The pure silence thing is scariest!
I also like when stuff happens in daylight. Something slightly scarier about having all your senses, and still being in danger :d

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Gurukitty.com | Guru@artician | Experimental Guru Blog | Guru's Art Blog

I don't like things that happen really fast with a loud sound. It's not really that they scare me, it just startles me.

For things that scare me? I think it's just spooky plots and creepy characters.

Had a thought regarding your comment. While were on the subject of Genre Study and the "whats Scary and whats Shocking":

I think that the fast, in your eye camera work/ music sync method that we see in such films as Scream or Wrong Turn are really the product of the disorienting effect that it has on people. its more difficult to terrify someone than it is to simply surprise them. People in the lower age markets would rarely know the difference. Same with the current older markets and blood and gore. The sudden shock of being faced with a, perhaps, not so terrifying monster IS shocking when its shoved in your face. The time it takes for the audience to properly digest this isn't usually allowed in that sort of film either. And, typically, by the end of the movie, its been done so many times that they probably don't know whats up or down, other then what the film was marketed to be.

Woodruff

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Yeah, it's true; a lot of hollywood movies just go for the surprise tactic to scare people. Real terrifying things take a lot of work to get right, and are a lot harder to do.

see, its funny that Hollywood would short change its investments marketability. The average film budget is sooo over inflated these days. And horror films, as I agree are very difficult to pull off correctly, are no exception. But when you reflect back on such flicks as The Thing, Rosmarys Baby or Alien, you see a terribly high amount of quality in a rather menial sum of funds compared to the high budget needed for computer animation and effects houses these days. Also, look at the creature budgets for such movies as From Dusk till Dawn and Hellboy compared to Alien vs. Predator or Constantine (flop) and you'll see a massive difference in how that money is used and how the audience responded to it.

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Yeah, seems they go for cheap gimmicks rather than real story horror. American horror kind of sucks. There's a good movie, called Audition. It has some great horror parts, and things that just scare you. At least that's how I viewed it. It's a Japanese movie.

I quite liked the Alien movies, shame they don't make more of those.

I always refer to the master of suspense (Alfred Hitchcock) for questions like this:

"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

A good film can set you on the edge of your seat, then throw you backwards just when you can't take it anymore.

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<sub>CK Hicks

dA Film | Help/FAQ | Film Forum</sub>

Being a horror movie producer, I pay a lot of attention to this topic. I myself find the small things with a jump in sound. Not music, just a sound effect that isn't onscreen. I loved when they did it in The Thing. Guy wandering towards a door, a shoadow runs past when the lights are aout, and bam, goes this weird sound that makes you jump. And all the effect was was a guy running past the camera in the dark. It's old school, but I think it still works if done properly.

oh certainly. I like to attribute a lot of good horror camera work to Riddley Scott with Alien. Here is a film set in a small, cheaply made close quartered environment, where we know the handful of characters and their personalities pretty quickly. Then we throw a classic movie monster in there (the anti-human, unstoppable terror sort) and, here's the best part, were barely going to show it to you. Its so well done for how simple it is. The film, in the theater environment, had the same effect it had in 1979 when it was re released for one Halloween night back in 2001. I suppose its just a question of how do you really plan on getting to the audience. With shock and with gore? or with darkness, and noise and with an atmosphere of terror.

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