Some of my all time favorites are Ju-on : The Grudge by Takashi Shimizu and Ringu by Hideo Nakata. With films like Ju-on & Ringu it really just creeps me out and while films like Friday the 13th/Nightmare in ELM Street/Halloween gives me good scare. Ringu was the reason why I had to take the tv set out of my bedroom during college years while Ju-on made me think twice about hiding under the sheets LOL.
A question about the Usual Suspects of Horror
- Thread starter Eric Boellner
- Start date
Michael Carter
Veteran
Y'know what's far more powerful than horror or scares? Awe.
That's really the most powerful moments in scifi and horror, when something utterly convinces you there are ghosts (or aliens or whatever). When the universe suddenly becomes more vast, mysterious, dangerous, impersonal.
There are moments in "Haunting of Hill House", paragraphs in "House of Leaves" that do that. I think the chill you get from that sort of awe is way more overpowering than a simple scare.
The first paragraph of Shirley Jackson's "the Haunting of Hill House" is amazingly effective. A few sentences and you know you're not in Kansas (or knee-jerk creative-land) anymore.
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Remember the film "contact", when we first saw the "machine"? it was on a tiny CRT monitor in mission control. And it was cool as hell. I swear they did that as a big lifted middle finger to CGI. Like, this idea is so amazing you barely have to see it.
Naturally, it's far harder to write things that give you goosebump-terror-awe than horror.
That's really the most powerful moments in scifi and horror, when something utterly convinces you there are ghosts (or aliens or whatever). When the universe suddenly becomes more vast, mysterious, dangerous, impersonal.
There are moments in "Haunting of Hill House", paragraphs in "House of Leaves" that do that. I think the chill you get from that sort of awe is way more overpowering than a simple scare.
The first paragraph of Shirley Jackson's "the Haunting of Hill House" is amazingly effective. A few sentences and you know you're not in Kansas (or knee-jerk creative-land) anymore.
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Remember the film "contact", when we first saw the "machine"? it was on a tiny CRT monitor in mission control. And it was cool as hell. I swear they did that as a big lifted middle finger to CGI. Like, this idea is so amazing you barely have to see it.
Naturally, it's far harder to write things that give you goosebump-terror-awe than horror.
groveChuck
U-matic Member
Wow, that was good, including the "Let's have some fun now!" reveal.
Here's another of his:
There's BTS of both, too. I love the DIY light on the YT one.
And the man knows his Blender!
As for the OP's question, the Vimeo example uses the "now you see it, now you don't" device, sort of like the medicine cabinet closing reveal.
But he makes it fresh and effective (in both films, actually) by playing off fear of the dark. Done to death, but done well, effective as hell.