What scares you the most in Horror movies? (3)

“Well, if you look at the vast majority of horror films, there's usually one or two characters in the cast who are meant to survive, whereas the others are merely fodder for whatever evil force is going around killing people. The problem is, these characters usually tend to be "the rapper", "the fat guy", "the black guy" or any other form of 2-Dimensional character. They don't bother investing the audience's emotions in these characters in any other way than giving them a few good jokes and gags to make us think "oh, he's funny, I hope he doesn't die". I think it's more powerful when a character that has an investment in the story dies...A good example of this (although I didn't much care for the film) is in Hostel, where the one of the two lead characters is killed halfway through the film, causing the film to pick up the second half with the unlikely hero. I asked him further details so he replied me
They don't necessarily need to die at the end- but the significance of their deaths should MEAN more. I mean that in a typical movie with 5-8 cast members, there is usually only 1-2 people who "survive" whatever it is they are surviving. The problem is, those 5-6 people who die (most often violently) tend to be under-developed characters or not emotionally invested in the survivor character or the story.I think a big part of horror is the "shock factor", or in other words, the "unexpected" (which ties into the fear of the unknown)... when people expect something to happen, it's no longer scary, so a big part of horror is doing things that are against what the audience expects... here's some examples:Event Horizon - good example of the "unexpected" + fantastic Science fiction-horror movie of the three characters that survive, 2 of them turn out to be the type of "underdeveloped" character I'm talking about (the black guy and the blonde scientist chick). A delightfully unexpected surprise when these characters end up surviving where others do not. Every death in that movie is also emotionally invested in some way, mainly because Lawrence Fishburn's character is such a gung-ho crew-loving captain, and when he blows himself up allowing the two stock characters to survive, it's a great payoff for the film.I Know What You Did Last Summer - Who gives a shit about any of the characters in this movie anyway? They're a group of dull, 2-D teenage idiots running around as some killer picks them off one by one in a predictable order. Well, there's a lot of movies like this (more "slasher genre"), and they all pretty much end the same... some heroine's ex-boyfriend or secret crush kills her friends, comes after her, but is defeated by the new boyfriend in her life and the killer falls off a cliff into the sea. Then the heroine moves to Baltimore to start a new life and the last shot of the film is her in the shower as the killer pops into frame. Blah. Predictable. Stale. Maybe they intentionally make the characters bland and cliche to stand for what they think people are, but I think people relate more to unique characters... and EVERYONE should be unique in the film, since all people are unique- even the bartender in scene 22, shot b, take 3 who had his finger up his nose during the best take.13 Ghosts - bad bad movie, but with some pretty horrific effects and an interesting but campy plot... and Matthew Lillard - and the problem with this movie was that the only character who could have had an emotional death was Matthew Lillard's, and while I love him in SLC Punk and some other flicks, he isn't the person who I would attach an "emotionally riveting" scene to. And the people who survive are the obvious ones- the "family unit", while the more 2-dimensional characters die off randomly. So while the visuals certainly give a shock factor, the characters who die only serve to show off fancy effects and not advance the story in a way that takes the audience on a horrifying journey. Instead, it's a bit of a camp fest, which I usually enjoy (see Evil Dead 2), but could have been MUCH more terrifying if they actually spent more time developing the characters.”

Over here I am not mentioning the name of that friend or I should better call him GURU just for the sake of his privacy. If he wants I can also post his name. Anyways i am posting the number of votes which were given to most common elemnts of the horror movies.


Unseen fear 8

Atmosphere 7

Music 8

Gore (Clearly Showing on screen) 13

Suspense (What will happen next) 8

Other 59

The above mentioned table shows that majority of the viewers like to see gore and every thing on the screen rather than watching any film with the idea of unseen evil where the things are left over the imagination of viewers.

These were the results collected by different forums. Though it is not a formula for making a success full horror film. It is simly a sort of survey which i did.

Regards

What scares you the most in Horror movies? (2)

Friends this topic had been really an interesting one for me. I posted this message on many forums and social networking sites. And there were many replies. I received around 100 replies. From those replies lot of replies were either irrelevant or very uncommon.

