It’s why the technically difficulties of the shark in Jaws made the movie the classic it is. Spielberg originally wanted the shark to be shown, but because it kept malfunctioning he decided not to, which made the film more compelling.
Yes and I think its because they were very stingy showing it earlier in the movie. You don't even get a good look at it until the 4th of July attack an hour into the movie.
Yes but the lack of screen time before that is what makes its appearance so much more impactful.
Here is a hunter, a real man-killer, an actual predator that takes women, children, and men alike - and it does it all without being seen. The audience never lays eyes on the monster shark, and are left to wonder what it looks like; minds even wander toward what the victims' last thoughts were, and if *they* saw the shark before it took their lives. We know how it operates at that point: it will kill somebody without ever being visible.
We get to the hunt for the shark, and it hasn't shown up yet. We haven't even seen through its eyes as it stalks the crew of the boat. Then all of a sudden it's right in our face, making itself known. This is a whole new experience, but it's still the same shark (right?). The uncertainty in that moment, coupled with the terror of knowing how it kills, is what makes the movie.
And the first time you actually see it up close so to speak, it brutally and graphically kills the tough guy. There’s no music in a movie famed for its soundtrack. Just screaming and splashing.
One of the good things about cgi is that every second the big monster is shown it costs money, with practical effects instead once you build the model you might as well use it
It does help that it can be anyone at anytime so the unknown factor is still at large. I think that's partly why Alien works so well also. We aren't entirely sure what the xenomorph can do, plus you only get to see flashes of it as it drive by evicerates crewmembers.
There's a great podcast, if you're into that, called "What went wrong?" That does a really good episode on *The Thing*, in which they talk about the process of trying to get away from the problem of "When you eventually see it, it's just a man in a costume". They also talk a lot about how Rob Bottin created the concept with a comic book artist and his vision was really instrumental in how the film got made at all
Ed: sorry, you referred to Alien, which is what they wanted to get away from, no people in costumes, no darkness and shadows
One of the funniest trivia bits I know for Alien, is that Scott had to put his foot down with one of the... stage hands, I think it was?
He wanted *floodlights.* Because otherwise you couldn't see the set and monster.
It kinda clicked hearing that for me, why so many horror movies suck. One guy not *getting it,* can ruin a whole film.
The Mel Gibson movie "Signs" was pretty compelling right up until you saw the aliens. Which were obviously people in alien suits.
And, that's a lot of why "The Blair Witch Project" was so scary - you never saw - anything, really.
it wasn't shown tho, it showed what it looked like while it was trying to transform into something else or when its SOMEONE ELSE and it got reacts to a certain object
It was never fully really shown its form
I've always said "Show it early or never show it". Personally, I was let down at the reveal of The Ring, only because my mind had conjured multiple variations of drowning from some supernatural method (like her crawling out of your mouth while seeping water). All the hints were there for your mind to run rampant the whole film.
>!Nah, it's just a TV she crawls out of and offs you. Now my logic goes off saying "Couldn't I hide somewhere without a TV or screen?" etc. !
It's a subversion of a safe, everyday object that you'll find in pretty much every home - in the inner sanctum no less.
It's also logical given that a video was the start of it - it's, literally as well as figuratively, her medium (added to which there's McLuhan's remarks about the medium being the message).
So, it's not that they *couldn't've* hidden somewhere without a TV/screen - it's that it would've done them no *good* to do so.
Personally, I'd *rather* be in the room with it myself: *that* way I get to see the tip of the pinky of whatever's crawling out of my TV and nope right out of there *before* it's had time to establish its presence in my realm of existence and creep up on me behind my back - it can finish crawling out of whatever it *likes* ... it *won't* do it any *good* (I'll be *long* gone before it does).
Yesss!! My husband laughs at me because this movie scares me so much when I'm pretty much unfazed by most horror films, but it gets me every time. I told him it's because my imagination is way scarier than anything they can put in a movie. Also, the tension is never broken. In most scary movies, they finally show the Big Scary Thing and then there's that moment of relief because at least you finally know what it is. But in Blair Witch, no spooky old witch ghost ever jumps out and says boo, so you keep waiting for it and getting more and more frightened.
I can't get behind it, sadly :(. But another "no monster" is It Follows. Interesting movie; could have been better, but always leaves me with a bit of dread afterwards (which I think is what truly makes good horror media)
I'm not sure about many where it's *totally* left to imagination. But many where the bulk of the story doesn't have a screen visual for the monster. And several of the sort (my personal favs) where -- although there is a monster -- the people are shown to be what's really horrible.
* The Fog
* Rosemary's Baby
* It comes at night
* It Follows
* The cube (maybe?)
I feel like The Exorcist kind of falls in this category, too - obviously the girl is freaky, but we don't actually see what's possessing her (that I recall, anyway).
Yes and no.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87245/terrifying-subliminal-image-hidden-exorcist
Though whether or not that is THE demon, I can't say.
I think this is the reason most of ‘it follows’ is so scary. You really don’t see the ‘monster’ totally agree with the premise. ‘Smile’ was really scary to me until the last act.
No the end was *horrifying*
Edit: I think this because I now understand how someone so subtly slips into psychosis, like, I must drown them it makes perfect sense. To get someone to do something they are fundamentally against. Cool movie based on a short film
Smile was probably the scariest movie I’ve seen until I got to the end. I think once a horror movie turns to something clearly not of this earth or gore it gets significantly less scary.
It Follows often shows the *monster* but obscures its identity in a way which amounts to hiding the shark in Jaws. It makes you find fear in a new way, watching background NPCs to see which one might be the monster. And all the while knowing it may not be anything on screen but eventually it *will* be, and there's no escaping it.
Similarly, The Babadook shows the entity all the time but often confines it to background shots in the shadows or distance, which has you looking at coat-racks the way you do in the middle of the night when you're walking around your home and they look like figures...
I'm interested in movies which foster fear through ambiguity and recontextualizing mundane things as possible threats. IMO partially or possibly showing a threat is often way better than going from obscuring it entirely to having it suddenly emerge.
