The art of the Scare

Continuing on my beloved theme of horror, I'd like to talk about the following clip from the Exorcist III. Over all, this movie isn't all that great, and certainly nowhere close to the original, but this scene is a hidden gem. Take a look, and we'll discuss it in a moment.

All done? Wasn't that awesome? Best scene in the entire film, and here's why;

It starts off really normally. Basically it's just a night shift nurse doing her job. The security guard looks bored until he gets up and leaves. Then, BAM, blood chilling terror!

There isn't anything overtly supernatural in the scene, though certainly there is a lot in the movie as a whole, but no werewolves, no tentacles, just a ghastly figure wrapped in a sheet, wielding a giant spring-loaded pair of scissors, designed to cut through the sternum. The sheet combined with the gruesome weapon held at such a weird angle creates a more chilling effect than just a dude with a mask and a knife.

Naturally, the sound is extremely effective as well, but the scene works even without sound. The stillness of the scene really does set you up nicely, raising the shock value even higher.

I think the main key though, is the security guard. Why? Well, he walks past the same spot the nurse gets killed at two seconds later, which means either the killer is already there, and the guard would have seen him had he turned his head, or the killer really appears out of nowhere. Either way, the fact that the guard walks right past, tell us the area is safe, when in reality it absolutely isn't. This effectively raises the terror again.

Finally, we have no blood in the scene. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on your taste I suppose, but in my mind, the decapitated statue is considerably creepier. Most gore scenes diminish the terror, since blood works on the disgust factor rather than the nerves. An otherwise pristine statue mangled like that really slams home what has happened to the poor nurse.

I think all aficionados of horror can learn a lot from this scene. It's set up is flawless, it's execution brilliant. It kind of goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that some of the techniques employed here can't be used elsewhere but in this kind of media, but the main lessons should work anywhere.

In a nutshell, when done right, less is more.