Research

The horror genre has among the most ardent and faithful fans who are deeply passionate about this stuff, to make them dread to look around,  to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of their hearts. What is it that makes the genre get its roots deep down in to the dark rooms of their souls and make them fearful,  what are the elements used that create the horror of the unseen?  The build up,  the tension, the atmosphere, the camera angles and the mysterious fears of our nature are the greatest elements that make a horror genre work well.

My first bit of research was to find out the true meaning of the horror of the  unseen in films meant, my research told me that the horrors of the unseen means films that haven’t or didn’t receive the amount of audience that it thought it would do when released, this information was given to me by a youtube channel CineFix Now   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghlcxTXUJqw). Here I had to define my research to unseen monsters in film, this then changed again to psychological horrors as it tends to be that psychological horrors don’t show the monster but heavily imply it. Looking at psychological horrors gave me more of an insight into films that I hadn’t considered,  giving me more range of choice and information, looking at how the unknown is portrayed through the use of the camera, tension and atmosphere. Films that stood out to me in this area where, The Babadook, The Thing, Blair Witch Project, Howl and Jaws.

These five films are all considered psychological horrors, three out of the five films we actually see what the monster is towards the end, but it is this build up that creates the tension and atmosphere. For instance with ‘Jaws’ a 1975 film directed by Steven Spielberg, we know that there is something out there in the water, very much like we know that there is something out in the woods in ‘Howl’. During the film we get information fed to us through the use of dialogue and visual imagery such as a floating leg, the bloody water and a raft with a tire size bite mark out of it. A famous line spoken by the character Chief Brody ‘you’re gonna need a bigger boat’,  there is no moment in the film when the audience feel safe,  the atmosphere is set to toy with the audience,  always mindful of the precise moments.  The audience are manipulated in what they are watching, they know that this gigantic shark is there in the cold ocean but when it strikes is unknown. In the photos below you have a point of view from the shark  and pictures of knowing that the shark is there but is still unseen.

The 1982 film ‘The Thing’ directed by John Carpenter captures perfectly the claustrophobic environment that can torment many people’s lives, when watching this film you feel just as trapped as the characters, knowing full well you can get up and leave at any time but it is the atmosphere and impact that terrorises the audience making them feel like the characters.

The audience never gets to truly see what the thing actually looks like, so like the characters the audience also feels in the dark, left out and not knowing, sure we see it transform into creatures and taking on other peoples forms including a dogs, what is unknown is it’s true form, the origin of what it is or where it came from and to what limits can the thing achieve. Having something there is okay to an extent, but to not know anything about it is a fear that we come across in everyday life when we are faced with something that we have never seen before.

The 1999 film ‘The Blair Witch Project’ goes down in history as one of the scariest horrors of all time thanks to the techniques used,  not once showing us the films primary protagonist.  Hiding the witch with implied violence and ingenious of screen threats, just like ‘Jaws’ lurking beneath the water, imposing a hidden deadly threat, the witch is unseen in the dark woods,  terrifying its soon to be victims.

The 2014 film, directed by Jennifer Kent, ‘The Babadook’ scares you long after you have watched it, it still to this day makes me uncomfortable about thinking or talking about it, it does require thought and analysis, and it is only after you attempt to understand what it all means that it will start to haunt you. The whole atmosphere of the film feels off, we start the film thinking that the child has some access to a demonic dimension which then slowly turns around to the mother being the problem leaving the audience to wonder what they’ve just watched.

The tension in it is high, reaching the peak of its tension at the end when the character embraces her grief and accepts it. Ghosts and demons offer us a way to battle unconscious psychic constellations of horror that would torment us usually with little to no recourse, therefore it is easier to battle something that is physical then face our own debilitating states to which we are all vulnerable.