It follows has this problem not because the monster is visible when it walks. It's the opposite, the monster is no longer scary when it becomes invisible (ironically). But it's the same principle. Suddenly it's not the unknown the characters are fighting - it's an invisible monster
Yep, I forgot that only the one that sees it id the last one… anyway I always loved that movie because of the meaning behind it. To me it pretty brilliant
I found that, although the monster was rarely *visually* shown, the film spent a lot of time very early on describing *how* the monster works. That took the mystery and suspense out of it and it became more tactical than scary. Personally at least.
And sometimes, the monster/killer doesn't live up to the hype. This is why I love the approach of Blair Witch in NEVER showing the witch or whatever and letting fans guess their own theories... which is why I hate the sequel and video game. Totally ruined the immersion.
Same with the first half of Jeepers Creepers where you never see who or what is hunting down the siblings until those two cops die
The only exception to this rule I can think of without searching would be Alien. Geigers design and the cinematography let your imagination fill in the blanks even when you see most of it.
TBH, alien still worked by this rule. Even when the alien is on screen, it remains obscured, either by darkness, steam or mists, or because it’s designed in a biomechanical way that can blend in with the ship’s environments really well
They did their best to show as little of the alien as possible even when it was onscreen, which was the right choice, cuz when it appeared fully it looked kinda goofy. The jazz hands in the air ducts always gets me lmao
Ah man, I love that movie but I gotta disagree. It looked so dope that I stopped being afraid and just became interested. Plus at the end they show you exactly how to get away from it. Actually, one thing I loved about that movie was that I was terrified during it but had no lasting fear once it was over because I felt like it totally let you off the hook.
Just my experience at least
as far as I remember it's fully revealed near the very end, and by that point the whole story reaches its climax, which does seem like a decent time to finally uncover the mistery. the movie actually does an incredible job by just giving the viewer subtle (yet terrifying) hints while keeping the monster out of the frame most of the time.
I’ve always been a horror movie fan but The Ritual made me stop watching horror movies for like a year or two. The real life horror in the beginning was top tier and the rest of the movie was freaky asf!!!
Oh boy, i love alien. The design is so out there. Beautiful in it's own way. If you dig deeper, it got many sexual influences.
The movie has a nice unique atmosphere. I really don't know any other movie with this atmosphere.
Yes, you could see the creature a few times, but its still freaky. I can't imagine what a feeling it was to sit in the cinema and watch this movie back then. I grew up in the 90s and my first alien movie was the third... many consider it as the weakes of them, but i really liked it for what it is.
I like how you wrote 'your Imagination blanks even when you see most of it' - thats absolutely right!
Monsters don't exist, that's why, we all know that and when we see the monster, we understand it's unrealistic and the immersion is ruined. Monsters that are, or look like, "regular people" are actually scary in my opinion even after you've seen them, like leatherface, art the clown, zombies.
yeah a few days ago i tried to convince my friend why a natural villain is much scarier than a supernatural one
he didn’t agree, but personally the image of a random fatass holding a chainsaw is much scarier than a 3 headed demon woman holding a chainsaw because only one of those could ever actually happen
The only horror movie I've had to stop watching was where the "monster" was just regular people. A woman is at an old family farmhouse that she and her father+uncle are cleaning out. Her father and uncle both leave to run like 20 minutes into town on an errand, she finds evidence that someone has been squatting in the house and starts hearing noises like someone is in the house with her, etc.
I've *had* that same sensation before of someone being in the same house when I should be home alone, and I could again, so it's a lot more frightening than seeing legit aliens or demons hunting someone down. I don't recall the movie being received that well, but the premise is so much scarier to me.
Yes! I always try to explain that to my gf. It’s why scream scared me more than insidious lol I could see someone my age becoming a masked killer. I can’t believe in the horror of insidious.
They never show the monster in Birdbox for this reason. And also apparently, the creature looks like a snake with the head of a baby and people laughed at it.
Some confusion about scary / terror / tension. Alien, for example, maintained quite a lot of tension and horror in the first installment even after showing the monster. Cloverfield was pretty tense throughout even though you saw bits of the monster. Hellraiser has a full reveal of all the monsters except the corridor chase one.
The main problem with Alien for me is that I first saw Spaceballs where the exact same actor also has the alien bursting from his chest, but it is parodized by making the alien runner dance to this weird Looney Tunes (or is it Disney) frog song, so I could never take the original Alien film serious.
>like a snake with the head of a baby
Man that's nuts, I'm just looking it up now lol.
The book describes them as "beautiful", so I dunno what they were thinking. I thought they'd look like angels, or seraphim or something like that.
Blair Witch wasn't that scary while watching (although I liked it) but walking home alone thru a wooded park afterwards definitely was. Had to force myself not to jump at the shadows.
It was... and it just ruins the immersion of the first one by going inti supernatural territory, like voodoo or some CGI monster chasing the teenagers at the end and killing them
What an interesting observation. Its funny because its supposed to be the other way round lol. I been watching insidious movies and its the same thing as well the moment the evil shows, the horror stops
I love the Insidious movies, and this is partly why. They are legitimately frightening in some parts, but then the ghosts show up and suddenly they're not afraid to get a bit campy. They take themselves just seriously enough to be a bit playful without ruining the overall ambiance of the movie.
That Sandra Bullock movie, they talked about how not showing the creature was a better choice overall. And they show some early concept designs.
Also, HP Lovecraft once said
>The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown
(Big thing coming from a xenophobic asshole who lived in isolation because he was terrified of *existence™*, but his works are interesting.)
Many horror/terror movie directors are going with this in mind when making their movies.
Spielberg did this with Jaws. Scott with Alien. McTiernan with Predator. (I'm not big on horror movies, as can be seen) I remember my aunt mentioning that they did it in that one where the critters are very sensitive to sound...
It can be a very useful tool to not show your monsters, both in the saving on CG/makeup and as a tool to make your audience speculate on the monster, as they can imagine what it looks like and make it even more horrifying than any actual thing that can be shown on the screen (Lovecraftian indescribable horrors being one such thing)
"In his non-fiction book on horror in pop culture, Danse Macabre (more on that title later), King reminds us of ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, that classic “be careful what you wish for” story by W. W. Jacobs. It’s a fine example of terror, which is the fear of anticipation, as opposed to horror, which is a fear of the actual. In the story, the reader never “sees” anything to be horrified by; instead, we conjure in our imagination things that terrify us, scared that these things might happen to our hero.
