(A 2010 update includes a new introduction that briefly looks at more recent entries in the horror genre.) It’s worth reading simply as a guide to how King thinks about the work of others who are trying to do the same thing he is - namely, scare the pants off of readers and viewers, and get them to pay for it. Most of the book consists of King’s observations on the horror films and stories of the era, from Roger Corman quickies to arty sci-fi horror masterpieces like Alien. Scares exist on a spectrumĭanse Macabre grew out of a series of lectures King had been giving as part of a college course on horror fiction. His categorization remains the best way to understand how horror stories work - and why some types of fictional scares have a more lasting impact than others. In Danse Macabre, his 1980 treatise on horror film and fiction, he outlined three essential types of terror and how they work. But the best dissection of the various types of scares and how they work probably comes from the horror genre’s most successful modern practitioner, Stephen King. #BIZARRE HORROR MOVIES YOU HAVENT SEEN MOVIE#What, exactly, makes a movie scary or silly is different for everyone. Indeed, the new installment seems to lack a basic theory of fear it has no sense of how and why the audience should be afraid at any given moment. Unlike the 2002 Gore Verbinski film that started the franchise, which was built on creepy imagery and mounting psychological terror, Rings is content to startle rather than scare. Last weekend’s Rings, the third installment in the American Ring franchise, aims for a mood of surreal dread, but ends up leaning on lazy jump scares for most of its jolts. Does it slowly build fear and tension, only to expel it all in a climactic release? Does it dwell on horrific acts of violence or scenes of gore, in hopes of making you cringe with feeling at the thought of experiencing such pain yourself? Does it explore bizarre imagery, or some supernatural concept? Or does it rely on simple surprise, loud noises and unexpected appearances intended to cause you to jump out of your seat? You can tell a lot about a horror movie by how it tries to scare you.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHeather ArchivesCategories |