This is essential, though if we’ve seen a monster before, we can’t truly fear it. Only show it at the most crucial moments, and the mystery will remain to haunt viewers after the credits roll.įrom Bong Joon Ho’s ‘The Host’ MAKE YOUR MONSTER UNIQUEĪfter so many decades of horror cinema, it’s difficult to find physical or motivational specificities to set your monster apart. The creature is the centerpiece, of course, but it must be scary. Cloverfield only shows its beast fully onscreen once or twice, if that, and it never explains its origins. The Host keeps its focus on human drama, punctuated by emotionally volatile appearances by the monster. Joe Dante’s The Howling manages to actually terrifying with its werewolves because it keeps them a secret, unleashing them only in the last moments. Jaws is so creepy because we don’t see the beast as it drags people to their doom though this is attributed more to production accidents than writing. Horror is defined by its focus on dread and the uncanny, which is diminished once we understand too much. Keeping a monster in the shadows, only unveiling its appearance at the last moment, will keep it a mystery and what we don’t understand, we fear. Lovecraft, noted – the greatest human fear is that of the unknown. KEEP YOUR MONSTER HIDDENĪs the granddaddy of tentacled monstrosities, H.P. That first appearance is crucial, and it has to hit hard – we can only see the monster so many times before it loses its power. Alien is extremely deliberate in its pacing, unveiling its enigmatic mythology patiently until the titular villain finally (literally) bursts into the story. The Descent sets up the dreadful circumstances of its setting before the monsters come into play. An American Werewolf in London solves the wolfman-movie pacing issue through David’s terrifying nightmares, which create psychological drama before the corporeal horror begins. Keeping the monsters at a low dose will help ensure their effectiveness, and give more room for character. And no matter how impressive the effects are, the audience can tire of them after a while. Showing your monster for the first time is arguably the most vital and difficult part of making a successful creature feature.
When the foremost goal of your film is to frighten, this is especially important. Here are a few tips that can give your monstrosities their own terrifying life: CALIBRATE YOUR PACINGįilms must be exciting, of course – especially when they’re about bloodthirsty aberrations – but it’s easy to waste all of your thrills in the first act and wear your audience out in the process. How do we keep them fresh and scary, then, when the formula is so familiar? There must be a way – creature features still delight and terrify us, as evidenced by the blockbuster reboots of Godzilla and King Kong.
From Edison’s 1910 adaptation of Frankenstein to the 1915 film Der Golem, aberrant beings and evil beasts have haunted the screen since the early days. One of the oldest subgenres of horror is the monster movie.
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