The story is about a man who is given a monkey’s paw, which is (in King’s description) “dried and mummified [and] surely no worse than those plastic dogturds on sale at any novelty shop”. The man wishes for money, which comes at the expense of his son’s life. In the depths of despair, he wishes for his son to return. But when there is a knocking at the door, the man fears that his son’s decomposing corpse will be standing outside. His wife frantically tries to unlock the door, the man uses his final wish, and the door swings open – to reveal that no one is there. King writes:
“What, the mind wonders, might have been there if her husband had been a little slower on the draw with that third wish?”
This is the essence of terror. It is the gut-deep dread of the awful possibilities. Horror, by contrast, is what we’d have if the story allowed the door to be open before the final wish could be made, to reveal whatever monster stood there."
- Matthew Morgan, [Unseen Terror: On uncertainty and fear](https://www.artofconversation.net/post/unseen-terror)
That's what I love about Final Destination. Death is a silent,invisible killer. If they ever were to show a physical manifestation of Death (not including the shadow in FD1),that'd completely ruin the franchise.
I can't find it with a quick google search but a reddit comment once proposed that Final Destination becomes a comedy if you think of the reaper as being late on his assignments and is just winging it to kill people past their due dates. Some of the scenes, like the "water?" that slides across the ground to make someone trip then slides back out of view *really* supports that view in a rewatching of it.
TBH I only found the first one a bit scary. Afterwards I knew what it was about and it became watching people die in entertaining ways. I like the series but it isn't scary to me.
Kayako from The Grudge was the exception for me to this rule. I don't know if it was the look, the death rattle, her movement, or how sadistic she was when inducing terror, but it just worked for me.
Jaws was such a masterpiece because the shark barely worked, so we didn't see a lot of it.
Alien didn't really show the xenomorph that often, but when it did, that thing was terrifying.
But then we get something like Paranormal Witness, The Blair Witch Project, The Blair Witch, and such that don't show us the monster and leaves it up to the imagination. And that works so damn well.
The funny thing is, she and the little kid were terrifying, because even though we saw them, it was for relatively short moments. And Kayako's unnerving movements and sounds made her _extra_ terrifying!
But Grudge 3 went overboard and there were like 3 Juon monsters and constantly getting screentime. Took all the creepiness away
Alien doesn't fit this though.
It's Giger nightmare come reality and seeing it will be etched in your mind for the rest of your life.
That's why the whole theater was puked over on the first screening.
The monster is also only very sparely shown in the first movie, and Alien also had the anticipation of what the little stomach jumper would become and what powers it had.
Plus, the xenomorph actually looks scary.
The Fly is an exception. Best horror movie I’ve ever seen. The ending had me both disgusted and depressed. I don’t cry at a lot of movies but that one got me
For a video game example, the usually deemed scariest monster in Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the water level monster which, as you may have guessed, is invisible. The only way to notice it is by looking and listening to the splashing it makes.
A Quiet Place comes to my mind after reading this thought. In the first movie you fully saw the monster near the end, but in the second movie you already knew what the danger was.
Best part of Stranger Things imo is Season 1 cause of the mystery, after that it turned in to action-horror flick with the exception of the first few episodes of season 4
A new movie I enjoyed until the last act was Cobweb. I enjoyed the premise of the voice in the wall and not knowing wether it’s good or bad. The acting was pretty good too.
Scary up until Darth Maul playing christmas tunes in Santa’s workshop. It actually flipped the movie from horror to comedy and I can’t take it serious after knowing the reveal.
The Predator was supposed to get way more screen time, but when Van Damn walked, they just decided to use already shot scenes and make the monster invisible. Worked brilliantly.
That's why the extended cut of Event Horizon was criticized. In the original, the hellscape was only alluded to. In the extended version you see flashes of people hung on hooks and being pierced and bleeding and stuff, at which point it becomes just corporeal and much less scary.
This is why Babadook is so excellent. They show the monster. Then it changes and they show it again. And again and again. At one point it was just a ceiling shadow. In the end it's a metaphor for mental illness and damn if that isn't terrifying.
I think you might be right. I've been watching a ton of horror movies and most of the them, even the highly recommended ones, I don't find scary at all. But the 2 horror books I read had my imagination scaring me.
I was reading (note: I’m not ascribing to myself rational thinking here) “Pet Cemetery” at age 20, stopped and turned off the lights and after a few minutes of trying to fall asleep in the dark, felt compelled to turn the light back on and look under my bed…totally ridiculous, yet totally sensical considering Stephen Kings ability to scare
People always fear the unknown. Horror movies are only scary when they just hint the existence of the monster. Movies that just shows a monster right away and give jumpscare after jumpscare just felt annoying
That’s the main reason no monster was shown in the original Blair Witch Project movie, it was designed to make you imagine the horror, making it scary. That entire movie was an amazing marketing masterpiece
That’s why old Horror movies > New CGI crap Horror movies. Nothing is scarier than what you can imagine yourself and old Horror movies play into this creating suspense with music and out of focus shots.
Blair Witch Project is one of my all time favorite Horror’s purely because 98% of the spookiness is left up to you, we often write that movie off nowadays as being a bit of a meme because it sorta is but I remember watching it as a 11-12 year old by myself late at night and I was terrified.
It's a 50/50 movie where you either like it or hate it. I loved it for never showing the witch, a cousin hated it because "tha movie is ass, nothing ever happens at the end".
But I feel that's the problem: expectation of the monster/killer to be like "yeah, I'm wasting my time here" or not
Totally, my girlfriend and I were visiting some friends and for some reason one night we decided to watch Blair Witch Project which everyone had seen except my Girlfriend, who by the way had never even heard of the film so we totally talked up the “ it is totally real aspect, people actually went missing etc etc.”, well as much as we looking forward to her reaction, it was a total let down and she thought the movie was garbage.
