I just don't like horror films. All too often they are poorly written, badly acted, too dark (absence of light too dark, not the other kind), too predictable, obviously low-budget, and (among other things) lacking in compelling characters. And they're not scary. A quick cut-away or sudden loud noise does not scary make. "It's not actually talented filmmaking if you can get the same effect from popping a bag of potato chips behind somebody's head."
And for those assholes out there who would counter me with, (mocking tone) "Well, then why you don't you make a horror film then?" You're a fucking idiot. You don't have to be a filmmaker, an actor, a writer, a grip, a director, a producer, etc. to criticize a work. I couldn't play "You May Be Right" if my life depended on it, but I would know immediately if you missed a note, lyric, or sang off-key and I can't do either of those things either so such challenges to criticism are meaningless.
There are many sub-genres to horror and perhaps it is the slasher film that is the most shitty. TVtropes has already covered this in detail so I don't have to write about it (So You Want to Write a Slasher Horror Story). Instead, I'll just focus on shit that constantly bugs me. Friday the 13th is my usual go-to for these sorts of discussions because I've seen most of them and there are enough of these films to provide examples of everything.
Why can't I care about the characters in these films? Spending twenty minutes with jerks or otherwise cardboard characters means I can't sympathize with them or feel particularly bad about what awaits most, if not all, of them over the course of the movie. Yes, being able to care about the characters and whether or not they live or die in these films means it will take longer to "get to the action", but if you not only don't care about the people being killed over the course of the film but in fact do not want to be bothered with such emotion, what does that say about you?
The set-up for characters I can relate to (or even ones whom I can't but are nonetheless able to sympathized with) doesn't necessarily have to come in the form of longer introductions but could be accomplished as the movie progresses by making you, the viewer, realize what now has been lost to the world. How amazing would a slasher film be if audience members could actually be made to care enough about the characters that the character's death could actually reduce them to tears? Remember, these characters are supposed to be people with lives back home, families, friends, lovers, hopes, dreams, etc. Sometimes it can be subtle things in the background.
A noted example was the survivor of Pamela Voorhees's rampage in the first Friday the 13th film. In the opening to the second film, we see Alice in her home. She's clearly an artist and still traumatized over what happened to her (as she should be). The scene doesn't linger too long before she takes an ice pick to the skull from Jason (she would be his first victim) but it was that touch...making her more a person that just another victim...that lingers with you.
Why are we rooting for the killer? That feels wrong on every level. I don't care if he has "justification" like he was cruelly rejected by girls in school or if you're gonna leave someone for dead, make sure they're dead or the character being killed is an asshole...the slasher/monster/killer is the bad guy is these kinds of films. Revenge films, the opposite of the slasher type, the motivated killer is the good guy (though the animated shorts of Aeon Flux on Liquid Television did cause the viewer to question whether the protagonist had gone too far in her actions). If your horror film has the audience rooting for the killer, you're doing it wrong.
The killer's motivation should not be explicitly stated in the film via some clumsy exposition, but it should be decipherable to the audience. The characters in the film should be more concerned with survival than solving a Scooby Doo mystery at the expense of their friends' lives. In fact, while I'm at it...stop making slasher films into mysteries. I hate that the killers often wear masks: it's such a cheap trick that masks (pun intended) the other cheap trick of "OH MY GOD! LOOK AT HIS HIDEOUS FACE!!!" that comes near the end. If you need to use a mask, either the actor playing your killer can't convincingly act out a remorseless, looking-through-you stare or your writing is shitty because you can't figure out how to implicate other characters (if you insist on going for the mystery killer angle) via planning.
Don't have characters leap to conclusions that could never have been made.
This is related to the above and is not limited to slasher films. In fact, you'll see it a lot in
fantasy films. You know that moment, the character has a breakthrough
thought that came out the blue.
These are the "maybe we're..." or "what if?" moment, another form of deus ex machina and thus, shitty writing. Final Destination
could have been a good example of one of these moments. Several of the
characters who got off the plane before it exploded mid-flight could have wondered aloud that maybe they were supposed to have died on that flight and that's why they're dying now (though such a realization would ultimately be unhelpful because how can you escape Fate?). But it wasn't, the idea was brought up by an unrelated character and done so knowingly.
Characters shouldn't be assuming supernatural causes to things if the world they inhabit has never (up until this point) contained supernatural solutions. I'm not saying they should never come to the conclusion that what they are facing is supernatural, it merely should not be the first words out of their mouths when speculating "what just happened back there?" The logic a character uses in an attempt to explain their current predicament should not leave me shouting at the TV, "How the fuck did they come up with that?!!"
This one is most important to me: every character's death should mean something. If the purpose of the character dying is simply to further whittle the cast down to Final Girl, you suck at writing. The order the characters die in and why they are dying now instead of previously or later (or at all) and whether or not the killer could or should know this sequence should be purposeful too.
I understand in these kinds of films that someone has to die first. It's an inevitable consequence of the slasher film. Therefore the first death will be a surprise to both the character and the remaining cast. The question is, what happens next? I will accept, at most, two instances of characters getting offed by the killer(s) unbeknownst to the remaining cast. For instance, the first victim could be a guy going out to get some food or whatever. If he dies, no one is expecting him back for a bit so him not returning immediately would be no cause for alarm.
