When we think of horror, there are a few common actions you can imagine will appear in the film. Some actions would be jumpscares, blood or gore, the villain never dying/comes back, and a revenge plot. Another thing with horror movies is they can be very immersive, especially to someone who hates being scared. They evoke emotions out of you, making you feel what the characters are feeling. Horror films tend to follow the same actions or have the same things that make them scary and memorable. A lot of them have the characters making stupid decisions based on stereotypes of the characters and the genre of the movie. You never normally see the dumb blonde living to the end of the movie. Another thing to go along with the stupid decisions, is everyone always investigates a noise or the groups always want to split up and cover more ground looking for something. Horror films also aim to build tension and make you feel the same as the characters. They do this by adding spooky music to a moment. Take the theme song in Halloween 2. Every time you hear it or some sudden scary music builds up, you know Michael is around the corner somewhere about to pop out. Horror movies today found their basis from classic horror movies, which I find I like watching more than recent horror films. Classic horror movies seem to scare me less, but I could not tell you why.
Halloween 2 used many visual techniques within the film, leaving the viewers scared and intrigued to what happens next. The first visual technique I found was the lighting. Take the scene when the nurse finds the doctor with a needle in his eye. The camera moves to her, watching her back up in horror with a black background. As she goes backward though, Michael Myers starts to come into view, the darkness hiding him from view until he wants to be seen. The way this scene played out with the overall dark space made it predictable that the nurse was going to die. Another visual technique came up when Laurie was running out of the hospital towards a car, while looking back at the doors and all around her, trying to figure out where the killer was. They used the characters’ gaze and fast camera movements to create a sense of paranoia that got the viewers attention and wondering where Michael Myers was hiding. The movie also uses great set design, filming the hallways of a near empty hospital, giving the audience the feeling of isolation and claustrophobia. Filming the hallways of the hospital helped set the mood for viewers. It looked almost abandoned, adding to the tension of the movie. There were a lot of hiding places within it that Michael could have been in and as viewers you don’t know where he is.
Pivotal moments in a horror movie give you clarity on things you have questions about. They also give you a solution when there is one. Sometimes solutions make you as the audience feel like everything is going to be okay afterwards, or give you a relieved feeling that it is finally over. One very pivotal moment in Halloween 2, is at the end, when Dr. Loomis saves Laurie by blowing himself and Michael up in the surgical room. This scene puts a great end to Michael’s reign of death and destruction in Haddonfield. You can see him come walking out on fire, but drops to the floor and burns to death. Another pivotal moment is when it is revealed that Laurie is Michael Myers’ sister, born 2 years before he was put into an institution. I certainly didn’t see that coming and it explains why after hearing where she was taken after everything at the house happened, he was so intent on going there and finishing the job.
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