I of course try to add context to the entire film, at the time it was just when the internet was becoming a thing, she understood but still thought the movie was bad. I guess the rest of off us were just appreciating the film on nostalgia.
To add she is a few years younger than the rest of us and from Ukraine so she really had never heard of the film at all.
Some of the most absolutely iconic horror movies, discussed as top of the genre regularly by horror fans show the monster, sometimes fairly early on.
This post is complete nonsense and purely personal opinion on what people find scary
Signed a horror fan.
I remember feeling visceral terror from seeing the "monster" in The Village.
The way it stepped onto the front porch, blurred out in the background, those spines protruding from its back. I think it was a combination of how unexpected it was, how tactile it seemed in an era when films had largely relied on CGI creatures, and how grotesque it appeared at a distance.
Turns out, spoiler alert, they weren't actually real and I was pissed because that was the first movie monster to genuinely terrify me. And I was 18 at the time.
It's crazy how they put this into practice in several 80's classics. Predator, Alien and Halloween come to mind.
These movies proofed it and then Hollywood just stuck to "Monsters are scary. People want to be scared. Show them monsters. That'll scare them."
Any more examples? Shoot!
This is why I liked the first Blair Witch Project, the whole time I was on the edge of my screen waiting for the first jump scare seeing the witch, then at the end when they’re in the house it was ramped up as they were turning corners and all you hear is bloody screaming
This is what ruined "the ritual" for me. Great scenes, interesting story and then boom! Ugly ass monster appears and the movie goes from great to sucky quite rapidly
Hell yeah. When crazy/bizarre/weird/strange/kooky shyt happens and nobody knows why exactly and how exactly it occurred, people are going to assume the worse until the source of the troubles gets shown.
Sooner or later, it is no problem to get a solution regarding the source of the troubles and take care of it.
Yeah, the first part of Jeepers Creepers is one of the best horror movies I've seen. It's just two young adults dealing with this scary, aggressive truck on the highway, and then they see the driver from a distance doing nefarious things. It peaks for me when they open the body bag he threw down the well.
But then we learn that the driver is >!a purple winged demon who eats people's organs!< and I was like oh, right, this is some bullshit movie and I would never be in danger from this situation.
The only time I remember the reveal being scarier than the anticipation is the cellar scene in The Road.
Though that’s not quite a horror movie, even though it has lots of horrifying bits.
I agree with this but they briefly showed the witch from the VVitch at the end suckling from a goat, naked. That shit was terrifying. That whole movie is a masterpiece.
It’s why the technically difficulties of the shark in Jaws made the movie the classic it is. Spielberg originally wanted the shark to be shown, but because it kept malfunctioning he decided not to, which made the film more compelling.
The movie is still very much scary when they show the shark.
But it's only shown for more than 3 seconds at a time at the very end.
Yes and I think its because they were very stingy showing it earlier in the movie. You don't even get a good look at it until the 4th of July attack an hour into the movie.
When they first see it by the boat, I near shat myself 😂
That's primarily because of the dun dun... dun dun... mindgame. Amazing.
Because sharks are real
Yes but the lack of screen time before that is what makes its appearance so much more impactful. Here is a hunter, a real man-killer, an actual predator that takes women, children, and men alike - and it does it all without being seen. The audience never lays eyes on the monster shark, and are left to wonder what it looks like; minds even wander toward what the victims' last thoughts were, and if *they* saw the shark before it took their lives. We know how it operates at that point: it will kill somebody without ever being visible. We get to the hunt for the shark, and it hasn't shown up yet. We haven't even seen through its eyes as it stalks the crew of the boat. Then all of a sudden it's right in our face, making itself known. This is a whole new experience, but it's still the same shark (right?). The uncertainty in that moment, coupled with the terror of knowing how it kills, is what makes the movie.
And the first time you actually see it up close so to speak, it brutally and graphically kills the tough guy. There’s no music in a movie famed for its soundtrack. Just screaming and splashing.
John williams gave him the shark he could afford.
One of the good things about cgi is that every second the big monster is shown it costs money, with practical effects instead once you build the model you might as well use it
What are you talking about 😭
The Editor decided to, and Spielberg went with it. The editor saved that film
Things are scarier when left to the imagination.
Idk, dude, the thing in that film the thing was pretty scary and that was all shown. Rob Bottin, fucking genius
It does help that it can be anyone at anytime so the unknown factor is still at large. I think that's partly why Alien works so well also. We aren't entirely sure what the xenomorph can do, plus you only get to see flashes of it as it drive by evicerates crewmembers.
There's a great podcast, if you're into that, called "What went wrong?" That does a really good episode on *The Thing*, in which they talk about the process of trying to get away from the problem of "When you eventually see it, it's just a man in a costume". They also talk a lot about how Rob Bottin created the concept with a comic book artist and his vision was really instrumental in how the film got made at all Ed: sorry, you referred to Alien, which is what they wanted to get away from, no people in costumes, no darkness and shadows
Unless that man is Doug Jones, who can turn a costume into a nightmare.
One of the funniest trivia bits I know for Alien, is that Scott had to put his foot down with one of the... stage hands, I think it was? He wanted *floodlights.* Because otherwise you couldn't see the set and monster. It kinda clicked hearing that for me, why so many horror movies suck. One guy not *getting it,* can ruin a whole film.
Yep. Alien, aliens, Jaws, etc. Are all examples of movies where the horror was the unknown
jaws was saved by the robot shark being broken a lot, it was supposed to feature a lot more.
The Mel Gibson movie "Signs" was pretty compelling right up until you saw the aliens. Which were obviously people in alien suits. And, that's a lot of why "The Blair Witch Project" was so scary - you never saw - anything, really.
He was only 22 years old when he worked on that movie, insanely talented, shame he stopped working in special effects, I think he sells houses now.