The second victim can also die in such a manner because the cast has no reason to expect a spree killer just yet so if said second victim was sent out to find the first victim, he too, could be taken by surprise. But this second victim would (and should) alert the remaining cast that there's a problem...a killer in their midst and they should start taking appropriate action...assuming they can.
After all, one of the first two victims may have been the natural leader whom everyone naturally falls in line behind leaving behind a disorganized group. But they should be sticking together and trying to figure shit out. Anyone who dies subsequently, their death should be a furtherance to the plot and each remaining cast member should be aware of these deaths so they can reformulate their plans together. The "Divided We Fall" aspects of too many of these films is boring. And while Friday the 13th part IV was an effective demonstration of planning (everyone dies in an order which does not cause suspicion amongst those who remain), the believability is lost because how can Jason, already preternaturally strong despite having lived over twenty years alone in the woods, be quite so proficient with weapons and competent in executing plans? (and this was before the films turned him into an intelligent zombie with regenerative powers to explain why he keeps coming back no matter how much he is killed)
Everyone should be a potential victim. I despise slasher films with children and animals in them because they're, with rare exception, guaranteed to not be on the killer's hitlist. Friday the 13th part VI is an excellent example of this not only because there are actually children at the camp whom Jason purposefully did not kill but because he would have no reason not to kill them. After all, the reason he drowned (yet somehow survived) in Crystal Lake was because the other campers (kids themselves) teased the boy and pushed him into the lake despite knowing he could not swim. The counselors who were supposed to be watching him were getting high and fucking. So while Jason's hatred of teenagers/adults can be understood seeing as how he was a victim of their neglect, he was also the target of children's cruelty so his sparing of the kids who were at the camp when he arrived makes no sense whatsoever.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an even worse example. Freddy Krueger is a child killer. Now the first film can be made sensible because the teenagers he's killing could very well be (and probably are - like I said, it's been a while since I've seen these films) the grown-up kids he had intended to kill in life. Subsequent films, however, why is now a teenager killer instead of the child killer he was when alive?
I'm not saying kids' guts need to be all over the screen - we don't even need to see the kids be killed...implication is enough. But they shouldn't be spared on account of their being kids. Same goes for noisy dogs or even intrusive cats/birds/etc. Remember, we're not supposed to like the killer in these films. And while I'd rather kids and animals not be present in the first place, if they are, the possibility they could be killed should never be taken off the table.
The monster's powers need to be defined. If your slasher is supernatural, he needs limitations and those limitations need to be applied consistently throughout because ultimately you need to be able to explain (again, not overtly, but it should be decipherable to the audience) how it is that all those who opposed the killer throughout the film failed miserably but this one frightened unprepared girl at the end was able to not only survive, but best him. In other words, the killer is obviously at 100% at the start of the film but each encounter should be weakening him somewhat and those weakenings should ultimately be his undoing even if the surviving character is unaware that she is exploiting them.
In Friday the 13th part VIII, one girl (who dies) fights Jason off futilely but does get a shot in: she stabs him in one of his eyes (we see the blood dribble down) basically giving him a blind spot. Now (and even though I have not seen this film in years I'm going to assume that it did not do this) when Jason confronts the Final Girl, had she taken her shot from his blind spot, how she managed to kill him would make perfect sense (to the audience though to the character, she would have felt that she had merely gotten lucky).
This same films also features shit I hate. One guy, a boxer, ends up fighting Jason on a rooftop. He punches Jason over and over and over again to the point of exhaustion before offering Jason a shot who takes it and knocks the guy's head clean off in one punch. Another film (part VI) has him getting shot repeatedly to no avail. I get it. They're monsters. But if they are unaffected by shit like this, how is it believable in the slightest that they could be bested by a scared girl at the end? They do this to show off how badass the villain is. (mocking tone) "Look how he effortlessly takes out the prepared guy who takes him on despite his skills and weapons!" But if the killer can do that (and the films make such kills look like skill rather than luck on the part of the killer), how does he lose in the end?
I guess what I'm referring to is plotting for our plodding killer...
Can someone actually make a horror film which has no scenes at night? (or, if there are scenes at night, the characters are never in any danger...only during the day) The darkness, shadows, etc. are all cheap tricks. Impress me by making a scary film taking place in daylight.
A film can only be scary if you can leave the theater convinced that something like that could happen to you. That's why monsters don't really work for me...because we know they're not real. But that's not to say it can't be done. You have to leave room for possibility and if you're gonna delve into the supernatural, make sure that what we see can also have a duplicate explanation in the real world so as to sow fear in the watchers of these films.
In H.P. Lovecraft's tale, "The Shadow Out of Time", he creates this idea of a group of aliens who can telepathically travel through time and inhabit new bodies by switching consciousnesses. The tale fails to offers real-world suggestions that these "Yithians" could be real so I'm not noting it for that reason but just for the one that, although implausible, it's something that could happen. What adds to the terror is that these Yithians not only could take over our bodies, but that they would only do so when facing a cataclysm in their own time which would mean humanity's collective consciousnesses would be switched en masse to dwell (temporarily and confusedly) in the bodies of those beings previously occupied by the Yithians which would soon be wiped out. Had Lovecraft described feelings in our minds that some (or most) of us experience as being signs of an impending switch, the story could have had a lingering effect on its readers.
