Classic Horror Moment Beats

There are 2 reasons this fascinates me so. The first is that I'm finding that my first scare scene in Ezekiel Hollow fell a little flat. It wasn't really a "classic" moment, the type of moment you tell your friends about after the story's over. And when Michael Keaton (on the filmmakers' commentary for WHITE NOISE) mentioned THOSE moments, the ones that let you know you're watching -- or, in his case, acting in -- a horror movie, I decided to see if I could spot what comprised those moments.

Also, I've seen tons of flat-out BAD horror movies. And I've always wondered just why those moments didn't work. There are the Big Picture reasons, like the story sucks so you don't really CARE if these 2-dimensional characters die. Or the directing is so bad you just don't believe the world of the movie exists for real on ANY level. But the specific moments -- that in some of the "better" bad horror movies ARE scary, despite the film's other shortcomings -- that you rented this movie to see just don't work.

Why?

And I think I figured it out.

Okay, so the 6 story beats that play out in a classic horror scene/sequence:

1. Reveal that there is Danger.
2. What is the Danger?
3. Reveal the Danger.
4. Try to prevent/escape the Danger.
5. The Danger strikes.
6. Reveal the aftermath.

First off, to clarify some terminology.

When I say "Danger" in this context, I'm not talking about mere danger to the character. Those classic horror moments don't come from just ANY danger, they come from THE Danger, the very specific "monster" that the central story of the movie revolves around. If you're watching a horror movie and jump out of your seat because a cat jumps out of a garbage can, the fact that it's not the Monster makes you forget that scare immediately. It's a fake-out. A cheap scare. Those don't count in our memory because that's just the filmmaker filling time until the REAL scare, or trying to get us to let our guard down so we jump higher when the real scare pops out.

So when I refer to the Danger, I'm refering ONLY to the central threat of the movie.

Next is the term "Reveal". I attach very specific significance to the word "reveal" here. One of the great joys of watching movies is when a character, situation or story point is Revealed.

In screenwritng jargon a Reveal is that moment when the audience experiences a revelation. An important piece of the puzzle is placed before them and they suddenly -- and often shockingly -- understand a great deal more about what's going on in the story than they did just 30 frames ago.

Directors often "Reveal" their important actors. An unimportant character will simply walk into a scene, but the camera and editing usually Reveals the star to the audience.

The Reveal clues the audience into something important, and makes it FEEL important. It subconsciously tells the audience "Pay attention to THIS".

So to make horror moments really HAPPEN for the audience, 3 beats in the horror moment are Revealed. They create a sensation of surprise.

More about Reveals in a moment.

Okay, so, the beats:

1. Reveal that there is Danger.

The the Danger just appears and attacks, the audience doesn't have time to build up a sense of dread, which is very important to getting the most out of a scare. If the Monster just pops out and kills, that's merely "shock" and sensation is gone a quickly as it came. And the audience doesn't have time to fear what is going to happen. It's over as soon as it does.

Not to say that shock doesn't have it's place, but it doesn't usually create a really memorable, "classic" horror moment. And it NEVER does if the movie doesn't have some TRULY classic movie moments! That's why straight-to-video horror movies are so forgettable. Plus, shock is like a punch in the face; it's so unpleasant that the human memory tends to let it slip away at the first opportunity. You might remember that you WERE shcked, but you won't remember the sensation itself.

So the first beat is to Reveal that Danger exists. Once the audience knows the character is about to face the Monster, fear rears it's ungly head, and quickly becomes dread.

2. What is the Danger?

This is where you start working the audience. It's clearly a manipulation, but when it's done well the audience forgives you. The point where the character starts trying to figure out from which direction the attack will come from is the point that the horror moment gets suspenseful! Every moment that the character doesn't see the Danger is another moment of fearful agony. And every frame of film creates more and more dread -- being a sense of impending disaster -- builds up within the audience (and within the character, if the actor's good enough) exponentially!

Here's where bad filmmakers make their first mistake. They have a character walking down a long, dark hallway or something and they just expect the audience to experience an instantaneous sense of dread. But they haven't Revealed the Danger, so the audience has no reason to believe that this long, drawn-out moment is any different from all the other long, drawn-out moments they've been watching in this boring piece of technical masterbation.

But by promising the audience "THIS is IT" (Step 1), this moment becomes excruciating!

(I'm not a sadist, I swear! But I do enjoy a bit of creative psychological warfare if there is no danger of REAL people being hurt.)

3. Reveal the Danger.

Again with the Reveal. You don't just have the Half-Naked-Hotty walk through a line of trees and bump into the Masked Killer. The audience already KNOWS that when she gets to where she's going she's going to be mangled horribly.

