ARCHIVED ARTICLES: Scary Season Suggestions (The Owen Hollander Experience)

Written: October 2021

Well, it’s that time of year again when modern culture pressures you to watch movies that will horrify you and your loved ones for entertainment. But have you ever considered what makes these movies scary?

There are of course the obvious ones like The Shining, the bone-chilling, Stanley Kubrick classic. This movie showcases some of Kubrick's best directing and just demonstrates why he’s considered one of the greatest directors. His use of tight close-up shots creates an extremely claustrophobic atmosphere to the piece that almost suffocates the audience and leaves the viewer on edge the entire time. His brilliant use of vibrant reds from the carpets to the blood evokes negative and uncomfortable feelings in the audience, as red can be symbolic of war and anger. These cramped angles and unsettling reds cause the viewer to feel confined and anxious throughout the film, giving the audience an entertaining fright.

Another great pick is Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs. Demme’s use of angles that showcase power dynamics causes the audience to feel very helpless and weak during the film, which makes for an intimidating viewing. As the camera moves back and forth between Foster and Hopkins during their interactions, the camera will be looking down on Foster and looking eye-level at Hopkins. These angles establish a disproportionate relationship between the two characters. It shows Hopkins as the powerful predator and Foster as the vulnerable prey. This causes the audience to feel very threatened by Hopkins' character, which only frightens us more. Add these angles onto the fact that Hopkins’ character is a cannibalistic serial killer and we as an audience become very unsettled during scenes with him. (It’s also my favorite thriller of all time if that doesn’t sell you enough.)

My final pick is the 1999 cult classic The Blair Witch Project by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick. The movie was created by independent filmmakers away from Hollywood and is revered as being one of the first movies to use the ‘found footage’ style. They show the entire movie through the lens of a camera that is being carried around by the characters who are aspiring college filmmakers. This blurred line between the camera being an observer and the camera being a participant in the story creates a very personal connection between the characters and the audience. It’s almost as if we are along for this terrifying ride with them. The intense darkness of the film only adds to that ominous effect. This darkness and personal attachment evoke the best kind of suspense; they cause you to fear what fright may be lurking around the corner.