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James Wan shares 5 elements of a good horror movie
How do you determine a good horror movie? In an exclusive phone interview with The Jakarta Post, James Wan, the director of The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 Saw and the Insidious series names the five things he regards as essential elements of a good horror movie.
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Dolls are an element often used in horror movies. (Shutterstock/-)
H
ow do you determine a good horror movie? In an exclusive phone interview with The Jakarta Post on Thursday, James Wan, the director of The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 Saw and the Insidious series names the five things he regards as essential elements of a good horror movie.
Good story
First of all, to Wan, horror movies need a good story for the audience to follow.
Characters the audience cares about
They also need characters the audience can grow to love. “If you care about the characters, then whatever scary thing happens to them, you feel it even more,” Wan said.
(Read also: Director James Wan wants you to bring a date to 'The Conjuring 2')
Atmosphere
The overall atmosphere of the film is very important. Wan explained, “The creepiness or the dread needs to linger on even after it has finished.”
The cases
The scary, sad cases should be relatable. People should be able to look at them and think of what to do if they were in that situation. “That’s why haunted house horror movies tend to work so well for me,” Wan said. “I find it scary because it takes place in houses, in a location that we all know. We all live in some kind of home, so the idea that our home could be invested with a supernatural entity is kind of frightening, I think.”
(Read also: New “Conjuring 2″ trailer confronts possession in London)
Sound design
The soundscape, the music, the sound design is very important for a scary movie. Wan thinks that people should pay a lot of attention to how filmmakers craft the scary sounds to go along with the visuals. (asw)