In this regard, the torture-porn flick Hostel was effective. In the film there's this secretive organization (Elite Hunting) in an actual Eastern European country (Slovakia) instead of some made-up country where rich people can bid for the right to murder people in elaborate scenarios. The beauty of this film is that the men in the first film who are subjected to this torture are realistically tricked into going to this out-of-the-way youth hostel with promises of loose women. It even reveals that Western Europeans and especially Americans attract the highest bids so these backpackers introduced to us in the film are valuable prey. Considering the awful things that go on in this world, the existence of such an organization is not beyond doubt which would make one wary of travelling to such places. Jaws was also very effective because it made people afraid to go swimming in the ocean. These films, especially the latter one, have lingering effects on the audience.
If you're gonna make the slasher film a parable, don't make it so fucking obvious. For instance, if you have a cast of eight potential victims, seven of whom die, and the reason they die is because they are representations of the Seven Deadly Sins and the survivor is virtuous, the sins they represent shouldn't be so plain that the audience has your gimmick figured out by (or even before) the first victim.
Gluttony is a tough one to not be obvious about but it could be done. Unfortunately a lot of the sins are related so simply not making it about food isn't really possible but he doesn't have to be a fat-ass whose every line dwells upon food and how hungry he is and when are they gonna eat. You might wanna make gluttony your first victim and demonstrate his sinfulness during the opening credits when you're not likely to be paying attention (like him playfully stealing chips from someone despite clearly having his own).
Lust is another one that lends itself to obviousness. Does she (let's face it, it's gonna be a she) have to die while fucking? Does her every line have to make her into a Samantha Jones wannabe?
Does the slothful guy have to be so obviously lazy? Why not make the slothful guy the original version of the sin which was acedia? Acedia was the refusal to use the gifts God has given you. Sloth was the result of acedia, not the sin itself. In other words, if you are a doctor and you refuse to treat someone who is sick, you are guilty of acedia because God has given you the ability to heal and you are refusing to use that gift. The slothful guy could actually be the one who can figure out how to escape these kinds of predicaments but instead chooses to save only himself (to his misfortune).
So if you're gonna do the Deadly Sin route, read up on them and get creative. Obvious sin is obvious is not fun for the viewer.
Modern technology exists so work with it rather than around or against it. Sorry, but we have cellphones and internet now so if you feel compelled to make your film take place in areas where reception is still spotty or have the cellphone's battery die at an inconvenient time (unless it's foreshadowed that this would happen long before the danger begins) or make it a point early on (like during the title sequences) to say this vacation with friends is about getting away from technology...you suck at writing. You need to avoid deus ex machina at all costs. That's why a lot of ancient Greek tales suck: it's because the main character got (sometimes literally) written into a corner and without warning is saved from certain death due to the interference of a god or gods that was in no way foreshadowed.
In some ways, you the writer should be happy to have such modern inventions around. It means you can no longer rely on previous formulæ to get the film going. No more "cutting the telephone line" to prevent outside communication; thanks to e-mail and texting, there's no longer any truly "out of the way place" for characters to get trapped in. It opens up new creative worlds. These awful scenarios can still happen, you just now need to make them work in modern contexts.
To offer one idea: speed up the killings so that the calls for help don't actually matter. In other words, let the victims contact the outside world for help and have their pleas be believed rather than dismissed (because that's another convention I'm fucking tired of too). The gimmick would be that the killer kills everyone before help can arrive and don't make the reason help doesn't arrive in time some deus ex machina shit either like the cop car gets a flat tire or there's a traffic jam. Make it a normal response time but have it not matter. How scary is that knowing that all that shit could go down and be over with so quickly?
The characters don't know they're in a slasher film until it's too late. This one's important for writers out there. Slasher films feature genre-switching: they start off as one type of film (buddy comedy/drama/etc.) and become another (slasher). This involves more work on your part but write what amounts to two scripts. The first script is, let's say, the ensemble comedy. To use the Friday the 13th archetype, you have a group of counselors (maybe they're friends at the start, maybe they become friends over the course of the film) preparing the camp for the Summer (I imagine this is something which needs to be done). Go for the set-up, the laughs, the conflict and its resolution...the happy ending. Basically Meatballs. Now you have characters with a purpose and whom we can presumably care about. What changes is the conflict. Instead of it being, let's say, a rivalry with an adjacent camp, it's a spree killer. Now when the counselors die, we as an audience feel for them (or at least should) and if you, the writer who as of now only knows what was supposed to be their fate, pull it off effectively, there will be a lingering sense of loss for the viewers when leaving the theater.
And if the characters are aware they are in a slasher film or you're going to do something otherwise "meta", don't have them die by the very same tropes and clichés one has come to expect from a horror film anyway. That's not ironic...it's lazy.
Okay, I'm tired. I don't feel like complaining anymore...
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