Horror has always been a genre that I have avoided. I’ve never enjoyed watching horror movies, and I’ve always wondered why. If you’ve read my other blog posts this year you would know that I’ve suffered an unfortunate string of concussions and sickness. I ended up missing this project’s field school to Seattle, but lucky for me I have the internet at my fingertips. After doing some research, I learned that in order to enjoy horror one must be able to have a “protective frame.” We must know that we are physically safe and the horror is not near to us, we must be able to detach the film from real life and understand it is a movie, and we must have some confidence in managing the danger of the film. This really opened my eyes about why I dislike horror, because I can never feel safe after I watch a horror film. It also shows how movies like The Exorcist (1973)  are so scary. The horror of The Exorcist was that the “monster” of the movie was the devil, something that many people believed to exist at the time. The movie implied that anyone could be possessed at any time, destroying the first part of the protective frame. 

This topic is a perfect segue into why horror is an effective way to comment on society of the time. The Exorcist is considered one of the scariest movies of all time, but when we watched it as a class it seriously wasn’t that bad. Remember, I’m a total coward when it comes to horror as well. One of the biggest reasons for this was likely they fact that The Exorcist was released when the population was much more religious. The “horrors” of the film aren’t horrifying to an atheist audience like the modern day classroom. Honestly, people in class were laughing during some of the “worst” scenes of the movie. This shows how horror is a direct commentary on society and its worries. The 70s were a time of religious revolution, with many families slowly moving away from Christianity. The Church actually approved the movie because it was a way to scare people back towards religion. Imagine worrying that the devil could posses you at any moment. No wonder this movie caused people to faint in the theatre. Compare that to a society that is over 50% atheist. The fear of the devil doesn’t exist, because according to society the devil doesn’t exist. 

Someone, I can’t remember who, said in one of our socratic seminars that a good horror movie understands what makes people scared. Not only is this another good argument for why horror is a reflection on society, but it is also the biggest point of improvement for our movie as a class. This will always be an area of improvement for all school films, but pre-prediction should always have the most priority when making a film. It doesn’t matter how well shot a horror movie is if it isn’t scary. Unfortunately, I don’t think we, as a class, spent enough time focusing on what our actual horror movie would be about. We saw how Halloween (1978) was made, and subconsciously tried to replicate the “low-budget” slasher film. We didn’t focus on what would actually scare audiences, and this led to people calling our film a “murder mystery” rather than a horror film. 

As for my contribution to the film, i struggled. I missed the majority of pre-production due to sickness, and therefore wasn’t able to create the impact I wanted on the film. In order to keep learning while I was sick, I wrote a couple blog posts about why people enjoy watching horror and how horror affects people’s ability to handle anxiety and stressful situations. What I learned from writing those blog posts helped me understand why people enjoy horror and what I could do personally to watch horror movies. Once I managed to come back to school, a lot of my time was spent working on the script and managing actors. My official role was line producer, but one of the big issues of this project was that communication was subpar so I had to find places to contribute to the film myself. My lack of attendance didn’t help me land the role I wanted, but next time I want to spend more time before the project thinking about what I want to achieve from the project. Looking back, I wish I had applied for a direction or production job. I know it is something I am capable of, it just seemed easier to take a smaller role. Regret is not the theme I want my final year of high school to have. Something that went very well was that everyone in the class was dedicated to making the movie, and seemed to be doing all they could to make sure this movie was made on time. 

Planning will always be the most important part of every project. Sports teams spend countless hours practicing for a match that lasts 60 minutes. Writers write numerous drafts before they decide to publish. Understanding and knowing what you want to do before you do it makes everything afterwards flow so much easier, especially in group projects like this one. Every project needs more planning and pre-production, but unfortunately we have a finite amount of time. Something that we can do as a class is make sure we use our planning time effectively enough so that when we start to film there isn’t any confusion. While filming, we kept coming up with new ideas for scenes. While it is good that we have creative minds, the constant change of plans was destructive to our schedule. That being said, I always love these movie projects. They bring out the best in everyone, and they are very fun to do. The final movie will be posted here soon.