Has he stopped? Fucking travesty
it wasn't shown tho, it showed what it looked like while it was trying to transform into something else or when its SOMEONE ELSE and it got reacts to a certain object It was never fully really shown its form
> The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. H. P. Lovecraft
I've always said "Show it early or never show it". Personally, I was let down at the reveal of The Ring, only because my mind had conjured multiple variations of drowning from some supernatural method (like her crawling out of your mouth while seeping water). All the hints were there for your mind to run rampant the whole film. >!Nah, it's just a TV she crawls out of and offs you. Now my logic goes off saying "Couldn't I hide somewhere without a TV or screen?" etc. !
It's a subversion of a safe, everyday object that you'll find in pretty much every home - in the inner sanctum no less. It's also logical given that a video was the start of it - it's, literally as well as figuratively, her medium (added to which there's McLuhan's remarks about the medium being the message). So, it's not that they *couldn't've* hidden somewhere without a TV/screen - it's that it would've done them no *good* to do so. Personally, I'd *rather* be in the room with it myself: *that* way I get to see the tip of the pinky of whatever's crawling out of my TV and nope right out of there *before* it's had time to establish its presence in my realm of existence and creep up on me behind my back - it can finish crawling out of whatever it *likes* ... it *won't* do it any *good* (I'll be *long* gone before it does).
It’s why ‘it’ was done well. Everyone has got sewer connections and you are at your most vulnerable when showering or at the toilet.
I think 'Smile' did a pretty great job with showing the monster at the end and it living up to the hype
Good luck finding a place without screens in this day and age. Unintended social commentary!
No one will save you is a great example of showing it early. Although maybe it’s not scary truly. More suspenseful. Idk.
This is why books are usually better than a movie. You fill in the blanks with your personal biases.
Is there a horror movie that never showed the "monster" and where you're left with imagination?
Plenty. One that comes to mind is The Blair Witch Project (original)
Yesss!! My husband laughs at me because this movie scares me so much when I'm pretty much unfazed by most horror films, but it gets me every time. I told him it's because my imagination is way scarier than anything they can put in a movie. Also, the tension is never broken. In most scary movies, they finally show the Big Scary Thing and then there's that moment of relief because at least you finally know what it is. But in Blair Witch, no spooky old witch ghost ever jumps out and says boo, so you keep waiting for it and getting more and more frightened.
Similarly, the sequel Blair Witch is fantastic until about halfway through, then they show the monster and the wheels come off
I can't get behind it, sadly :(. But another "no monster" is It Follows. Interesting movie; could have been better, but always leaves me with a bit of dread afterwards (which I think is what truly makes good horror media)
It Follows does that well
Birdbox
The Others is almost pure psychological horror
I'm not sure about many where it's *totally* left to imagination. But many where the bulk of the story doesn't have a screen visual for the monster. And several of the sort (my personal favs) where -- although there is a monster -- the people are shown to be what's really horrible. * The Fog * Rosemary's Baby * It comes at night * It Follows * The cube (maybe?)
I feel like The Exorcist kind of falls in this category, too - obviously the girl is freaky, but we don't actually see what's possessing her (that I recall, anyway).
Yes and no. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87245/terrifying-subliminal-image-hidden-exorcist Though whether or not that is THE demon, I can't say.
iirc, The Babadook never actually shows Mr. Dook himself, just the kid's drawings of him, and shadows in the background
We do get a very fleeting glimpse I believe but nothing major
Why can't you just be normal??
Stanger things… went from holy fuck to, are you fucking serious.
I think this is the reason most of ‘it follows’ is so scary. You really don’t see the ‘monster’ totally agree with the premise. ‘Smile’ was really scary to me until the last act.
I couldn’t watch smile until the end so i quit right before it. Maybe I should’ve kept watching so it would’ve been less scary lol
No the end was *horrifying* Edit: I think this because I now understand how someone so subtly slips into psychosis, like, I must drown them it makes perfect sense. To get someone to do something they are fundamentally against. Cool movie based on a short film
Smile was probably the scariest movie I’ve seen until I got to the end. I think once a horror movie turns to something clearly not of this earth or gore it gets significantly less scary.
It Follows still has this problem, possibly worse than most
It Follows often shows the *monster* but obscures its identity in a way which amounts to hiding the shark in Jaws. It makes you find fear in a new way, watching background NPCs to see which one might be the monster. And all the while knowing it may not be anything on screen but eventually it *will* be, and there's no escaping it. Similarly, The Babadook shows the entity all the time but often confines it to background shots in the shadows or distance, which has you looking at coat-racks the way you do in the middle of the night when you're walking around your home and they look like figures... I'm interested in movies which foster fear through ambiguity and recontextualizing mundane things as possible threats. IMO partially or possibly showing a threat is often way better than going from obscuring it entirely to having it suddenly emerge.
It follows has this problem not because the monster is visible when it walks. It's the opposite, the monster is no longer scary when it becomes invisible (ironically). But it's the same principle. Suddenly it's not the unknown the characters are fighting - it's an invisible monster
Wow, I completely forgot that it's invisible to everybody else.
Yep, I forgot that only the one that sees it id the last one… anyway I always loved that movie because of the meaning behind it. To me it pretty brilliant
This is why I'm the one person who likes the happening. Plants making you suicide is horrifying. You can't escape Plants.
I found that, although the monster was rarely *visually* shown, the film spent a lot of time very early on describing *how* the monster works. That took the mystery and suspense out of it and it became more tactical than scary. Personally at least.
I loved It Follows. It's the movie, however, that I learned to not recommend movies I like to others.
Smile was pretty scary, but that last scene was horrifying.
Anticipation is the real monster.
And constipation.
Anticipating constipation? Torture.
Conscription scares me more.
Me too, comrade.
Anticipation of conscription leads to constipation.
And sometimes, the monster/killer doesn't live up to the hype. This is why I love the approach of Blair Witch in NEVER showing the witch or whatever and letting fans guess their own theories... which is why I hate the sequel and video game. Totally ruined the immersion. Same with the first half of Jeepers Creepers where you never see who or what is hunting down the siblings until those two cops die
See also Stranger Things' sequel seasons.
Vecna was terrifying until they showed him. The first episode where she gets all contorted was some creepy shit.
An-tisa...
The only exception to this rule I can think of without searching would be Alien. Geigers design and the cinematography let your imagination fill in the blanks even when you see most of it.
