by Joel Meeks

Created on: August 02, 2009   Last Updated: August 03, 2009

Horror films are a mix of different things. They're a concoction of fear that will, when combined correctly, leave you glancing behind you even after you've finished watching.

The biggest thing that a scary movie can do to scare you is build up a firm foundation for the characters and the environment. Once the characters become 'real' enough that you can connect with them, and feel like it's possible to actually know - or even be - these people, the movie becomes a little more personal. The opposite, however, is true for the antagonist of the movies. The more mysterious the killer is, the more terrifying they will be. In Halloween, for example, Michael Myers is a mental hospital patient who escapes and is described as having "nothing but pure evil inside him." He does not have an extensive history, only that he murdered his sister when he was six, and that he returned to his hometown several years later to continue to murder people. His mask and his inability to be killed add to the mystery that surrounds him, making him an unexplained, unstoppable force. George Romero, in a similar style, never explicitly gives an explanation for how the zombies in his movies are created. They simply begin rising from the dead and spreading their infection to other people. Over-explaining something will make it comfortable, recognizable, and able to be solved. A perfect example is the movie The Collector - [Spoiler ahead.] Near the end of the film, the protagonist reveals that The Collector is actually one of the people who had been working with him as part of the extermination crew. As soon as he reveals this piece of information, the Collector, before a mysterious, masked force, suddenly becomes humanized, recognizable, and much less scary. A healthy fear of the unknown is what keeps people coming back to movies such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Another, more obvious, factor in horror films is the suspense that is created throughout the film. This is implemented in various ways, most noticeably by creating a sense of desperation. This feeling of all-or-nothing, live-or-die stakes is most prominently applied via the killer cutting off all means of communication and escape. In Friday the 13th, the killer creates this sense of desperation by cutting the phone lines, and tampering with the vehicles so that the counselors can neither call out for help nor escape the camp to seek outside assistance. This movie also uses another

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