This particular monster projects what each and everyone of us feels, we attempt to defeat and combat those feelings, the Babadook is a representation, a symbolism and analogy work to expose what her reality truly is, the reality of fear. The film reflects real life horrors, the stuff thats in the mind and can be hidden away until it breaks free or we let it out. (https://rs21.org.uk/2014/10/30/the-babadook-a-film-about-lifes-real-horrors-jen-izaakson/)

‘Howl’ a 2015 film directed by Paul Hyett reveals the monsters in the last half hour of the film using the first hour to build them up, make them appear  ruthless, animalistic and killers. The use of the camera shots also help to create tension and an unnerving atmosphere, you know there’s something there,  the fact that the camera is at one point the monster confirms there’s something there but we are left in the dark as to what it is. Martin Scores states that ‘its a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out’,  I feel that this can be applied to this film. In the video below we are given glimpse of the creature yet the camera is always angles so that we cant see it fully, when the character is being pulled through the window the creature is placed behind the wall making it impossible to see, making the statement above accurate as to what you place in the frame for the audience to see.

A commonly used camera technique used to create and visually amplifies the internal emotional mindsets  of a characters critical story moment, the realisation of the event thats unfolding, the dolly zoom. A movement that involves the foreground element to stay the same size whilst the background elements grow or shrink, this technique was first implemented in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film ‘Vertigo’. In ‘Jaws’ it is used to isolate Chief Brody making his worse fears come real. In the 1990 film ‘Goodfellas’ this movement is also used to show that the world around them is changing, even though this might not pose an immediate threat, the character is coming to the realisation that he can no longer trust his friend, the effect is quite emotional and is often used to convey sudden realisation, reaction to a dramatic event It creates an unnatural effect, it is something that our eyes would not see making you question what you just saw, the exact effect depends on the direction of camera movement. If the camera moves closer, the background seems to grow and become dominant. If the camera moves further away, the foreground subject is emphasized and becomes dominant. (http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/dolly-zoom.html).

One of the videos below is a clip from ‘Jaws’ where the dolly zoom has been used to great effect. The other one is a collaboration of testers that were done to try and perfect the dolly zoom technique, there were a few difficulties, one being we didn’t have a dolly so someone pushing a chair ended up being the substitute. After having a few tries with pushing someone on a chair a slider was introduced, after using this I noticed that the camera was less shaky but would sometimes jam making an abrupt stop. The major trouble that I faced was trying to time the movement of the camera and also the zoom, either zooming in or out, unfortunately I was unable to get the two together in a smooth consistent way. This is when I called in other people to help me out, one person would move the camera whilst the other one would zoom in or out with the camera.

Tension is created through the use of mystery, gore, shock, terror and suspense, this is all straight forward elements of horror and shows that you know the craft and how to use these elements in filmmaking. The horror film has to be relevant to the potential audience, to make it relevant to capture the universal fear of things that scare us and the unknown. Despite the graphic nature of some horror films, we all know at some level that what we are watching is not real we know this because when we walk into a theatre we know what we’re seeing on screen is fabricated reality. Movies are edited from multiple camera angles with soundtracks and sometimes horror is tempered and made palatable with black humour. This also explains why we all remember that scary movie we saw when we were way too young but looks hokey now, this is why children have a harder time separating reality and fiction especially when its on a movie screen.

Not only is tension a large contribution to making the audience  hide behind their pillows but also the atmosphere of the film, a good horror is not a stream of jump scares but an underlying atmosphere, a tone that creates a sense of dread, something that leaves us with wonder and unforgettable imagery. Films that rely more on isolation both literally and figuratively are ‘The Devil’s Backbone’, ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘Tale of Two Sister’, the ominous atmosphere is present without being overt. For example, the ghastly little boy in Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Devil’s Backbone‘, that scene oozes with atmosphere when he emerges from a dark swimming pool in the cellar of an abandoned orphanage, his pale blue complexion is a glowing example make-up design skills. You get the idea, atmosphere, it’s more about haunting foreplay than bang, bang, and you’re dead.

While atmosphere is tonal and visual, suspense is the unnerving feeling that something bad is going to happen. Darkness and dramatic shadow are often used to elicit suspense, like when we hear something and can’t see what it is, or catch a glimpse of something moving in the background but can’t quite make it out. The sense of blindness increases tension. It’s creepy to hear something and not know where it’s coming from. And this can work just as well in a daytime setting, perhaps even more so since it’s more unexpected, playing to our false sense of security.