By Olivia Turner | Arts & Life Editor
With the days darkening and the temperatures finally beginning to drop, horror movies haunt many American TV screens. With many different genres such as slashers, supernatural and found footage to choose from, there are undoubtedly favorites fans revisit again and again to be deliciously scared.
Rotten Tomatoes ranks “The Exorcist,” “Hereditary” and “The Conjuring” as the top three scariest movies ever. So what exactly is it that makes horror movies like these so successfully scary?
Dr. James Kendrick, a professor of film and digital media, teaches Baylor’s horror film class. Students attend weekly screenings of these films and discuss horror’s evolution over history during class time.
“I usually get two kinds of students,” Kendrick said. “I get ones who already love the horror genre and have seen almost everything that I show, and then I get ones who are kind of curious or interested, or they’ve never liked horror before.”
The latter was the case for Dr. Zachary Sheldon, a Film & Digital Media lecturer who took the horror film class as a graduate student. Sheldon went from not knowing much about horror to developing an appreciation for it. For many, the scare factor isn’t even the best part, he said.
“It’s not always about getting the big scary moments or the jump scares or anything, but the range of emotions that are presented in those movies is exquisite,” Sheldon said. “Some movies that a lot of people see or that are famous as being incredibly scary. I came away with feeling like, ‘Oh, that wasn’t very scary. It was just really thoughtful.’”
Kendrick agreed that while horror movies are meant to scare, some go much deeper than that. Highlighting the hidden potentials in the genre is one of the things Kendrick loves most about teaching his class.
“We tend to think about it in a very surface kind of way like — it’s scary, it’s got monsters, It’s violent, it’s dark,” Kendrick said. “One of the things I really try to emphasize in the class is the history of the genre and how it’s developed and how it has historically taken on all kinds of interesting social issues, cultural issues, political issues. A lot of times, those tend to be the most interesting horror films.”
Over the years, horror films have reflected their eras, Kendrick said. For example, a common fear in the 1950s was nuclear war due to the devastation caused by atomic bombs in World War II. For the most part, however, the things people fear have for the most part remained consistent, Kendrick said.
“Horror films all operate on basic human fears,” Kendrick said. “To some degree, we’re all afraid of death, we’re all afraid of pain, we’re all afraid of something happening to our bodies. And horror films down the line all operate on the basic fear of death — either physical death or spiritual death, or both.”
Sheldon said movies mirroring his own real-life fears have left a lasting impression.
“‘The Descent’ is one of my favorite horror films because it is terrifying, and it does a really incredible job of making you feel claustrophobic,” Sheldon said.
In order for one to be successfully scared, Sheldon said, the viewer has to invest in the characters’ stories. He also said it helps to watch with friends.
“Horror movies are best experienced with other people because everybody’s emotions register off other people in the room,” Kendrick said. “And so when other people are tense, it makes you tense, and you can sense that.”
On the occasion that a horror film does leave someone shaken, this does not always denote scariness, Kendrick said. Horror is also meant to disturb, creep and unsettle, all of which can be just as powerful a sensation as scaring, he said.
Additionally, there is no one answer as to what makes a horror movie scary. While sound, effects and other filming techniques can all play a part, different movies affect people in different ways due to each person’s unique life experiences, Kendrick said.
“It’s really easy to make somebody jump in their seat by having something jump out of the screen and make a loud sound,” Kendrick said. “But to really leave somebody shaken at the end, where they’re walking out and they’re kind of a hard time leaving it in the theater, the movie has to engage with you emotionally.”
Reflecting on his time in the horror movie class, Sheldon said he has been left less scared of the films. Instead of scared, Sheldon said he feels enlightened.
“The horror tactics in the genre are often are being used in service of different of telling other stories,” Sheldon said. “Once you start looking at the genre that way, it becomes a lot richer, and to me, a lot more interesting, because it expands the types of stories that are being told in the genre.”