You play with your audience a bit. Tease them.

You let them think that the end of the tree line is where the killer is, then show them something inexplicable, the Reveal the Danger, allowing them to put together the pieces of the puzzle themselves so that they experience that surprise when they see what they already knew they were going to see.

[At the end of the illustrations I'll improve a horror scene and you judge the effectiveness of my theory yourself.]

4. Try to prevent/escape the Danger.

If the character has no chance of escape, then the audience's sense of dread dies with the character's death.

But if you show them an escape route that actually has a shot at saving the character, then the audience genuinely isn't sure what the outcome of the scene/sequence will be!

Another beniffit from utilizing these steps is that fact that the Primary Character might not be the one in danger, during which times the audience KNOWS that the Secondary Character -- assuming that the Secondary Character is the one the Danger is poised to strike -- will die!

But once the Primary Character takes action to try to prevent the attack on the Secondary Character, the audience suddenly experiences a rush of empathy for the Primary Character ("What if that were MY friend about to die?!") and the audience also intuitively knows that the Primary Character has a chance of succeeding! (it's HIS/HER movie, right?)

So this step raises questions in the audience's mind about whether a death is about to occur.

5. The Danger strikes.

Now if this is a death scene -- and for the purposes of creating the classic horror moment here, it is -- then this is where the Monster shows resourcefulness or sheer power and attacks the character. This is what the audience expects to be the "payoff" of the scene. But in a GOOD horror movies...

6. Reveal the aftermath.

THIS is the actual payoff, and this is potentially where you hit the audience the hardest.

You're not just revealing the character to be dead, but you're including some unexpected detail that makes the death (a) more real and human, and (b) surprising in some way.

A common mistake is in splatter flicks: The filmmaker doesn't "reveal" the aftermath, he simply shows it, trusting that the expensive and elaborate special makeup effects will provide the emotional impact. The ax-wielding maniac swings his weapon and it imbeds itself into the dummy head and the body falls to the ground.

But if this same filmmaker Revealed the aftermath, we might not see the hit, and the effect of the hit might turn out to be something we didn't expect (for instance, when the ax is revealed to be imbedded in the victims head, maybe we discover that the victim died with a look of curiosity on his face, rather than stock or terror).

So, putting my own principals of horror storytelling to practice, I will improvise 2 different scenes to illustrate my point.

BAD HORROR MOMENT
1. A HALF-NAKED-HOTTIE climbs out of the lake. She hears a twig snap!

2. The Half-Naked Hotty scans the wilderness around, but doesn't see anything. She nervously looks around for the rest of her clothes.

3. Another twig snaps, and the Half-Naked-Hotty sees THE AX-WIELDING MANIAC a yard or so away from her.

4. The Half-Naked-Hottie runs away from the Ax-Wielding-Maniac.

5. She looks back behind her and doesn't see the Ax-Wielding-Maniac. Where did he go? Then the Ax-Wielding-Maniac pops out from a tree (a Reveal, granted, but not a believable one) and brings his ax down into her head, splitting it in half with a bloody, juidy THUD...

6. ...and her half-naked hottie body falls to the ground. Then the Ax-Wielding-Maniac stomps off, searching for his next victim.

Sucks, right? Ask me how many times I've seen the equivalent scene in a movie. Ask me how much money I've wasted on video rentals that turned out to be merely a collection of such scenes.

BETTER HORROR MOMENT
1. A HALF-NAKED-HOTTIE climbs out of the lake. She starts looking for her clothes, then hears a dripping sound. It's not her!

[The fact that it's a dripping sound, rather that the cliche snapping of a twig is part of the reveal. You weren't expecting that. You now have a puzzle to solve, PLUS you suddenly realize that there's more to this world that what you expected.]

2. The Half-Naked Hottie scans the wilderness around her. She nervously looks around for the rest of her clothes. She finds them. But then she hears the dripping sound again. Quickly, clumsily, she puts her clothes on, always darting glances to her left and right, to see that nothing -- and no one -- is coming. Fully dressed, though the the lake water is soaking through her blouse, the Hottie hears the dripping sound again. She follows the direction it seems to be coming from, wandering cautiously farther away from the lake and into a darker, denser clump of trees. She hears the sound again, looks through the trees, careful not to make a sound.

[I had her put her clothes on simply to prolong the sense of dread -- the Ax-Wielding-Maniac could attack her at ANY POINT during the process -- and to thumb my nose at the "conventional wisdom" of lazy-ass filmmakers who believe a naked (or half-naked) hottie in jeopardy is necessarily more vulnerable than a clothed hottie. However, taking distributors -- who simply like to see naked female breasts -- into account, I'm not veering too far away from the genere I'm writing for.]

