Horror movies are tough (to make) these days (one man's opinion) I personally think the "scariest" moments are those that don't really show much. "Psychological horror" tends to get me more than blood and guts/slasher type stuff. I think the more blood and gore you put in something, the harder it is to make it real enough to be scary. Some films make people spend more time thinking about the effect (how did they do it...that looks fake etc) and the effect itself becomes the focal point rather than the actual moment.......I'm rambling now.....

I say go for the brain......make people fear what they see in their own head combined with the feeling your scene portrays.

I will say when Jimmy Caan had his ankles broken in Misery I almost had to........anyway.....still makes my toes curl thinking about it.

See the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and tell me if you join the 99% of the audience who when asked if they saw anybody actually get cut up with a chainsaw in this film will say "Ohhh Yeeeessss!"

Now go back and try to find a single scene where this actually happens.

The mind is far more powerful than reality. That's why we are still enjoying drama in book form, even though it's 100% in the mind.

So many questions really.

One easy way to answer is to "do it and learn." Shooting action is an art form onto itself and really it varies. I like close ups for example and if the actor is giving off great facial expresisons this is great. You can also "hide" a lot. However if you are doing some sort of marital arts fight scene you may have to bow down to what the viewers will want. Martial artists really love to look at wide shots that show the moves. Many of these guys have beem influnced by Bruce Lee films and you have these wide shots where there is Bruce and like 100 guys. Not always my personal cup of tea but I have had to both as director and editor, either cut in wide shots that I thought sucked or direct fight in wide because the producer demanded I "show the action". As for certian angles I would highly suggest if you are going to do any fight scenes you get a decent fight co-ordinator. They will work it out ahead of time and bring it to you. Watch them do the whole thing at full speed...walk around them as they are doing it making a mental picture of what looks good. Have them do certian sections again and walk around looking. Map it out with your DP. It is *very* hard to shoot a fight scene in a "one take" type of way because some punches/kicks/hits will look good and some won't. Overall side ways - as in: camera looking at two people standing sideways fighting - won't look good. 3/4 shots overall work best but as I said you *need* to view the choreography first and decide after. Also try to look at the fight on set because many factors can, and will, change between dojo/studio and location. Keep in mind editing you may want to use double and triple cuts on some kicks and punches. You may want to use slo motion on some. Most of the asian martial arts films undercrank, Jackie Chan's older films normally shot action at about 20 -22 fps so the speed up is not that noticable. The really bad ones shoot at 18 fps which really makes them look stupid...IMO.

Now the gore side - you need to ask yourself are you making a horror film or a splatter film? They are not the same. Thanks to CGI you can do a bit more in the splatter dept but for me finding the "real" way to do it is always better. I love to cite the very classic "Un Chien Andalou" as a way to shock (a "shock" film is not the same as a horror film either) the viewer. But it was editing that really did it. However that was a real eye getting cut - cows eye, but still real. So the idea is to either just go overboard and cater to the splatter fans or tone it way down and try to be a bit moody. Somewhere in between lies real horror.

"Halloween" brought the whole handheld/POV vibe to a trend in horror films - I think it was mostly done as a low budget film where they could not set up dolly shots - probably did not have a dolly. Handheld was fast, and made for faster set ups and break downs. Likewise look at "Evil Dead" where they worked out their own style with 2x4's and undercranking. "When a Stranger Calls" is a king of scares - but not because the film is overly scary, the editing is what I call the "cheap time shift scare"...but this film does it very very well. "Carnival of Souls" I never found scary but man it is lord, god, king of mood. The music helps define the creepiness. Of cousre there is "Phantasm" which, to me, has one of the best soundtracks. It is also a moody film because of that element. "Friday the 13th" is a classic film where people will argue about how many deaths were shown on camera (effect happens on camera) - actually only one was. (ok, maybe 2 if you count the end) Tom Savini has stated he had no budget to work with so he had to find creative ways to do the effects "on camera". (my fav is the throat slitting - pre did the effect, head down - killer walks into frame brings knife up, crosses camera as if cutting, head tilts back - slit throat) Same can said for Tobe Hoppers TCM that was sort of the "big" film of gore - even though it had less on camera gore than "Friday the 13th".

