13 Symbols of Horror (cont'd)

#2 Symbols of Death

Death is naturally pervasive in horror and there are countless representative objects, such as coffins, gravestones, skeletons, angels of death, and so forth. In Psycho (1960), the taxidermy birds are representative of the dead mother in the home and Bates’ schizophrenic attempts to keep her alive after death. In horror, there can be confusion between life and death, such as ghosts, zombies, and the supernatural, so objects can help symbolize who is on which side.

Toward the beginning of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Jacob gets trapped in an underground tunnel, which is symbolic of his being trapped between life and death. The rushing train which barely misses him on the track is filled with disfigured faces, lost souls like him.

As he suffers more and more hallucinations and his life spins out of control, the only comfort he finds is with his chiropractor Louis, who he describes as an overgrown cherub. We later discover he is in fact an angel.

Louis tells Jacob the truth about his situation, though Jacob can’t comprehend its real meaning at the time.

The fire that Jacob ignites at an Army headquarters (he blames the army for his hallucination from experiments they conducted on him) represents his need to burn away his attachments to and memories of life. Fire symbolically recurs many times in the film and Jacob is literally consumed by it before being able to finally leave his hellish purgatory.

13 Symbols of Horror

Symbols - objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Most films use patterns or specific objects as metaphors for a concept that the film is trying to convey.  In horror movies, many such objects are used to intensify mood, identify character traits, emphasize themes and concepts (e.g. good and evil), and foreshadow events. Objects can be powerful symbols that add depth and meaning to a story.

Horror films try to capture our worst nightmares. As Carl G. Jung observed in his book Man and His Symbols (1979): "Commonplace objects or ideas can assume such powerful psychic significance in a dream that we may awake seriously disturbed, in spite of having dreamed of nothing worse than a locked room or a missed train" and “As a general rule, the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image."

Writers can use objects that appeal to our unconscious in this way for added, subtle dimension to reinforce themes. In a 13-week series of blogs, I’ll take a look at some of the most common symbolic objects found in horror, beginning with:

#1: Religious Icons

Religion is very prevalent in horror, with themes of life and death, spirituality, man playing god, man fighting inner as well as outer demons, good versus evil, and so forth. Religious artifacts may be Christian, occult, satanic, voodoo, or about any other type of belief in something greater than humanity. In The Skeleton Key (2005), hospice worker Caroline Ellis is a skeptic and does not believe in the supernatural, even though hoodoo items and legends surround her in the swampy, primitive homestead where she cares for an elderly man, Ben.

As Ben believes in the hoodoo magic, Caroline pieces together more and more about the lynching of a slave couple who performed hoodoo in the attic, and her belief system begins to shift. She learns about the jujus, spell-books and recorded conjurations she discovers in the attic and begins to perform rituals herself. In the end, her fear makes her a believer and this is her downfall, as it is what the slaves, who have lived on in the bodies of others, needed to take over her body. She let the symbolic objects overpower her reasoning.

Next Blog: Symbols of Death

Foreplay... Teasing Audiences into Wanting More

A horror film can be compared to a really great rollercoaster ride – the pace moves with increasing speed and thrills to a big, climactic nail-biting ascent and screaming descent. The last thing you want to do as a writer is make that last part of the ride weaker than previous ones. The showdown is what your audience has been waiting for, and it needs to be great. Any previous thrills are merely foreplay to the big event, each one building the audience’s fear level so they are pumped and ready to be scared out of their wits when you hurl them down that final descent.
In slasher films, the scares often involve the death of the protagonist’s friends, each one getting more grizzly, and physically and emotionally closer to the protagonist. Halloween (1979) is an obvious example of this, leading the story to the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. The showdown is long, frightening, and surprising as we discover that Michael simply won’t be killed. This climactic ending was definitely worth all the foreplay.

When outlining your script, you should identify where all those major scare moments occur because a number of them may not coincide with main plot points. Review them and ask yourself, does each scare become more frightening than the last? Is there adequate and logical suspense building from one to the other?
Putting more and more obstacles that prevent the protagonist from escaping can be effective for building suspense. In P2 (2007), a young woman has been kidnapped by a deranged parking lot attendant but manages to escape, resulting in a tense underground cat and mouse game. She’s bloody and handcuffed, running toward a gated entrance with the hope of getting cell phone service. She just manages to get service by sticking her cuffed hands out through a grate, but drops the cell phone out of reach and can’t pull her hands back in as the cuffs become stuck. And the villain is about to turn the corner and find her. What could possibly get worse?

