Freelance Writing

Article: What’s the difference between good horror and bad?

Article Originally appeared on www.whatsthediff.com

“When the things we fear actually happen, we experience horror. Horror is the dark realization and subsequent revulsion that the world is now fundamentally, shockingly, and permanently altered,” proclaims an over-sized poster inside, “Can’t Look Away: The Lure of Horror Film” — the latest horror exhibition at Seattle’s Experience Music Project museum.

The exhibit itself lies at the bottom of a winding staircase, the walls of which are covered with portraits of people screaming. Throughout the exhibit, glass cases showcase props from some of the genre’s most successful films — Jack Torrance’s axe from “The Shining,” the alien from the “Alien” series, the faun’s head from “Pan’s Labyrinth,” among others.

But what made these films so successful? What is it exactly that strikes enough fear to illicit a cult following, still dissecting a movie forty years after its debut? Well, it may be helpful to first understand where this fear comes from.

In the most biological sense of the word, fear begins in the amygdala — an almond shaped group of nuclei located deep within the temporal lobe. It processes memory, decision-­‐making, and emotions. It tells you when to run when you’re afraid. When to freeze and when to suddenly throw your popcorn into the row behind you while watching “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on an already awkward first date (based on actual events).

But, in a 2010 brain scan study conducted by Thomas Straube of the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, it was discovered that when we watch scary movies, the amygdala doesn’t light up at all. Instead, it’s the parts of the brain associated with self-­‐awareness, visual stimuli, planning, attention, and problem solving that react the most strongly. Which could help explain why some of us like it so much. It doesn’t always scare us the way a life-­‐threatening situation would, it scares us into the realm of imagination as we try to piece it all together.

So, what’s the difference between horror that ignites the imagination and the stuff that leaves it dim? Well, after a lifetime spent watching and over-­‐analyzing everything from Takashi Miike, to Guillermo Del Toro, to David Lynch, to the stuff that somehow got funded and ended up on Netflix instant, I’ve seen more than a few commonalities between the good, the bad, and the really, really ugly:

1. It’s a puzzle – All the best ones are. They make us work. They leave Easter eggs in all the nooks and crannies of their most dimly lit hallways. They have us thinking for days, months, even years afterwards. The worst ones explain. They make it obvious. They use tropes that hold up a sign explaining what’s about to happen, and therefore we remain not stimulated in the slightest. We don’t invest in the movie because there is no more work left to be done, the filmmakers did it all for us.

   A master of the puzzle was director, Stanley Kubrick and one of his masterworks, “The Shining.”

   It’s a film that’s spawned hundreds of conspiracy theories, as Kubrick was known for his meticulous, artistic nature. In “Room 237,” a 2012 documentary that explores the very theories surrounding “The Shining,” some of the most prominent ideas were discussed.

   Bill Blakemore, a television correspondent and author, thinks it might be about the Native American Genocide. Geoffrey Cocks, a professor of history at Albion College in Michigan, feels there is enough evidence to suggest it’s about the Nazi Holocaust. Jay Weidner, author and filmmaker, says it’s clearly about the faked moon landing that Kubrick himself helped stage. And, there is the mysterious “impossible window” as it’s come to be known — a window with sunlight streaming in, in a room where there should be no windows.

   Curiouser and curiouser.

   Then, there are others that feel there is nothing puzzling about the film at all and that, in fact, it’s a pretty straightforward film about the stresses of working too hard and neglecting your family. Who’s right? Well, that’s really up to you.

2. It has a message – A child’s loss of innocence in, “The Exorcist.” An individual’s loss of their individuality in, “The Stepford Wives” — the 1975 version. The world’s loss of, well, planet earth in every zombie or alien film ever made. Sweeping loss and sudden loneliness seem to be a major theme in many of horror’s most profound films. And how we are the catalysts to our own inevitable destruction seems to be the message.

   One film with a particularly well-executed message was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 thriller, “Kairo,” or, “Pulse,” as it came to be known after its remake in the U.S. five years later — a remake that was not well received by audiences or critics alike.

   Now, what was the difference? If they were based on the same story, didn’t they have the same message? No, not really. “Kairo” spoke about individual loneliness during the late 90s, early 2000s rise in technology in a world that already seemed to have too many humans and not enough human contact. “Pulse” took that idea, slapped a blue camera filter on it, added some tight t-shirts, got rid of that idea all together, and cranked up the volume.

   Essentially, bad horror is too much amygdala (jumping out of our seats) and not enough dorsal-medial prefrontal cortex (finding the message).

   Which brings me to my last point.

3. It doesn’t rely on special effects – Great horror sets us up to imagine. It gives us crumbs without showing us the bread. It sweeps the camera across a field, just for a frame showing us something that we aren’t sure we actually saw.

   In other words, when it comes to horror, our imaginations are more powerful than anything modern technology can CGI.

   If the rise of the hand-held-camera technique beginning around the time of “The Blair Witch Project” (which cost $25,000 to make and grossed nearly

$250 million) taught us anything, it’s that reality is what scares us. Over-the-top special effects remind us that we are watching a movie. A shaky camera capturing footage of real people makes us feel as though we are the ones doing the running. And, if it’s any good, we are left to wonder from what.