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–Compiled by David Geffner
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click images for larger view and details
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What makes a movie horrifying? What cinematic moments inspire terror, sticking to an audience's collective psyche like blood splattered on a wall? We asked certain directors about their favorite horror memories, and why certain shots, sequences, or images resonate long after the screaming has stopped.
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The simple shot of the reveal of the tray of bizarre surgical instruments in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, followed by the face of Jeremy Irons, cool but obviously well on his way into insanity. Another great sequence is from Joe Dante's The Howling, where Belinda Balaski's character is chased by the unseen werewolf through the woods and the cabin. One door slams shut as another slams open in breathless speed. You don't see what's chasing her, but you know it's inescapable. I'd also include John Landis's An American Werewolf in London. The two young men out on the moors at night, surrounded by these sounds. The camera moves with them, leading them off the road and surrounding them with ... who knows what? A great Hitchcockian laugh for a breather, and then the sudden attack of the never-clearly-seen monster in a flurry of cuts. A great example of building, then undercutting the tension, and then slamming you with terror.
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For me it's the long Steadicam move behind the kid riding the Big Wheel toy in Kubrick's The Shining. It was one of the first uses of Steadicam and one of the most dramatically appropriate — it's like you're being lured inexorably toward some awful horror. The longer the shot lasts, the more your dread builds. The way the wheels rattle on the wooden floor and then rush silently across the carpet is terrifying.
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The sequence from John Frankenheimer's Seconds when Will Geer, the corporate character, is sending Rock Hudson, the re-born, to his death. It's such a sweet and gentle prelude to murder; Geer talks to Hudson like a disappointed football coach sending a man to the cadaver file. That strange executioner's morality I saw in Seconds directly influenced all my films, specifically the dinner scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's a view of life that seems perfectly reasonable to the executioner, even though we may find it terrifying. Frankenheimer set that scene at night, with this soft lighting that gave it a very humanistic tone. The next shot is of Hudson being rolled down the corridor to the operating chamber. It's one of the most mind-blowing moments in all of cinema.
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Todd Browning's original Dracula. When Bela Lugosi first appears in the film, he's dressed up like a bat. It's the central image of that movie, and no one has ever done that again with Dracula. He's so bizarre. He's a bloodsucking little bat. There's not even much makeup. It's just beautiful black-and-white lighting and perfect costuming. To see him as the personification of a bat, was just so inspired. It's one of the more bizarre images in cinema history to see a human vampire bat. In terms of contemporary horror movies, an image that's always stuck with me was Brian de Palma's The Fury. The end when Fiona Lewis' character is hanging off the chandelier by her teeth, and blood is splattering all over the room. But Dracula is the one that impressed me a long time ago and I've had to go back and look at many times.
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The creature from the Black Lagoon swimming under Julie Adams in the Universal movie. Everything is perfect ... the white bathing suit, the composition, the hypnotic, ballet-like coordination of Beauty and Beast. The image is a perfect metaphor for their impossible coupling but also distills the distant longing of the creature. Separated only by a few feet but so very far apart.
The films I present to you firmly believes in the monsters. It is not a tongue-in-cheek ride that lets the audience off the hook. I feel that type of movie dilutes the true horrific emotions that stem from character, and some otherworldly presence.
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