13 MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN A NIGHTMARE MOVIE
April 30th 2010 01:45
In no particular order.
1. Atmosphere
Arguably the most important element of any genre movie and the element most overlooked. Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci had it down to a fine art.
2. Tone & Humour
The more consistent the tone the more effective the movie will be. A sense of humour doesn’t hurt, but needs to be used sparingly (unless you’re making a horror-comedy, but that’s a different kettle of fish).
3. Premise & Screenplay
It helps to hook people into a premise with something familiar, but then the screenplay needs to take the audience somewhere new.
Well-known actors can potentially damage a movie's authenticity. A convincing performance is paramount, as an audience needs to believe a character is genuinely terrified otherwise the game’s over.
5. Direction
What you see and what you don’t see. Very important.
6. Dialogue
The less said the better. Take Nosferatu (1922) for example, or Eraserhead (1977), or even Alien (1979).
7. Sound & Score
Hugely important! Sound design affects an audience on a subconscious level. The music should be used with restraint and/or variations on an unsettling minimalist theme, such as John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).
It isn’t imperative that a nightmare movie use elaborate special effects, but in the case of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) or George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), they work a treat. John Carpenter’s Halloween, on the other hand, shows that with virtually no special effects you need your other elements to be very effective.
9. Editing & Suspense
Stephen King once said that he sets out to terrify, and if he can’t do that he’ll horrify. Tension and release, shocks and “Boo!”s are the bread and butter of a good nightmare movie.
10. Ending & Epilogue
The best endings suggest all hell has broken loose; the apocalypse is upon us. And epilogue needs to be really clever; otherwise it becomes a cheap effect or flattens the whole movie.
Very, very important the mood and tone of the whole movie is set up within the first few minutes.
12. Violence
Whether it’s graphic gore or implied brutality, violence goes hand-in-glove with the nightmare movie. The whole point of this genre is to take an audience out of their comfort zone, take them to the edge of the abyss, let the stare into it, mortify them, let them purge their fears.
13. Nudity & Sexual Tension
Sex and death will always tango in the nightmare movie. They will be forever entwined. Sexual energy can be used in a multitude of ways; whether exploitative with gratuitous nudity or crudity, or as a manipulative weapon by having an empathic character on screen be sexually attractive, then place them in extended jeopardy, maybe even kill them in a heinous fashion.
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