Many people love "The Cat and the Canary" - the Bob Hope version. In a way I can see why - because it works with shadows and light to create that creepy crawly feeling. I was never scared by it, after all it is a comedy, but I think many consider it classic horror because of the look and tone of it. Hitchcock was somewhat of the master of the set up - showing the viewer something the character on screen did not see. Than he would play on that fact to help create the terror/horror. I mean really it is something that has been around forever - you know, the train robber who takes the girl, ties her up and puts her on the track. Now we see a train and we see the hero. Oh my...who will get to her first??? Editing quickens...your heart rate jumps. You get the idea. Hitchcock used this concept to build on.

There is also the "audio cue cheap scare" method - you know, really quiet and suddenly there is a LOUD noise. The variations on this are the "cat jumps out from behind a curtain" and the "person steps out from behind [Your object here]" methods. You asked about certian angles - 99.9% of the cat/person method you will see someone end up framed with empty space on one side and they are looking the other way from the empty space. This can be done with a zoom, a pan, a dolly or simply the person walks to that point with no camera move.

As shooting in the dark - day for night? You can cheat this by underexposing and putting the action in shade. Than if you want, toss on a blue fliter. Not that it will always work but people seem fairly accepting that blue = night. To me night is dark and black, not blue. But if you can't shoot at night it is an option. Sometimes putting a blue gel over your lights will work for, say, a nightime "in the bedroom" shot. If you want to do the day for night in post remember that whatever you highlights are will be what pops the most - so say you had a scene by a fire. Turning that way down in post you would see the fire best - so in a way you need to also make whatever action you have go on in the same intensity light. You are in some ways overexposing the highlights. For film to do this I would just take the reading from the shadows and compare that to the highlight and bracket the shot - either one or two stops. The same concept works in video. Remember you still need the latitude to work with inpost. Blowing it out so much in camera leaves you with little work with, especially in video.

If you want a cheap effect for zombie eating guts you can take the canned hormale chili (nobeans) and some pre-cooked sausage. Do a quick shot of someone leaning over a body taking a bite of this - it will work and look great, more so if it is at "night". If you want little magots you can take white rice and toss it on top. If you want to get fancy just do some cgi of moving rice on top to add some maggoty movement.

Hope some of that helps.

Thanks for all the advice, you guys have given me a lot to consider. I agree that timing and suspense is what makes a horror film scary. I am just not sure how much suspense I can build in 13 minutes.

Filmy, I am going to rent a few of the movies you mentioned this week.

Thanks

>>> I am just not sure how much suspense I can build in 13 minutes<<<

Take the girl on the tracks concept and play with it...you will be suprised at how much you can do. Remember the 30 and 60 second spots for heinz Catchup? You know the "Anticipation is making me wait..." ones? You don't need any blood or guts for that. Not even a big cast. Just have, say - thinking as I type - like a drip of water and it just hangs there and you show someone under it, tied up - and they are a bit wet and you hear a voice asking "Tell me what I want to hear..." and that is your entire film - that voice, maybe some footsteps, the guy under the drip and the water. Done the right way it would have people on the edge of their seats and ready to go insane after 3 minutes let alone 13 minutes.

But this would be a suspense film, not a horror film. To make it horror film you would have to say - maybe have the same set up but put it in a dark room. Have the guy there and you hear a drip of water. You hear footsteps. You have shadows moving around. Toss in some distant thunder, wind, creaking trees outside.

For me maybe horror is more noise and shadows and suspense is more of a quiet thing. I think if you had a quiet room it might be hard to get across the horror - unless it was, something that was real...such as a shot of the back of someone standing in a window, we see a text that says " 8:14 am". The shot is static for a while as we take in what is outside the window - trees, birds..so on. The camera starts to move and as we start to get to the front there is a flash of blinding light. For a moment the screen goes bright...when it comes back clear we see a final shot, in a move that has taken us from the backof this person to the front, where we see an elderly asian man and a subtitle that says "8:15 am". The horror here being we have just witnessed the last minute of this mans life on August 6, 1945. Now to create suspense just combine that with intercuts that show the bomb falling and we go back to what Hitchcock loved to do - show the viewers something that the character does not know in oder to create suspense.