John Landis's tips on crafting the perfect scary movie
Tom Huddleston meets the director of 'An American Werewolf in London'
With ‘An American Werewolf in London’, John Landis became the first modern director successfully to blend broad comedy with real, graphic horror. The key scene – in which a pair of unwitting American hikers are stalked and mauled by a savage beast – ranks at number five in Time Out’s list of 50 Terrifying Movie Moments. With Landis in town to promote his terrific new book ‘Monsters in the Movies’, it seemed the perfect opportunity to pick up a few tips on crafting the perfect scary movie…
1. Scary movies and horror movies are two very different things
Peeping Tom
‘Boris Karloff famously objected to the term “horror film”, and I agree with him. To horrify someone is easy, just show them something horrific. “Look, a dead puppy.” But to generate suspense is more difficult, because you have to have an emotional investment in the characters. Think of “Psycho”, or “Les Diaboliques”, or “Peeping Tom” (pictured), there’s real jeopardy there. Whereas movies like “Friday 13th” or the “Nightmare on Elm St” sequels, they’re just a bunch of boring teenagers getting cleverly disembowelled. Or “Final Destination”, where they’ve eliminated plot altogether. What’s the story? They’re gonna die. Why? Fate. Who’s the bad guy? Death. I almost enjoy how blatantly exploitative they are.’
2. Embrace the unknown
‘People as a species have always had difficulty accepting that there are things they don’t know. From the most primitive cave painting to the most sophisticated computer graphics, it’s all the same. There’s a wonderful image in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, of the apes huddled in their cave, terrified of what’s out there in the dark. We’re not afraid of the dark, were afraid of what could be there in the dark. No one knows what happens after you die, or what happened before you lived. So we make it up. People invent zombies and ghosts and vampires and religion. But we’re all just hairless monkeys running around scared shitless.’
3. Keep it real
David Naughton, star of John Landis's sparkling 1981 horror-comedy, 'An American Werewolf in London'
‘I saw “American Werewolf” recently for the first time in over a decade, and I was taken aback at how violent it is. The violence is very realistic, and people then weren’t used to realistic violence, so it was very shocking and radical. In so many of these pictures, people behave stupidly. They open the scary door. But in “American Werewolf” they don’t. You can relate to those guys. They’re smart, worldly guys. It’s an absurd premise, but I tried to make it feel real as real as possible.’
4. Never let your audience relax
‘In “Psycho”, there’s this extraordinary thing Hitchcock does. For the first part of the movie, we’re with Janet Leigh, our emotional investment is with her. And then she’s butchered, we think by Norman’s mother, which is of course shocking. But then Norman puts the body in the trunk of the car, and drives it into the swamp. And there’s this little moment that is so delicious. The car stops. And the whole audience draws breath. All of a sudden, their emotional investment is with this guy who’s covering up this heinous crime, hiding the body of our former heroine. Hitchcock takes the audience’s emotions and just flips them. And then it’s Norman’s story. Absolutely brilliant, outrageous, and shocking.’
5. Don’t be afraid to make ‘em laugh
‘Comedy and horror are very similar. It’s an involuntary physical reaction, a spasm, whether it’s a scream or a laugh. But even though neither one gets critical respect, they are by far the most difficult genres, because they’re completely unforgiving. Either it’s funny or it’s not. Either it’s scary or it’s not. It’s that simple. And one can definitely enhance the other.’
6. Keep your finger on the pulse
‘The world is a scary place, and movies always reflect that. For example, zombies are the monsters of the twenty-first century. They’re us. They’re dressed like us, they look like us. And the metaphor is anarchy, the collapse of society. If you look around the world, at the riots you just had in London, or at the Arab spring, the world is such a precarious place. Zombies are the perfect metaphor. To be completely honest, monsters don’t scare me, they’re not real. People scare the shit out of me. Because people are fucked up. They are the monsters.’
John Landis's book, "Monsters in the Movies', is available now
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