The next logical step along the spectrum brings us to those films that that still depend largely on a keen sense of suspense, but that do also place slightly more noticeable emphasis on the obviously visible. The 2012 plague-disaster film The Bay carried the promotional tagline – ‘Panic Feeds On Fear’; in all honesty there probably aren’t that many people for whom panic is kicked off by the sight of kittens or rainbows, but slightly lazy taglines aside there is a good point here; in order to get really frightened, it helps to already be frightened.
The Shining is a superb example of the art of combining tension and action, the total lack of soundtrack during some of the earlier visuals maintaining the strain through even these moments where it is all too obvious what is happening. In Sinister, the increasingly frequent appearances of the demonic face and the final, bloody, post-axing ‘house-painting’ are necessary conclusions of the film’s overall premise. Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell was a slightly less extreme offering than his infamous Evil Dead, but the psychological tension still sits very efficiently alongside some well-timed slime and bugs – and a nose bleed that could give a Nerfgun a run for its money. Given its apocalyptic theme, World War Z must naturally rely on disaster-movie type visuals, but this is offset against long periods of intense quiet – which interestingly the story itself brings most noticeably to the film’s finale.
Even just a single moment can transform a film from creepy and unnerving to all-out terrifying. Despite it having already been mentioned in the ‘minimal-visuals’ section, The Ring is of course also well-known for ending with the horrifying revelation that the girl can actually get out through the television set. Although the moment is not gory in any classical sense, coming at the end of over an hour and a half of continual anxiety, the sight of the glass screen failing to stand between Samara and her victim qualifies it as unbearably disturbing.
Another standout example of ‘from unsettling to petrifying in sixty seconds’ comes from Guillermo del Toro’s thriller-fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth. It is precisely because Pan’s Labyrinth does not officially belong to the horror genre that this film allows us to see the effectiveness of sudden isolated moments of sheer awfulness. If there is one thing in this film of which del Toro makes sure that we are truly afraid, it is whatever is awaiting Ofelia at that banquet table. We are not disappointed, either, as our attention is mercilessly dragged to the creature’s drooping skin, bloody fingernails and vile hand-eyes, all of which make the fact that it eats children seem like a pretty attractive feature. Long-time master of the imaginary bizarre, del Toro succeeds admirably here in getting the viewer to join Ofelia’s desperation to avoid attracting the thing’s attention, which makes it all the more terrifying when we realize that when being told to under all circumstances leave the food completely alone, Ofelia clearly heard instead ‘just stick to a starter’.
