Just like the night I spent playing video games with my classmate, Hollie Lowry, the other night I spent watching horror films to try find similar techniques to invoke a scare. The three films that I watched were The Ring, Jeepers Creepers and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.
The Ring
For a long time this film and I have had a very love-hate relationship. I love that it scares me but I hate that despite watching it time and time again I still panic over the "7 days" time period in which you supposedly have left to live. The story follows a young woman who is trying to lift a curse that a little girl has put on her after watching a video, the curse is that 7 days after watching the video the little girl crawls out of the TV and mangles you. This film pretty much touches on everything unpleasant: Suicide, animal cruelty, child murder, torture and death. The reason why I find this film so scary is the way in which the antagonist, Samara, presents herself to the audience. After the 7 day time period the TV will turn on regardless of if it is plugged in, water will begin to leak from the screen (symbolising how Samara was thrown down a well and drowned). The little girl then proceeds to walk towards the screen and crawl out of it, twisting the face of the person who watches it into an unrecognisable form. The fact that there is a time limit on how long you have to live is what scares me, 7 days is all a person has in order to try and lift the curse of Samara before she comes for you, knowing that you have gone from being perfectly healthy to being a week away from being murdered is beyond terrifying.
Jeepers Creepers
Another favourite of mine though mainly for the creature design of the demon antagonist more than anything. The scare tactics employed in Jeepers Creepers are quite similar to The Ring in the sense that the creature awakens once every few years and hunts for a short period of time, when it catches the scent of the two travellers they then have a limited amount of time to get away from it before they are caught and mutilated for whatever body parts "Jeepers" may find useful. The reason this film scared me was because the creature design is based on that of a scarecrow, something usually designed to help ward off pesky critters, throughout the film the creature can be seen standing stock still in the fields and observing the travellers as they try to escape. Because the two travellers are in the middle of nowhere it made me feel quite trapped and unable to hide from the creature.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
The most horrifying thing about this film is that its based on the real life events of the original Texas Chainsaw murderer. Just knowing that innocent people died at the hands of a chainsaw wielding maniac is more than enough to turn the stomach. Whats more is that it wasn't just the single man, Tommy, but his entire family that were in on the sickening things that were going on. The film portrays the families insanity well and truly speaks out about possibly one of the most famous chains of murders in American history. In my opinion, horror films based on real life events are the most terrifying by far as it makes you realise that things like this can happen, people like Tommy do exist and the reason why they exist is so they can kill you. A definite reminder to stay vigilant.
All of the films followed quite similar paths and processes in order to invoke a scare, the use of darkness seems to play a key role in making the audience feel trapped and isolated while the sound design and ambience adds to the anxiety of the situation. I dare say I won't be sleeping well for the next few days, it was worth it however as I now have more things to write about and compare in the personal assessment part of my dissertation, the more research I can get under my belt the better.
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