Scary Cameras: The Dirty Tricks of Horror Films

A video essay on the various ways horror films use the camera to scare you. Directors enjoy playing with your anxiety and blurring the lines between objective and subjective angles to make you fear just about everything.
These effective techniques can be found everywhere, from "Halloween" to "Scream", from "Friday the 13th" to "I Know What You Did Last Summer", from "The Shining" to "Scary Movie". They're specially prevalent in the works of Italian founding fathers of terror Dario Argento and Mario Bava.
Find out what they are!
#videoessay #horror #scream #filmmaking #cinematography
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[@floydffrogfloydffrog7453]

Better than a scooped out head filled with candy. Thank you, Moviewise. And Happy Halloween.

[@Lux_Lethal]

I became terrified I had finished binging your videos and you grace us with another! Thank you, Moviewise! Happy Halloween! 😃

[@dr.juerdotitsgo5119]

The best movie channel on KZbin is back. Don't stay away too long.

[@CarlosC0311]

Don’t care how much time he takes to upload. The longer the wait, the better it is the video

[@Shah-of-the-Shinebox]

I was hoping you'd upload today. You did not disappoint. Happy Halloween 🎃 👻

[@hikari_manekineko]

Informative, fun, great timing and dry humor, and a pleasure to listen to and to watch. Love your work.

[@karlj.claridge7949]

Oh man! I genuinely laughed out loud and appreciated your Evil Dead 2 gag, with the tape recorder-Brilliant!

[@feedcinemaa4756]

Even merchandizing can be used to build tension 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. God bless you man

[@jameslarder1400]

“Buffy arrives home” 😂 Great videos man- Excellent knowledge and funny

[@DarkSideofSynth]

Oh yes! Keep the blood flowing, and the lens in focus :))))) Amazing job as usual. Have a glorious weekend!

[@fitzpatrickmathemati]

Love seeing you showcase the Italian horror films!

[@TheXelsky]

My favourite channel by far. I was wondering if you've gone to film school?

[@toycamera6112]

There’s a famous scene in ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ where two characters must produce a film called ‘Doom of the Cat Men’. They immediately realize if they actually show the titular ‘Cat Men’, the audience will only see a bunch of fat guys in cat suits. And as they’re discussing how to genuinely scare people, they conclude that nothing scares an audience member more than darkness. They don’t have to show the audience the cat men. But what do they put on the screen then? Their list is as follows: 1. Two eyes, shining in the dark. 2. A dog frightened, growling, showing its fangs. 3. A bird, its neck broken, feathers torn from its throat. 4. A little girl screaming, claw marks down her cheeks. Needless to say, their film is a hit. Great horror is built around suggestion. Especially in a CG-laden filmmaking landscape, it can be a herculean task to trick the human eye into believing something that isn’t real. One simple way to bypass this is to use a mortal killer; but even then, it can be extremely difficult to scare the audience with a normal killer. Rather than inflicting a CG monstrosity or a potentially overacting slasher on your audience, it’s often a safe bet to pull back and let your audience become the victim of their own imagination. Ghosts and monsters become scarier when our ability to ‘see’ is restricted; when we’re limited to the symptoms of their power. Even a human killer becomes scarier when some part of them is hidden as is evidenced by the enduring box office power of characters like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.

[@lizardman7364]

yep. that entire scene is a reference to the Val Lewton produced/Jacques Tourneur directed Cat People from 1942.

[@JamesWilliams-se3vr]

Thanks. Your channel is the ne plus ultra of film analysis.

[@WilliamJames48]

I love that whole Apt sequence from the untouchables. Awesome camera work.

[@john5880]

Thanks for sharing, your videos are incredible, full of information and really good, fresh analyses. A lot of knowledge and work behind them, great result.

[@PeterPeter-]

This was a nice surprise

[@dvdly]

In Silence of the Lambs, there's a killer pov via infrared, which shows how Clarice is helpless in the pitch black room with the killer. Then, for some reason there's a cutaway shot showing the killer in infrared goggles, destroying the illusion of pitch darkness and, hence, the tension of the scene.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

Jonathan Demme not infallible shock!

[@PierreBFilm]

Just discovered your channel. Well done, keep making videos essays

[@ConradSpoke]

Putting disco hair on Keir Dullea is an effectively disturbing horror trick. 7:58

[@DrCamf]

The last one had me laughing so much

[@fernandoparadacastillo5901]

"Damn, Michael Myers sure needs reading glasses" "The day when i don't watch this scene, is a sad day" "Ugh, please kill her" 🤣🤣🤣 You're a master comedian in disguise. Love your videos 👍

[@flanderleisen]

I LOVE YOU MOVIEWISE

[@marufhasan9365]

another great video. thanx

[@aryanpatel8619]

You are just awesome man

[@djggou]

I need a list of all the movies used in this video (you usually put them in the credits). I recognise most if these, but not all.

[@queldar27]

Turn on the subtitles and all will be revealed...

[@djggou]

​@@queldar27life saver

[@kubolor1234]

The brain is uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations, play with withholding information either from the audience or characters to take advantage of this fact.

[@pandaloon6083]

Informative and entertaining. Your content makes me a better movie watcher. Thank you. Switching subjects, since you mentioned Argento and Suspiria, I am hoping you can create a video detailing the use of color. For instance, I enjoyed the Bond film Casino Royale in part because it seemed alive with color. But I disliked SPECTRE because of its yellowish tint to everything. (Someone actually posted a color corrected version wherein blue skies were blue and snow was white. Go figure.) Another film, Jeepers Creepers. For some reason the color black seems a deeper richer black in that movie than in many others. Perhaps a video that delves into the thematic use of color or the technical reasons for color (a video similar to the aspect-ratio video) In addition to color -- I know you've covered blocking -- but any thoughts on the use of liminal space in movies? Seeing clips from The Shining brought the subject to mind. Perhaps a video about horror movies set during the off hours of an amusement park, shopping mall, or school. The unsettling character is the expected but unseen person and activity. Thanks you for your work.

I just comment for the algorithm. Please KZbin make this man rich.

[@bobbyjosson4663]

I used to watch and love many of the old classic horrors film, but, for me, they've become harder to enjoy from about the '70s. Perhaps, because they were made by sleazeballs, even though that was the last decent decade to throw up classics that someone raised on Universals/Val Lewton/the English ghost story, Twilight Zone/Karloff's Thriller/Outer Limits could appreciate; 'Don't Look Now', 'The Omen', 'Carrie', the short Richard Matheson segment 'Amelia' from 'Trilogy of Terror', and the BBC classic 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' segment 'A Warning to the Curious' - one of the most chilling and brilliant pieces to grace the small screen and utterly worthy of Hitchcock.

[@tom-vj9lz]

Hows the Hamlet video coming slong?

[@nichttuntun3364]

😊🎉 Hi moviewise, are you involved in making movies or screenwriting? I enjoy your channel and like to know more about your background.

[@tobilobaojuroye9024]

Here's your reminder for a video on MIRRORS

[@timthompson9246]

Owning more than 200 horror films is weird? Uh oh.

[@AnnaeusSeneca13]

Oh how I love Phenomena and Tenebra! but since I see what I believe is Olivia Hussey in Black Christmas, it is time to turn this video off and go watch a horror movie. Or maybe just KBS Music Bank . . .

[@johnnycash2581]

You speak like Schwarzenegger

[@oneinchpunched3661]

"The Babadook. Its an amazing meditation on motherhood and grief " Moviewise: "Eeach... Please, kill her" I swear man, you are doing all the killing with gems like that.