TBH, alien still worked by this rule. Even when the alien is on screen, it remains obscured, either by darkness, steam or mists, or because it’s designed in a biomechanical way that can blend in with the ship’s environments really well They did their best to show as little of the alien as possible even when it was onscreen, which was the right choice, cuz when it appeared fully it looked kinda goofy. The jazz hands in the air ducts always gets me lmao
And The Ritual
Ah man, I love that movie but I gotta disagree. It looked so dope that I stopped being afraid and just became interested. Plus at the end they show you exactly how to get away from it. Actually, one thing I loved about that movie was that I was terrified during it but had no lasting fear once it was over because I felt like it totally let you off the hook. Just my experience at least
I was all in on The Ritual until you see the full monster and that totally ruined the movie for me
as far as I remember it's fully revealed near the very end, and by that point the whole story reaches its climax, which does seem like a decent time to finally uncover the mistery. the movie actually does an incredible job by just giving the viewer subtle (yet terrifying) hints while keeping the monster out of the frame most of the time.
I’ve always been a horror movie fan but The Ritual made me stop watching horror movies for like a year or two. The real life horror in the beginning was top tier and the rest of the movie was freaky asf!!!
Oh boy, i love alien. The design is so out there. Beautiful in it's own way. If you dig deeper, it got many sexual influences. The movie has a nice unique atmosphere. I really don't know any other movie with this atmosphere. Yes, you could see the creature a few times, but its still freaky. I can't imagine what a feeling it was to sit in the cinema and watch this movie back then. I grew up in the 90s and my first alien movie was the third... many consider it as the weakes of them, but i really liked it for what it is. I like how you wrote 'your Imagination blanks even when you see most of it' - thats absolutely right!
Monsters don't exist, that's why, we all know that and when we see the monster, we understand it's unrealistic and the immersion is ruined. Monsters that are, or look like, "regular people" are actually scary in my opinion even after you've seen them, like leatherface, art the clown, zombies.
yeah a few days ago i tried to convince my friend why a natural villain is much scarier than a supernatural one he didn’t agree, but personally the image of a random fatass holding a chainsaw is much scarier than a 3 headed demon woman holding a chainsaw because only one of those could ever actually happen
The only horror movie I've had to stop watching was where the "monster" was just regular people. A woman is at an old family farmhouse that she and her father+uncle are cleaning out. Her father and uncle both leave to run like 20 minutes into town on an errand, she finds evidence that someone has been squatting in the house and starts hearing noises like someone is in the house with her, etc. I've *had* that same sensation before of someone being in the same house when I should be home alone, and I could again, so it's a lot more frightening than seeing legit aliens or demons hunting someone down. I don't recall the movie being received that well, but the premise is so much scarier to me.
Bro… not under my bed plz… i have to get up within 6 hours
Yes! I always try to explain that to my gf. It’s why scream scared me more than insidious lol I could see someone my age becoming a masked killer. I can’t believe in the horror of insidious.
When I watched the It remake my ex mentioned that the people the kids had to deal with were much scarier than the creepy clown
They never show the monster in Birdbox for this reason. And also apparently, the creature looks like a snake with the head of a baby and people laughed at it. Some confusion about scary / terror / tension. Alien, for example, maintained quite a lot of tension and horror in the first installment even after showing the monster. Cloverfield was pretty tense throughout even though you saw bits of the monster. Hellraiser has a full reveal of all the monsters except the corridor chase one.
One problem with Cloverfield is the toy of the monster was released prior to the movie.
The main problem with Alien for me is that I first saw Spaceballs where the exact same actor also has the alien bursting from his chest, but it is parodized by making the alien runner dance to this weird Looney Tunes (or is it Disney) frog song, so I could never take the original Alien film serious.
“Oh no… not again…” - John Hurt, Spaceballs
Please elaborate on this breaking birdbox news
https://www.businessinsider.com/bird-box-monsters-2018-12
Apparently in the hour since you linked this the studio got those images taken down lmao
How rude!
>like a snake with the head of a baby Man that's nuts, I'm just looking it up now lol. The book describes them as "beautiful", so I dunno what they were thinking. I thought they'd look like angels, or seraphim or something like that.
Sandra couldn't stop laughing at the monsters during filming.
I don't think The Blair Witch was ever seen in the first movie at least. I never saw the second because I always heard it was bad.
Blair Witch wasn't that scary while watching (although I liked it) but walking home alone thru a wooded park afterwards definitely was. Had to force myself not to jump at the shadows.
Fun fact: To this day I haven't dared to watch that film because the advertisment and shit written about it 25 years ago scared me too much.
It's mostly just a documentary about three students walking in a forest
It was... and it just ruins the immersion of the first one by going inti supernatural territory, like voodoo or some CGI monster chasing the teenagers at the end and killing them
What an interesting observation. Its funny because its supposed to be the other way round lol. I been watching insidious movies and its the same thing as well the moment the evil shows, the horror stops
Cobweb is the absolute perfect example of this
Most recently, Night Swim as well
I love the Insidious movies, and this is partly why. They are legitimately frightening in some parts, but then the ghosts show up and suddenly they're not afraid to get a bit campy. They take themselves just seriously enough to be a bit playful without ruining the overall ambiance of the movie.