For example one guy said he is afraid of kids who are either ghosts or have been lost in jungle, another guy was scared of spiders in the movie. One other guy was scared of chairs moving without any one sitting on it or some one was interested in seeing situations where a guy is the only person left on earth. I have not counted those replies because those replies or elements mentioned by them were not part of general horror movies. Instead of this, these replies were given by keeping in mind specific movies.

I have counted the replies which were given keeping in mind the general horror movies rather than any specific movie.

You can see there is a heading of ‘other ‘. Under this heading I have counted those replies including two very different and important replies. And both the replies were related to character development. I am posting one of those replies without changing the words which were given to me so that you can understand it easily.

“I think the problem with most horrors is that they don't bother to actually build up the characters who die, and when those deaths could be full of meaning and significance (and thus horrifying) they just end up being Red Shirts.”
On asking more he replied.........

Continued..............

What scares you the most in Horror movies? (1)

Horror genre is my most favorite genre. I have always been attracted towards the movies with lot of blood, pieces of human bodies lying here and there, darkness, zombies, ghosts, suspense that what will happen next and a lot more. I personally love to spend my weekend in a darkroom with a friend watching a horror movie. I remember when I was young, the horror movies used to grip me so much that I sue to sleep with taking a blanket over me and still I used to think that some one hiding at the corner of my room and watching me. The interesting thing was that the night I used to see a horror movie, that whole night I couldn’t sleep but still the next week I had a movie in my shelf ready to be watched.

Though I have grown up and things in the movie now do not scare me, but the interest in horror movies is still alive and the biggest proportion of movies in my collection is of horror movies. Few months back while talking on a forum I came to know that majority of the indie filmmakers starts their career with horror genre (in case of feature film). This is something which I later on read in several articles related to indie filmmaking and horror genre. An experienced guy told me that horror films which are not so scary, even they have some chance to sell out and have a small market. It was interesting news for me. I couldn’t even say he was misguiding me because he himself had a small niche market of his horror films. After talking to him I started liking to research about the genre and about the fact that what do people like in a horror film? The reason for this is that I have seen people passing good comments even about few horror films (horror zombie genre) which were really ridiculous and I would have never thought to see. The major reason was that the movie was shot in day light (I think no one like horror movies shot in day light) and the make up of zombies was horrible done. They were looking idiots rather than zombies. I will like to name one movie which I purchased and really felt upset for wasting my time to see that movie. The name of that movie is “Zombie Wars (2006)”. The link is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0897444/synopsis.

The shocking thing about the movie was that it was rated one of the most terrifying and horror film of the year by well known organizations and people etc. This thing was really stunning because the film had not even a story (and not anything which can attract people) and it was rated so highly.

This thing encouraged me to do a little survey. I will post the results of the survey in my next post….

Aunties and Uncles of Lolly-wood.

Pakistani film industry has existed for a long time but we never saw a bad period like this. Though i have mentioned nearly all the major reasons related to the fall of film industry in my old articles including the economical, political and socials ones. But till a very important factor has been left out and that is the non entrance of new faces on the silver screen and the repeat of old faces in every film. If we look at the period of last 15 to 20 years we see that every film (yes every film) has the same faces of SHAN, SAIMA, SAUD, BABAR ALI, MOMER RANA, REEMA, MEERA, RESHAM. These face have become so old and have been looked so many times by the viewers that now the viewers can even tell the amount of hairs on their heads.

Shan is the most busy and more casted actor. He is also considered the most expensive actor (HERO will be more suitable word) of Pakistan. Along him comes MOMER RAANA who is considered the only rival of SHAAN in Lolly-Wood but even he does not really has the potential or talent to compete SHAAN. The third most common and old face is of SAIMA. No doubt in Pakistani Cinema she occupies the place of a queen (REEMA KHAN may mind it) and she is really a queen now. Old queen. A major reason for her continuous appearance in the movies is that she is the second wife of SAYED NOOR (the most busy) Lolly-Wood filmmaker. And he always prefer SAIMA on any other actress. Even if he has to cast a heroin for the role of college girl he will ask SAIMA for the role.

All these actors have been working for around 15 years. Though it is not a long period but we people are fed up because every movie has these old faces. On the other hand the filmmakers are not willing to take new faces as it might even make them loose that small audience which still visits cinemas.

On the other hand the sensible audience has already stopped visiting cinemas. And they are waiting for new faces like of IMAN ALI (who was in the lead role in KHUDA KE LIE).