Personally, I’m partial to a slow burn horror movies. I don’t mind jumpscares if they serve a purpose other than to startle you. For example in Hereditary, one of the jump scares is the mom driving alone in her car and she hears her dead daughter make her signature mouth click sound. That startles you, but also lets you know the daughter may not be gone. As opposed to a generic jumpscare like a cat jumping out of a window with a dramatic music sting.
My all-time favorite horror movie technique is a lingering camera after the dialogue and characters leave. Like even if they don’t show anything it makes me uneasy. I don’t know what that’s called but it’s so good if the director does it right.
Hereditary was also so good at having scary, weird things in the background. Instead of having a music sting to accentuate them, it leaves it to the viewer to notice something creeping in the shadows and I find that more effective at building dread.
I once saw a horror movie that had scary, weird, subtle things in the foreground. For example, the main one I remember was early in the movie, when it was still keeping the viewer in suspense about whether anything supernatural was happening; in that scene the camera panned across an area and the silhouette of a ghost was right up front, but easy to miss. It’s the only movie I can recall doing that; I was watching the movie with my then-girlfriend and she didn’t even see it until I rewound to show her.
I can’t remember the name of the movie, I’ll have to ask my now-wife, but it was quite good.
edit: Actually managed to remember on my own. It was The Awakening.
Personally, I’m partial to a slow burn horror movies. I don’t mind jumpscares if they serve a purpose other than to startle you. For example in Hereditary, one of the jump scares is the mom driving alone in her car and she hears her dead daughter make her signature mouth click sound. That startles you, but also lets you know the daughter may not be gone. As opposed to a generic jumpscare like a cat jumping out of a window with a dramatic music sting.
My all-time favorite horror movie technique is a lingering camera after the dialogue and characters leave. Like even if they don’t show anything it makes me uneasy. I don’t know what that’s called but it’s so good if the director does it right.
“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
Alfred Hitchcock
Hereditary was also so good at having scary, weird things in the background. Instead of having a music sting to accentuate them, it leaves it to the viewer to notice something creeping in the shadows and I find that more effective at building dread.
I once saw a horror movie that had scary, weird, subtle things in the foreground. For example, the main one I remember was early in the movie, when it was still keeping the viewer in suspense about whether anything supernatural was happening; in that scene the camera panned across an area and the silhouette of a ghost was right up front, but easy to miss. It’s the only movie I can recall doing that; I was watching the movie with my then-girlfriend and she didn’t even see it until I rewound to show her.
I can’t remember the name of the movie, I’ll have to ask my now-wife, but it was quite good.
edit: Actually managed to remember on my own. It was The Awakening.
I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House was really, really good at this… although, maybe, not much else.
The Last Will & Testament Of Rosalind Lee did it really well too.
The Murmuring is a really good slow burn horror piece.
Thanks for this, I don’t think I’ve seen either of those. Gonna have to check them out.
You may like The Witch.
Oh yeah, The Witch was great. Period piece horror can be hit or miss, but that one hit it out of the park for me.