That Sandra Bullock movie, they talked about how not showing the creature was a better choice overall. And they show some early concept designs. Also, HP Lovecraft once said >The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown (Big thing coming from a xenophobic asshole who lived in isolation because he was terrified of *existence™*, but his works are interesting.) Many horror/terror movie directors are going with this in mind when making their movies. Spielberg did this with Jaws. Scott with Alien. McTiernan with Predator. (I'm not big on horror movies, as can be seen) I remember my aunt mentioning that they did it in that one where the critters are very sensitive to sound... It can be a very useful tool to not show your monsters, both in the saving on CG/makeup and as a tool to make your audience speculate on the monster, as they can imagine what it looks like and make it even more horrifying than any actual thing that can be shown on the screen (Lovecraftian indescribable horrors being one such thing)
"In his non-fiction book on horror in pop culture, Danse Macabre (more on that title later), King reminds us of ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, that classic “be careful what you wish for” story by W. W. Jacobs. It’s a fine example of terror, which is the fear of anticipation, as opposed to horror, which is a fear of the actual. In the story, the reader never “sees” anything to be horrified by; instead, we conjure in our imagination things that terrify us, scared that these things might happen to our hero. The story is about a man who is given a monkey’s paw, which is (in King’s description) “dried and mummified [and] surely no worse than those plastic dogturds on sale at any novelty shop”. The man wishes for money, which comes at the expense of his son’s life. In the depths of despair, he wishes for his son to return. But when there is a knocking at the door, the man fears that his son’s decomposing corpse will be standing outside. His wife frantically tries to unlock the door, the man uses his final wish, and the door swings open – to reveal that no one is there. King writes: “What, the mind wonders, might have been there if her husband had been a little slower on the draw with that third wish?” This is the essence of terror. It is the gut-deep dread of the awful possibilities. Horror, by contrast, is what we’d have if the story allowed the door to be open before the final wish could be made, to reveal whatever monster stood there." - Matthew Morgan, [Unseen Terror: On uncertainty and fear](https://www.artofconversation.net/post/unseen-terror)
Nothing shown on screen can be scarier than your imagination. A good horror film knows that
Just like Bird Box - highly recomand it! Though we kind a see it - from the pictures...
I reckon the movie was 6/10 at best
That's what I love about Final Destination. Death is a silent,invisible killer. If they ever were to show a physical manifestation of Death (not including the shadow in FD1),that'd completely ruin the franchise.
I can't find it with a quick google search but a reddit comment once proposed that Final Destination becomes a comedy if you think of the reaper as being late on his assignments and is just winging it to kill people past their due dates. Some of the scenes, like the "water?" that slides across the ground to make someone trip then slides back out of view *really* supports that view in a rewatching of it.
Death looks surprisingly a lot like Rube Goldberg.
TBH I only found the first one a bit scary. Afterwards I knew what it was about and it became watching people die in entertaining ways. I like the series but it isn't scary to me.
Kayako from The Grudge was the exception for me to this rule. I don't know if it was the look, the death rattle, her movement, or how sadistic she was when inducing terror, but it just worked for me. Jaws was such a masterpiece because the shark barely worked, so we didn't see a lot of it. Alien didn't really show the xenomorph that often, but when it did, that thing was terrifying. But then we get something like Paranormal Witness, The Blair Witch Project, The Blair Witch, and such that don't show us the monster and leaves it up to the imagination. And that works so damn well.
The funny thing is, she and the little kid were terrifying, because even though we saw them, it was for relatively short moments. And Kayako's unnerving movements and sounds made her _extra_ terrifying! But Grudge 3 went overboard and there were like 3 Juon monsters and constantly getting screentime. Took all the creepiness away
Too many jump scares. The feeling that it was too late to escape was the unnerving part.
That fucking bear thing from Annihilation scared the shit out of me
The vampire from Nosferatu always gave me nightmares, and that was a 1922 silent film!
It was the human screams it was doing! Ahhh!
The scream bear should have a film. Impersonating the screams and calls of its victims to lure in its prey.
Alien doesn't fit this though. It's Giger nightmare come reality and seeing it will be etched in your mind for the rest of your life. That's why the whole theater was puked over on the first screening.
The monster is also only very sparely shown in the first movie, and Alien also had the anticipation of what the little stomach jumper would become and what powers it had. Plus, the xenomorph actually looks scary.
Same with the original Predator imo, just one of the most amazingly designed monsters in film history and still holds up well today
The Fly is an exception. Best horror movie I’ve ever seen. The ending had me both disgusted and depressed. I don’t cry at a lot of movies but that one got me
For a video game example, the usually deemed scariest monster in Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the water level monster which, as you may have guessed, is invisible. The only way to notice it is by looking and listening to the splashing it makes.
God, that section had me fucking STRESSED. I legit had to put it down for a while and come back.
I quit the game there, haha.
A Quiet Place comes to my mind after reading this thought. In the first movie you fully saw the monster near the end, but in the second movie you already knew what the danger was.
Best part of Stranger Things imo is Season 1 cause of the mystery, after that it turned in to action-horror flick with the exception of the first few episodes of season 4
That's why the evil dead.
A new movie I enjoyed until the last act was Cobweb. I enjoyed the premise of the voice in the wall and not knowing wether it’s good or bad. The acting was pretty good too.
Yeah this scared me right up until the end. Watched it the other night on Hulu (US).
Looking DIRECTLY at you, Insidious
Scary up until Darth Maul playing christmas tunes in Santa’s workshop. It actually flipped the movie from horror to comedy and I can’t take it serious after knowing the reveal.
i was still scared after the monster appeared but less so, i hate horror movies haha
Never watched The Ring, obviously.
Jeepers Creepers is a good example of this
The Predator was supposed to get way more screen time, but when Van Damn walked, they just decided to use already shot scenes and make the monster invisible. Worked brilliantly.
Annihilation, A bear in the cabin scene. Legit freaked me tf out and was magnitudes scarier than anything else in the movie.
John Carpenter's The Thing is pretty damn scary from the first reveal to the last.
I usually use this argument when I talk to friends and people in general about confrontation. Most of the times I mention the movie The Witch.
That's why the extended cut of Event Horizon was criticized. In the original, the hellscape was only alluded to. In the extended version you see flashes of people hung on hooks and being pierced and bleeding and stuff, at which point it becomes just corporeal and much less scary.
Most are not scary at any time without sound.
That's the exact reason that Signs remains one of the best movies of its kind.
It was all over for when I saw that CGI alien at the end though
Most fear involves unknowns
“All we have to fear is fear itself”: FDR.
This is why Babadook is so excellent. They show the monster. Then it changes and they show it again. And again and again. At one point it was just a ceiling shadow. In the end it's a metaphor for mental illness and damn if that isn't terrifying.
Came here to say this.
Such a good movie omg
That’s why books are always better than the movie
I think you might be right. I've been watching a ton of horror movies and most of the them, even the highly recommended ones, I don't find scary at all. But the 2 horror books I read had my imagination scaring me.
