| With countless slasher remakes and Japanese | | | | reveal of the Phantom's hideous features halfway |
| horror scene rip-offs filling our screens of late | | | | through the film becoming one of the most iconic |
| there has been a dearth of great horror on | | | | moments in horror history, an image burned on |
| contemporary cinema screens. Perhaps if today's | | | | the retina of anyone who has ever seen it. |
| film-makers are to create truly great horror films | | | | Showmanship - The Tingler |
| again they need to look to the past for some | | | | Horror movies are often most effective when |
| lessons in creating suspense or sustaining mood. | | | | they mess with our sense of reality - blurring the |
| Let's take a look at some truly impressive | | | | boundies between watching and participating in the |
| elements of a few classic horror films that | | | | film, albeit through campy or gimmicky methods. |
| today's creators would do well to take note of. | | | | Master of the theatrical gimmick William Castle is |
| Sound Design - The Haunting | | | | perhaps most notorious for the release of this |
| In this classic 60s horror, nothing is actually seen | | | | film about a creature which would tingle the |
| of the malicious presence which torments the | | | | bottom of a victim's spine until they died, their |
| team of volunteers investigating the old house, | | | | only escape being to scream. On the film's |
| but everything is heard of them. A cacophonous | | | | roadshow release, Castle would rig up selected |
| mix of banged doors, rattling windows, footsteps | | | | chairs in the audience to tingle at the point in the |
| and whispered voices all contribute to the sense | | | | film when the Tingler is set free in a cinema. It's |
| of menace which pervades every second of this | | | | arguable that Castle's techniques have their |
| movie. You can cover your eyes or cower behind | | | | modern equivalent in the viral marketing of films |
| the sofa, but you can't escape the horror. | | | | such as The Blair Witch Project, but none of |
| Cinematography - Cat People | | | | these provide such a memorable shared horror |
| This low budget horror classic marked producer | | | | experience as Castle's screenings used to. |
| Val Lewton's first film as head of his own horror | | | | Ideas - The Undead |
| B-unit at RKO pictures, and it was an effective | | | | No one can claim that Roger Corman wasn't |
| demonstration of his theory that things were | | | | ambitious, and this film is perhaps one of his most |
| scarier when left to the audience's imagination. | | | | surprisingly aspirational films. Intended to exploit |
| The film's killer, a black panther, is only seen once | | | | the public's fascination with past lives in the late |
| in the film, and the danger is far more effectively | | | | 50s, the film starts out as a conventional |
| conveyed through the flickering shadows and dark | | | | supernatural thriller with cardboard sets and |
| shapes that dance around the edge of the frame | | | | unconvincing plasticine make-up, but is so earnest |
| as the protagonists try to escape a terror they | | | | in its ideas that the audience is compelled to buy |
| can barely see. Sound design also plays a | | | | into what eventually ends up feeling like a |
| significant part, and the film's strongest set-piece | | | | powerful existential drama. The brutal intercutting |
| takes place in a swimming pool as a girl | | | | between antagonists and protagonist as she |
| desperately treads water as the refracted light | | | | realises the sacrifice she is being asked to make |
| from the water gives glimpses of the silhouette | | | | lingers in the mind longer than any musical stinger |
| whose growls echo around the pool. | | | | or gore-shot ever could. |
| Make-Up - Phantom of the Opera | | | | You see, it isn't always what is shown onscreen |
| In this CGI age horror effects are probably less | | | | that has the most power. With the right use of |
| scary than they have ever been, though even | | | | atmosphere, camera work, soundtrack, editing |
| the copious amounts of blood and guts in the | | | | and lighting, it is possible to create chilling pieces of |
| glorious gore-fests of the video nasty era were a | | | | cinema without resorting to shallow CG fests. |
| little lacking in the quiet creepiness of earlier | | | | Much is made of onscreen torture and over the |
| horror. Undisputed master of the modestly | | | | top gore these days, and some nods to a more |
| macabre is silent horror star Lon Chaney, who | | | | calculated era of filmmaking would do the horror |
| probably found his finest moment in an early | | | | industry a great deal of good. |
| adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera - the | | | | |