SineBuano.com

Diem, a screenwriter/director of SineBuano, discusses on how writing and filming horror films can open doors for independent filmmakers.

I got four words for you: The Blair Witch Project.

Produced from a measly budget of 22,000 dollarsm, the film scared American, as well as worldwide, audiences to a lump sum of 248 million dollars by January 2008.

Still not enough to convince you? Then let us move on.

Why Horror?

Horror is a preferred genre in film making because of a simple two-fold quality: it’s cheap to make and interesting to watch. A lot of production outfits (independent or major, Filipino or foreign) would immediately bank on a horror film with an interesting premise as compared to a romantic comedy or drama.

A lot of great directors and actors had their start doing horror/thriller films: Alfred Hitchcock, Mia Farrow, Christopher Lee, Michael Caine, Jamie Lee Curtis, and M. Night Shyamalan.

A good horror movie often leads to remakes by other countries since fear is a universal emotion. Japan, South Korea and now presently Thailand get notice on the moviegoer’s bulletin board for producing spine tinglers such as “The Ring”, “The Grudge”, “A Tale of Two Sisters” and “Shutter”.

The film scene in the Philippines have more than its fair share of horror films that proved themselves to be box-office attractions, despite these being obviously influenced by Japanese horror, Korean horror and whose thrills are only skin-deep.

The fact of the matter is that though there is a constant demand for horror films, the supply is limited. Filmmakers often apply the same tricks of the horror trade that it’s expectant: the white lady ghost of a wronged woman, dark places where the main characters get isolated prime for haunting and of course, the story twists meant to blow one’s mind.

Reinventing Horror

Attempts have been made to inject fresh blood into the genre up to the point of introducing torture as a means to create terror, as in “Saw”, “Turistas” and “Hostel”.

Rather than writing or making your horror film project as a snuff-film-wannabe, here are some tips in which you could do to make your film fresh yet familiar and totally fearsome.

I. Revive the Classics

And I am not talking about reading up on the earlier works of Stephen King and Clive Barker (though that would help too). I am saying go way way back to Lovecraft, Algernon, Stoker, Wells, Poe and others. These authors have plied their trade through setting the mood right for the human mind to be exposed to madness and monsters.

And reading the back stories of classic horror comics, the ones that was enjoyed by your dad or granddad when they were teens are a good resource to find horrific essentials.

II. Inject Real Elements

The appeal of The Blair Witch Project is that it was marketed as a real event, a documentary and not as a fictional film. The same can be seen in The Sixth Sense where it was also a human drama on real human relationships that just have creepy stuff happening around it.

The same reason why torture-porn films such as Saw and Hostel are popular, they possess plausibility. We’ve read and heard that these terrible things do happen.

Newspapers, factual accounts on crime and the paranormal as well as personal accounts from people you know, ghost stories shared in the campfire or in group hang-outs can bear the seeds of what could be the next great horror film.

III. A Fate Worse than Death

This last tip is something you got to figure yourself out. If you’re like me, who’s been listening, watching, reading and writing horror stories for a long long while– it would be just a snap for you to get how to make this tip work for your horror film.