Building suspense

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about suspenseful situations in movies and other media. I feel that many movies and films go for a suspenseful angle, but fall a bit short.

Movies like the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm St. films, which are intended to instill horror, fall somewhat short on the suspense scale. They reveal their villains/monsters somewhat early on, which removes some of the mystery.

When left up to their own imaginations, people will fill in the blanks themselves. Almost without fail, this will illicit more of a reaction than what Hollywood could do.

The movie Cloverfield, for example, does a great job of building suspense. The viewer sees nothing of the monster for 95% of the film, which allows them to build it up in their mind. When the creature is finally seen, it has a greater impact.

I feel that more movies should adapt that style. One may have created a truly terrifying monster, but why not amp up the effect by letting it stew in mystery for a while?

Remakes: Good or bad

Some friends and I recently went to see the remake of Evil Dead. The original film has attained cult status for being a ridiculously campy, bad movie. Even the crew behind the film realized this, and turned the series into a comedy with Evil Dead 2  and Army of Darkness.

The remake, on the other hand, is actually a pretty creepy movie, and actually fits the horror genre that it was trying for. This got me thinking about the recent rise in popularity of remakes. I used to just write off all remakes as Hollywood being out of ideas, but in this particular case, the writer was actually able to achieve with this remake what he could not with the original, and there is a certain merit to that.

Don't get me wrong. I still do feel that many remakes are cashing in on nostalgia, but if a creator feels that they can actually improve upon the story they tried to tell, or execute it better, then I say more power to them. Evil Dead in my opinion, is an example of a remake done right. Total Recall, on the other hand...not so much.

Collaborations: Worth the risk?

One of the latest chapters in the book talked about collaborations on movies, specifically international collaborations. These types of set ups can be incredibly beneficial. It offers the potential to tap into the existing fans of another companies work, and lets each side more easily attract attention in their partners home land.

However, on the flip side, if the movie is a bomb, it can have devastating effects. Losing potential viewers in the other country because they get a bad first impression of you, hurting your own fans opinions of you if the movie is bad, even if its because your partner didn't pull their weight, etc... One needs to have a lot of faith to pull off a partnership like that.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether each side believe that the risks are worth the outcome. If they are, and the potential for a great film that benefits both sides is there, then it should be done. Otherwise, it may just be better to not go through with the whole thing.