WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HORROR MOVIES ....
I love alot of things in horror movies and this question is alot harder to answer then most people might think, I enjoy a good story, strong characters, characters that I can invest in over the course of a movie. When I'm writing a script I always use the same basic process...
1. Story / location / set up
2. Characters
3. Killer / Motive
4. Kills
5. Ending
6. Writing the script
By doing this I know what the story will be about, who will be involved, where the story takes place how characters will be killed and the ending of the movie before I write a single word of the script.
I love movies that tell a good story that as some twists and turns in it that the viewer might not see coming, while admittedly I do also like movies that have beats that we all know well in advance, Movies like Friday The 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and Halloween all basically follow the same story line movie after movie with some exceptions of course. This all goes back to a previous blog I did about the anger from horror fans about Hollywood giving us something "new" and "original" when it's alot harder to do that and much easier to rehash an old story with a new spin in it, Hollywood does this all the time and I have been told as an indie film maker I am supposed to push the envelope in a different direction admittedly I put out Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis and it's a movie that I'm very proud to put my name on because it was my first movie and fans have told me I took the basic horror story and just redone it and that's true but if you have seen the movie you know that I did in fact put a bit of spin on it and made it my own story.
The biggest thing I LOVE about Horror movies is being able to make them, to give people their first movie role and watch them bring my characters and my story to life was amazing to make someone else's dream come true because they had enough faith in me, my script and my vision is something I will never forget, sure we had a rough start to it but in the end we pulled together to make the impossible happen and all the ling hours n the car, all the over night shoots when most people are sleeping all of the blood, sweat and tears was worth it because together we made it happen !
So to wrap up what I LOVE about Horror movies in a nutshell, I love horror movies because they allow me to be creative, to tell a story and to make my mark on the genre that has brought me so much joy in my life.
WHAT I HATE ABOUT HORROR MOVIES .....
Most of my dislikes about horror movies aren't about the movies themselves but are about the stuff that goes on behind the scenes that cause the movies to change and not always for the better. I'll use my film Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis as an example...
When I wrote the first draft of the script it was set to take lace in and around a high school as the kids involved in the story were High School seniors well the local school board refused to allow us to film in any of their schools so we had to think quickly because we had a start date for shooting already so we changed the setting to a post graduation camping trip for the group of friends (Very Friday The 13th).
It's things like this that can completely change a movie and make things more difficult going forward when you start looking for locations, another issue we had was we got a camping location and the house on the land we were shooting on burnt down the Monday after we had filmed there the first weekend so we had to once again change the shooting location thus killing all the momentum we had built up, so we moved from Solon, Maine to Sebec, Maine re set the camp site set, came up with a backstory why we had to move the campsite and implemented it into the script of the movie and continued to shoot the movie.
People not in the indie film world or the Hollywood world have no idea what does into making a movie and again I'll throw myself under the bus, I didn't have a clue about making movies when I got this harebrained I=idea to take the script for Sins of Man and actually make the movie. Here was my basic understanding of film making..
1. set up the shot
2. Action !
3. Cut!
4. move on to the next scene.
I had no idea about lighting, blocking a shot, angles etc. but I learned and had an amazing group of people to teach me some things along the way. There are a million and one things that can go wrong on set at any given time and people seem to think as I did back then that it's as easy as point and shoot and that might work for you tubers who shoot their content on their iphone or smart phone but doesn't really work for feature film making IMO. Now my idea of filming a movie is different...
1. Frame the shot
2. Makeup
3. Lighting
4. Camera set
5. Actors in place
6. Action
7. Cut!
8. Move on to the next scene.
(Yes I know there are things I left out but you get the idea)
I dislike Horror movies that give something away before it's time for a reveal,I tried like hell to hide things in Sins of Man until the last possible moment, I have had fans email me and say "I didn't know who the killer was until the end of the movie" and I take pride in that. (I'm guilty of this is some of my early writing and my friend said to me, don't reveal anything you don't have to until you have to)
I dislike horror movies if they make their plot and story too simple, I dislike horror movies that use the PG13 rating and then make a film that could be shown on Lifetime, I dislike horror movies that don't have good characters in them and again using Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis as a reference I used the typical characters of a slasher but I gave them each a little nudge to make them different then characters you have seen before. the killer is always my favorite part of the creative process and another thing I dislike about horror films is a killer who is out of place or doesn't fit the story.
I will bring up my movie again (because I don't take badly about other's movies) Mortis is a character that I really liked and he needed a look that was unique but at the same time people had seen before so we went with the "Horror Robe" from California Costume Collections Inc. and Mortis was born, people tell me on a daily basis that Mortis "looks like Ghostface" and I agree but disagree at the same time, we used the costume we did because it was death like and yes it looks like the Ghostface costume but there is no face on ours so it's different yet familliar at the same time.
IN CLOSING .....
I did not trash any films in this blog because I don't believe in that type of thing, I think as an indie film maker it's my duty to try to elevate other film makers and their work because we are in this together and if we focused on helping each other instead of taking the easy route and trying to cut each others throats to get ahead, i feel we could cause a real change in Hollywood if the Indie film world starts putting out amazing films that makes people in the Mainstream take notice and say "Damn they are really coming on strong now" .
I know people trash talk me, my company and my film and honestly I know that's part of the job because I had the balls to go out and put my work out there for the world to see and judge and I'm tough skinned I read all the messages and respond to some of them when they come at me with a genuine concern or comment but for the ones that simply want to spread hate because they are green with envy because I actually released a movie while they're living in their mom's basement eating Doritos and being a keyboard warrior because they don't have the nerve to put themselves out there like I did.
There is nothing more scary then putting your heart and soul into your work and then taking that work and putting it out into the world to be seen and ultimately judged by a group of your peers, that right there was my number one concern when deciding if I wanted to take Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis from script to screen, I asked myself "Am I tough enough to handle the backlash from people" as you know I said yes I am and Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis came out on DVD on Halloween and we are doing pretty well with it.
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