Sunday, October 7, 2012

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5: Horror Anthologies

Friday night, my boyfriend and I decided to do a late-night viewing of Halloween fave Trick 'r Treat. I love that movie even though it's not particularly scary. It's good, easy fun. That's enough for me.

The week before, my boyfriend showed me Twilight Zone: the movie. I shocked him with the revelation that I'd never seen it before. Whatever, he just saw Silence of the Lambs for the first time a couple years ago, so I don't want to hear it. There were some rather frightening parts and I sincerely enjoyed the film. I realized then that my inner ADD child likes anthologies merely for the stories' short length.

I've known people who hate horror anthologies. Some complain that the individual stories feel too short and incomplete, which is the product of lazy writing. I disagree. Some horror movies feel like they drag on way too long. Not every story needs to be an hour and a half long. A good story can be told in 20 minutes. The length is not important but the quality is. I will get bored if the film doesn't get to the action. Build the tension, yes, but I don't need a ton of exposition and 30 minutes of establishing shots. Introduce your characters and story, build said tension, and then shock us with the climax. If you are going for a more character-driven storyline, then you might require a more in-depth approach to your film. However, if you are just going for getting the story out there without spending extra time on characters, then the film-making version of 500 words or less is the way to go.


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