The first major scare typically happens in the opening or ‘hook’. The opening sequence is what will make your audience want to keep watching (or reading) your story. The tease may be ambiguous, such as the creepy Victorian-style illustrations in the opening titles of The Others (2001) or inform us about what types of scares to expect the rest of the movie, such as death by video in Ringu. It may also foreshadow character conflict, such as in The Descent (2005). The opening in this film doesn’t seem particularly scary until one character’s husband and child are suddenly and unexpectedly killed… just after it is implied that the husband was sleeping with his wife’s best friend. This conflict is crucial when the two women are trapped underground later in the story. Whatever form the opening takes, the purpose is to provoke the audience’s curiosity and set them up for the type of ride you intend to take them on.

Beyond the opening tease, scare moments tend to be minimal in the first act, as that is when we get to know the characters. The next big scare typically occurs at the end of the first act. The protagonist’s life is changed in a significant way, and in horror that usually means in a very bad way. Typically, that change puts the protagonist out of their normal element. In Misery (1990), a famous author is ‘rescued’ by a doting fan and subjected to her insanity and torture; his goal is simply to escape. Less common in horror, the evil can surface on the protagonists own turf, such as in films like Poltergeist, Sixth Sense, or Signs. Ringu is again a good example. The major turning point is when Asakawa, the reporter investigating her niece’s death and the rumored tape, views it herself and gets the fatal call. Knowing she has only a week to live, her mission is to solve the tape’s mystery and save her self.

Act Two is always the most challenging for writers and in horror it also requires the need to sustain escalating tension and suspense toward that final showdown. Evil in whatever form will be increasing its attacks during the second act. To continue with Ringu as an example, the stakes are heightened when Asakawa’s son watches the video. Now it is not only her life she has to be protect but the person she loves most.
Typically at some point during the second act (usually the halfway ‘midpoint’), the protagonist will go from simply trying to escape to investigating the purpose and intention behind the evil. The investigative portion is a great time to tease your audience as each clue leads to more and more horrifying knowledge. In A Nightmare on Elm Street (1987), Nancy learns the truth about Freddy Krueger from her mother so finally understands why he has been after her and the other children of his killers. Now instead of trying to avoid sleep, Nancy wants to end her nightmares by outwitting Freddy within a dream. As a result of her investigation, she turns from a powerless victim to a proactive protagonist.

And of course all these moments lead to the final showdown, that last part of the ride that makes us glad we took bought the ticket. The final confrontation is what the entire story has been building up to, so it carries the weight of enormous audience expectations. It is when Laurie Strode fights Michael Myers in the closet with a hanger, Nancy yanks Freddy out of her dreams into reality, and Asakawa is confronted by the monstrous child she helped release. When readers set down your script or audiences leave the theater, this is the scene they will remember most and it will most likely determine whether they thought it was a good or bad story, no matter what the build up.

In Signs (2002) the crisis seems over when the disillusioned priest Graham Hess and his children and brother survive a night of alien invasion. They emerge from the basement with the news that the aliens have retreated. However, the final showdown begins when a remaining alien takes Graham’s son. As the others watch frozen with terror, Graham recalls his last moments with his dying wife and her final words for his brother, “Tell Merrill to swing away.” It is the key for igniting the showdown as Merrill uses his baseball bat to go after the alien while Graham races against time to save his son’s life. It also rejuvenates Graham’s faith as he believes that while dying, his wife had the forsight to save their son. This renewed faith came as the story’s resolution, which occurs after the showdown. No matter how great a film is, if the ending disappoints, audiences will naturally have a negative reaction. For typical American audiences, it doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but a satisfying one.

Writing suspense that builds to moments of sheer terror is extremely challenging. Take the time to imagine yourself on the horror ride you present in your script; evaluate if the scares leading up to that final climax will leave audiences screaming and begging for more.