3. The Hottie spies HANDS holding the bi-sected back-end of the carcass of a possum, blood dripping out of it! Then she spies the AX-WIELDING-MANIAC, squeazing the boold into his mouth, some of the blood bouncing off his boddy and onto the rocks at his feet! The Hottie gasps and the Ax-Wielding-Maniac's head immediately swivels toward her! Simultaneously, he drops the carcass and snatches up his ax, making for the direction from which the sound of the gasp came!

[This Reveal (theoretically) credibly answer the question you asked about the first Reveal, and also shocks you, and also tells you just a little bit more about the Ax-Weilding-Maniac than you expected to learn. It might also humanize him, in an apalling way.]

4. The Hottie runs away! She threads her way through the trees, cutting herself from time to time on stubby branches. She allows herself to glance back, and sees that the Ax-Wielding-Maniac is after her, but still a safe enough distance -- if ANY distance can be considered safe ENOUGH -- ahead of him! Finally, ahead of her she sees the Ranger's Shack! If she can just make it to the Ranger's shack before the Ax-Wielding-Maniac catches up with her, she can be safe inside a cabin that contains a gun and ammo and a man who is trained to use them! But another glance back reveals that the Ax-Wielding-Maniac is faster than he looks! He's only ten feet away from her! So she screeams "Help me! He's behind me!" She runs with all her might, and the shack door opens! The RANGER steps outside and see the Hottie running toward him. THEN he sees the Ax-Wielding-Maniac close on her heels! He draws his gund and FIRES, but the bullet pierces a tree RIGHT BESIDE the Ax-Wielding-Maniac's left eye! He missed! He cocks the hammer of his revolver again...

[Now, it could be argued that I'm simnply adding more words to describe the running part, and words means a bigger budget for the filmmaker. But in the end, what is significantly different about this scene is that the Hotty now has more then a reasonable chance of surviving this scene than she did in the previous incarnation. What's more, YOU'RE just a little bit more interested in how this might turn out than you were in the Bad version! The Ranger and the Ranger's Shack can be budgetes for if they are re-used in the movie, particularly if the Ranger is one of the Primary Characters -- which would help prove the point I was making above. And another very significant eliment of this point is that REAL writing is REWRITING -- going back over the story that the author told, and MAXIMIXZING the EFFECT of it on his audience!!!]

5. ...but just as the second round FIRES, the Ax-Wielding-Maniac HURLS his weapon at the Hottie, and when it hits the back of her head, she crumples to the ground!

[This is really obvious, here. Since this is a horror movie, you know that the Hottie is dead,, but in the confusion of action, maybe the Ax-Wielding-Maniac is dead, or at least wounded. Never the less, you're not entirely sure what the Aftermath will be.]

6. The Ranger scans the trees, but he sees no sign of the Ax-Wielding-Maniac. Did he escape unharmed? Is he lying dead in the grass? The Ranger appraoches where the Hottie fell, and he quickly turns around and vomits! Then we see the face of the Hottie, the ax sticking out of the back of her skull, and a look of annoyance on her face -- she died wondering what that pestering stinging was on the back of her scalp.

[Now, that last discription would play better as a visual, but it gets across my main idea that the Aftermath should be something unexpectedly human Plus, the fact that we see the Ranger's reaction BEFORE we see for ceratin that the Hottie is dead makes this, at least technically, a Reveal.]

Now, do YOU understand the point I am trying to make?

I have certainly proved it to myself. The first scene I wrote, following my own rules, as a scene I've seen hundreds of times. The second scene I wrote UTILIZING my own rules and altering the scene where necessary. Which scene would you rather see in a horror movie?

So I feel comfortable, in my own writing, adhering to the steps I've outlined above. There is not guarentee that they will work for another writer -- just as the multitude of books/seminars I've paid for haven't 100% worked for me -- but I'm THRILLED to have cracked the code for myself!!!

--

A final note about this writing tool:

("YOU'RE a 'writing tool'!")

The sequence of beats can be used to create a scene in ANY GENRE.

Simply think of "Danger" as "Dramatic/Comedic Crisis" and then follow the steps to create a truly cinematic story moment. If you're doing a drama or melodrama, the Danger is some piece of backstory, a secret ora conflict between characters that's about to be revealed. If you're doing a mystery or a psychological thriller, the Danger is an essential piece of information. If you're doing a comedy the Danger is the comedic problem that's going to get your main character into big trouble.

I was very surprised when, after writing the innitial blog entry that this was taken from, I discovered that this scene/sequence structure fit into every genre I can think of with MINIMAL alteration!

:)