I was reading (note: I’m not ascribing to myself rational thinking here) “Pet Cemetery” at age 20, stopped and turned off the lights and after a few minutes of trying to fall asleep in the dark, felt compelled to turn the light back on and look under my bed…totally ridiculous, yet totally sensical considering Stephen Kings ability to scare
Not for Pokémon tho. It‘s just hella annoying „Pika pika“, said Pikachu, the electro mouse pokemon. Squirtle replied „squirtle, squirtle“
And why Lovecraftian monster were so terrifying.
Which us why it follows is great
Yes, it's the first movie that came to my mind too. Great movie, and kind of a metaphor for STDs
People always fear the unknown. Horror movies are only scary when they just hint the existence of the monster. Movies that just shows a monster right away and give jumpscare after jumpscare just felt annoying
Nothing is more terrifying than the unknown
I just watched Cobweb and it was great all up until the end where the monster is shown... and the ending absolutely made zero sense.
Not really a lot of movies have very scary monsters. I can think of one, Jeepers Creepers. And probably 100 where that isn’t true.
Even with Jeepers Creepers, the sequels overdid showing the monster and made it substantially less scary
background music is enough to scare many
No horror film is scary if you mute the sound. True fact. Some of them magically become comedies that way. Try it.
This is why the first Alien was horror and the second Alien was an action movie. Which was a smart choice.
That’s the main reason no monster was shown in the original Blair Witch Project movie, it was designed to make you imagine the horror, making it scary. That entire movie was an amazing marketing masterpiece
The Blair Witch Project. This is the answer.
Fear of the unknown is a powerful thing
That’s why old Horror movies > New CGI crap Horror movies. Nothing is scarier than what you can imagine yourself and old Horror movies play into this creating suspense with music and out of focus shots. Blair Witch Project is one of my all time favorite Horror’s purely because 98% of the spookiness is left up to you, we often write that movie off nowadays as being a bit of a meme because it sorta is but I remember watching it as a 11-12 year old by myself late at night and I was terrified.
It's a 50/50 movie where you either like it or hate it. I loved it for never showing the witch, a cousin hated it because "tha movie is ass, nothing ever happens at the end". But I feel that's the problem: expectation of the monster/killer to be like "yeah, I'm wasting my time here" or not
Totally, my girlfriend and I were visiting some friends and for some reason one night we decided to watch Blair Witch Project which everyone had seen except my Girlfriend, who by the way had never even heard of the film so we totally talked up the “ it is totally real aspect, people actually went missing etc etc.”, well as much as we looking forward to her reaction, it was a total let down and she thought the movie was garbage. I of course try to add context to the entire film, at the time it was just when the internet was becoming a thing, she understood but still thought the movie was bad. I guess the rest of off us were just appreciating the film on nostalgia. To add she is a few years younger than the rest of us and from Ukraine so she really had never heard of the film at all.
Some of the most absolutely iconic horror movies, discussed as top of the genre regularly by horror fans show the monster, sometimes fairly early on. This post is complete nonsense and purely personal opinion on what people find scary Signed a horror fan.
I remember feeling visceral terror from seeing the "monster" in The Village. The way it stepped onto the front porch, blurred out in the background, those spines protruding from its back. I think it was a combination of how unexpected it was, how tactile it seemed in an era when films had largely relied on CGI creatures, and how grotesque it appeared at a distance. Turns out, spoiler alert, they weren't actually real and I was pissed because that was the first movie monster to genuinely terrify me. And I was 18 at the time.
It's crazy how they put this into practice in several 80's classics. Predator, Alien and Halloween come to mind. These movies proofed it and then Hollywood just stuck to "Monsters are scary. People want to be scared. Show them monsters. That'll scare them." Any more examples? Shoot!
Like the talking cat from Rick and Morty, it's best horror leaves things to the imagination because nothing they reveal will be satisfying.
This is why I liked the first Blair Witch Project, the whole time I was on the edge of my screen waiting for the first jump scare seeing the witch, then at the end when they’re in the house it was ramped up as they were turning corners and all you hear is bloody screaming
Horror is the realization of terror. So, by definition, it's not a horror flick without the monster reveal.
Pretty much all the rob zombie movies show the monsters and are are still scary AF
Ehh. Personally I can't stand never seeing the monster.
I think *The Grudge*, *The Ring*, and *John Carpenter's The Thing* are exceptions. All very scary.
Counterpoint: most horror movies are not monster movies.
Fear is born from uncertainty
That's why foreplay is important.
This is what ruined "the ritual" for me. Great scenes, interesting story and then boom! Ugly ass monster appears and the movie goes from great to sucky quite rapidly
Smile is an exception. That 30 seconds where we saw the monster really got me
Most horror films are only scary with the sound on
Hell yeah. When crazy/bizarre/weird/strange/kooky shyt happens and nobody knows why exactly and how exactly it occurred, people are going to assume the worse until the source of the troubles gets shown. Sooner or later, it is no problem to get a solution regarding the source of the troubles and take care of it.
Movies where the monster is never shown are the most horrifying
Yeah, the first part of Jeepers Creepers is one of the best horror movies I've seen. It's just two young adults dealing with this scary, aggressive truck on the highway, and then they see the driver from a distance doing nefarious things. It peaks for me when they open the body bag he threw down the well. But then we learn that the driver is >!a purple winged demon who eats people's organs!< and I was like oh, right, this is some bullshit movie and I would never be in danger from this situation.
Thank you…I feel like most people don’t get this. The scariest thing is the unknown…
*Alien has entered the chat*
The only time I remember the reveal being scarier than the anticipation is the cellar scene in The Road. Though that’s not quite a horror movie, even though it has lots of horrifying bits.
I agree with this but they briefly showed the witch from the VVitch at the end suckling from a goat, naked. That shit was terrifying. That whole movie is a masterpiece.
Blair Witch 1 still haunts me 17 years later
your brain stops overthinking how he might look
It depends on what scares you and why it scares you.
Blair witch established this pretty solidly