Gore. Blood. More body parts strewn about than a World War I battlefield. Walls painted in drooling crimson. Scantily-clad teenage girls hacked to bits by a machete-wielding madman. That's what most people think of when they think horror. As a genre, it gets a bad rap. But it doesn't have to. Some of the most wonderfully-crafted films ever made were done in the name of horror, and for less money than you may think
Is the goal to splatter the landscape with viscera in an attempt to horrify, or tell a truly good story? If it's the former, you'll more likely end up turning it into a farcical and campy shadow of itself, one that will easily sink into a sea of mediocrity. It will also desensitize your viewers so by the time the twentieth death occurs on-screen they're not nearly as engaged as they were with that first one.
It doesn't have to. By doing what might appear counter-intuitive at first, you'll make an even stronger, scarier, and more entertaining film. And you'll do it all the while saving on your budget. At the micro level, we have to be mindful of every cent that goes into production. And our horror productions, like any other production, start with a script.
Horror is a unique creature among the genres in that it can be done on the micro or the large scale. Truth be told, you don't need a cast of A-list actors, large-scale budget, or an army of CGI wizards to make a good, old-fashioned scary movie. The only thing you really, truly need is a good, suspenseful script with a straight throughline.
What is suspense? Let's deconstruct the word. Whenever I hear suspense, I think of something being suspended, something held back, kept from view. Avoid going “on the nose” with anything. Don't serve the audience everything on a silver platter explained in boring detail through exposition. Why show an arm when a hand will suffice? Why a whole face instead of one in silhouette or partially shown, or, a pair of eyes?
What was it about Paranormal Activity that drew audiences in? The suspense kept you wanting to see more. A strange noise here, a movement there, the scared reactions of the characters, and then you get the delicious payoff at the end.
Tension is borne out of conflict. By increasing the suspense and removing some of the blood and gore, you enhance or create tension. And people will remember your work long after.
Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Alien, holds the theory that less seen is more scary, and I agree with him. Keep things back intentionally as long as possible, even (and especially) in a horror movie. Ridley Scott took it upon himself to make it an edict during filming that the creature would not be fully seen in order to keep the suspense up and not give it all away. Why? Because then you reveal to the audience it's just a guy in a suit, and you're not letting the audience help out. Remember that they are participating in the film as much as you were when you wrote or shot it.
James Cameron has even held this theory true as well, albeit with his own spin. Go back and watch Aliens. How much screen time is devoted to actually showing the alien creatures coming out of the walls? And how much footage is shown of the Colonial Marines blowing everything up, looking terrified, and running around? It's a lopsided ratio at best. That's because we didn't need that much to know that they were surrounded in a hive, outnumbered and cut off.
