the film, Bev cracks her abusive dad's face, and makes a break for it, only to be grabbed by Pennywise who shows up out of the blue. I say it's the most disappointing because it's the cheapest, there's no build up, it's just a jumpscare, and I think this is what my brother mistakenly thinks makes a good horror, how many times and how strongly it can make you jump. I've always hated jumpscares, and not because they scare me, but precisely the opposite, as can be observed in any late night showing of IT, that Pennywise jumpscare is followed by giggles from the audience, the failure of jumpscares is that they completely deflate tension. A jumpscare is the easiest, laziest type of scare, there's no need for good build up, or even good atmosphere, which a lot of horror films these days don't have, it's just a loud noise that gets a primal reflex out of you, and that's not scary. Returning to IT, and also throwing in The Conjuring 2, another horror film I love, both of these films have jumpscares, but there's a difference, and that difference is build up. Let's take a scene from The Conjuring 2, the anxiety builds as Billy walks past the living room, and there's someone sitting in the chair in the corner, this is very understated, there's no scary loud noise or scary image, just someone in the room, but it is unsettling that someone is a few feet from our character and he has no idea, it relies on a common anxiety of home invasion, and a discomfort inherent in not knowing. Here we see a good example of jumpscares being done right, as Billy accidently turns on a very loud fire truck toy, a very easy to anticipate scare as we are shown the toy at the top of the stares before he kicks it, before putting it in his tent and going to his room, the camera lingers on the tent, a subtle, discomforting implication, before we again see the fire truck, now rolling through his bed room door. Remember that Billy put the fire truck in the tent, this confirms the audience expectation that there's someone in the tent, one brought about by the lingering on the tent, and the existing knowledge that there's someone in the house, this is the sudden rise of tension before the scare, before Billy approaches the tent again to put the fire truck back, and we finally get the jumpscare, as a man's voice screams from inside the tent. Again we see the pattern of effective build up before a scare, and this pattern is observable in the vast majority of The Conjuring 2 and IT's scares, and it's that pattern that allows for a build up of tension that actually makes a scare effective.

In one sense my brother is right, horror is predictable, but good horror doesn't try to be unpredictable, it instead does the leg work, and provides effective scares through build up and tension, and that tension is what makes good scares, it's effective in The Conjuring 2, IT, Don't Breathe, another excellent horror thriller he hates, and even films outside of the horror genre like the recent and incredibly excellent war drama Dunkirk. to appropriate an old saying, it's about the journey, not the destination, it's about how well the film can hook you, how efficiently it can build the apprehension for the payoff, whether that payoff is a Necromorph jumping out of the ceiling, Pennywise or the Alien finally getting you, or a German dive bomber coming in for an attack. I don't fancy myself some movie snob, as hard as that is to believe, but for a film to excel at something, that's always a good point in my books, and horror is something that's hard for a lot of films to excel at, making me love IT and Don't Breathe and The Conjuring 2 even more, because it's easy to make you jump, it's far harder to leave the audience hanging onto their seats, to leave them uncomfortable and apprehensive, to scare them, and for that scare to be memorable and intense, rather than cheap and funny.