With countless slasher remakes and Japanese horror scene rip-offs filling our screens of late there has been a dearth of great horror on contemporary cinema screens. Perhaps if today's film-makers are to create truly great horror films again they need to look to the past for some lessons in creating suspense or sustaining mood. Let's take a look at some truly impressive elements of a few classic horror films that today's creators would do well to take note of.
Sound Design - The Haunting
In this classic 60s horror, nothing is actually seen of the malicious presence which torments the team of volunteers investigating the old house, but everything is heard of them. A cacophonous mix of banged doors, rattling windows, footsteps and whispered voices all contribute to the sense of menace which pervades every second of this movie. You can cover your eyes or cower behind the sofa, but you can't escape the horror.
Cinematography - Cat People
This low budget horror classic marked producer Val Lewton's first film as head of his own horror B-unit at RKO pictures, and it was an effective demonstration of his theory that things were scarier when left to the audience's imagination. The film's killer, a black panther, is only seen once in the film, and the danger is far more effectively conveyed through the flickering shadows and dark shapes that dance around the edge of the frame as the protagonists try to escape a terror they can barely see. Sound design also plays a significant part, and the film's strongest set-piece takes place in a swimming pool as a girl desperately treads water as the refracted light from the water gives glimpses of the silhouette whose growls echo around the pool.
Make-Up - Phantom of the Opera
In this CGI age horror effects are probably less scary than they have ever been, though even the copious amounts of blood and guts in the glorious gore-fests of the video nasty era were a little lacking in the quiet creepiness of earlier horror. Undisputed master of the modestly macabre is silent horror star Lon Chaney, who probably found his finest moment in an early adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera - the reveal of the Phantom's hideous features halfway through the film becoming one of the most iconic moments in horror history, an image burned on the retina of anyone who has ever seen it.
Showmanship - The Tingler
Horror movies are often most effective when they mess with our sense of reality - blurring the boundies between watching and participating in the film, albeit through campy or gimmicky methods. Master of the theatrical gimmick William Castle is perhaps most notorious for the release of this film about a creature which would tingle the bottom of a victim's spine until they died, their only escape being to scream. On the film's roadshow release, Castle would rig up selected chairs in the audience to tingle at the point in the film when the Tingler is set free in a cinema. It's arguable that Castle's techniques have their modern equivalent in the viral marketing of films such as The Blair Witch Project, but none of these provide such a memorable shared horror experience as Castle's screenings used to.
Ideas - The Undead
No one can claim that Roger Corman wasn't ambitious, and this film is perhaps one of his most surprisingly aspirational films. Intended to exploit the public's fascination with past lives in the late 50s, the film starts out as a conventional supernatural thriller with cardboard sets and unconvincing plasticine make-up, but is so earnest in its ideas that the audience is compelled to buy into what eventually ends up feeling like a powerful existential drama. The brutal intercutting between antagonists and protagonist as she realises the sacrifice she is being asked to make lingers in the mind longer than any musical stinger or gore-shot ever could.
You see, it isn't always what is shown onscreen that has the most power. With the right use of atmosphere, camera work, soundtrack, editing and lighting, it is possible to create chilling pieces of cinema without resorting to shallow CG fests. Much is made of onscreen torture and over the top gore these days, and some nods to a more calculated era of filmmaking would do the horror industry a great deal of good.
Hamish Spearson is an expert on classic cinema in many genres, and writes for the movie & pop culture memorabilia site Starstore.com as well as its many blogs. For the latest news on movies, collectibles, TV, comics and geek culture, visit =====> http://www.starstoreblog.com
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