Valentine Horrors.

Yes, in the spirit of the season I will talk about survival horror today!

...What, you don't see how horror works with valentines?

Well, to be honest, it is more of a Halloween thing, but if you're expecting it, it's not very horrifying, now IS it? Anyways, who wouldn't want to take their date to a horror movie as a chance to get a little closer (if only out of fear)? Either way, it was talking about this or spend another twenty minutes trying to figure out what to talk about, so this it is.

Effective horror is NOT jump scares. Jump scares are easy to get. Just shout "BOO!" in someone's ear when they don't know you're there. They'll jump, but is that really a satisfying scare? Sure, you laugh at how they were (very reasonably) startled, but that's not true fear. True fear is when that person hides in a corner from your very presence, and stays that way for a few minutes without moving for fear of what may happen. THAT is fear. How does one get to this level of fear?

Well I'll make this list as if we were referring to videogames, so we can make inevietable comparisons with Silent Hill.

1. Tension.

When you want to make tension, hint at things. Don't ever explicitly say it. One of the most frightening things about Silent Hill was probably one single line that inversed everything about the scary little town. "Monsters? ...They look like monsters to you?" How many people, I wonder, immediately took a breath and tried not to cry when they realized they might have been hurting the normal people, and the only real monster... is you?

2. Make the player go insane.

Not talking about "Nintendo insanity" or making the player's character go insane. I mean make the player think things that aren't true, or question existence of things.
Did that door just open in the game? Go back! No. It was closed. What if I open the door? Oh, it's locked. I'll visit later. Then the door disappears when the camera isn't looking a few minutes later. There's no comment from the character on it, there's no remark about disappearing doors. It just never existed. It didn't even have a room behind it to go to. It will certainly drive the player absolutely mad. Throw this sort of thing in every so often without a sound or sound effect or music change to alert the player that something is up, you'll effectively make the player think they are absolutely mad. Disappearing monsters could likely have the same effect if done properly.

3. Musical scores are key.

action music will do you no good here. Violin shrieks can help here or there, but don't stress them. Piano can help a lot, and music boxes can do wonders around childish or feminine scenery. Nothing should be overdone, and there should be plenty of variety. Add a slow accordion around seafaring scenes, an off-key organ in church or a carnival, things like that can do wonders. Slow and off-key are very important parts of the music. My suggestion? In big boss fights and the scariest moments, play calming music in off-key tones. Like a music box playing ring-around-the-roses while you're fighting off armies of undead toy soldiers.

4. Monsters have subtlety.

The best examples of this are the Silent Hill monsters from the first second and third games. They are symbolic and truly menacing. Best way to make a monster:
Find something to symbolize; make a figure behind it; add stitches, injuries, blood, and the like; give it slow or jerky motions for some creatures, slow dragging for others, or maybe even fast running and jumping. Nothing should move smoothly if you want it to be menacing unless it's a creature of the air or the water. Even then...

5. Scenery.

Pick your scene. At home, at church, at ballet practice, the carnival, the swamp, the forest... Any scene you like can be made scary. Dim the colors for some things, make some things even brighter. If you're in a carnival, washed-out colors will look silly. Wash out the corners of billboards or some such, but on the rides? Let those colors rock the house. Bright reds and saturated yellows with faded edges give an aged look and will break up the monotony a bit. But don't confuse that with

6. Lighting.

Lighting is your best friend in survival horror. Blues give a creepy and haunting look, but is also unnatural. Reds are angry, violent, and ramp up the tension (in horror, best to ramp up tension when there's nothing to be afraid of at all, or only minimal threats), greens give off an alien or swampy look depending on how diluted they are, and purple is a bit relaxing. Unnatural colors in unnatural scenes can really cement the fact that you're in another world, or they can completely throw someone out of the experience. Use wisely!

Comment below if you have any suggestions for other ideas around this, or if you just have any questions, comments, concerns, anything! I'd love to hear from my readers!

Happy Valentines' everybody~! Go get scared with someone you love!

Cardboard Romances

Sherlock Holmes, House MD, Resident Evil: Degeneration, and Final Fantasy X. What do they have in common?

That's right~! Terrible romance side-stories made of cardboard and spackle. You may wonder why I count the plot of FFX as a "romance side-story", and that's because I hate Tidus almost as much as a much more prominent videogame reviewer I could mention. It's a side story because nobody plays to see the stupid tosspot protagonists make googly eyes at each other, they play for the stodgy JRPG battle system and neat-looking monsters. (At least that's the only reason I can think of).

Why do writers feel the need to stick bad romance plots into every story? It seems to be a mostly American thing, and I can't figure out why for the life of me. It's incredibly absurd, and never looks good.

"Oh look, a guy and a girl that laughed at each other's jokes. The end of this movie will be a wedding." Does that thought sound vaguely familiar? It'd be more surprising if two people smiled and laughed at each other in an action movie and then spent the entire movie as "just friends". You guys know that a wedding doesn't mean it's a happy ending, right? It just means you're sequel baiting for a terrible romantic comedy somewhere in the future.

And while we're on the subject, girls like me who make blogs like this hate romantic comedies. So I probably won't review any. When I --a typically non-movie-goer-- can sit and tell you who will kiss who by the end of the movie, you aren't writing a shocking twist when the male hero surprise-kisses the heroic female. It's the twist for the braindead kids sitting there who only want to see tired movie stereotypes.

Next time you want to write a romance, how about an end monologue like this:

"So. The war was over. It was time to go home. We were rushed to pack, and I lost a medal in the move. It wasn't the loss that bothered me. What bothered me is... That cute blond in the mess hall I only spoke to once?...Well, I lost her number."
[scan through packing montage, pan to a view of the lunch lady singing on stage, walking off, then finding a bouquet of roses with a label listing it "From Dave" with a picture of the hero nearby, and his number on the card]

It's more subtle. Not great (especially not since it was written over the course of one minute) but it wasn't bad. And it wasn't an end-movie kiss.

Sorry for the post-delay, the last week was just kinda tough on my schedule. I'll try to post on Wednesday again and find some kind of schedule for the blog.
Have a good future Valentines' day, everyone!

Edit: I would like to remark that the addition of Sherlock Holmes was entirely for the recent movie, not any other part of the franchise, and that a bad romance does not make a bad series. (I actually like the Sherlock Holmes movie quite a lot.)