10 Horror Movie Scenes Shot In A Single Take
These feats of technology will make you appreciate these scenes even more.
In filmmaking, a "long take" is an extended shot with no edits, either filmed on a static camera or in one long movement.
They're usually a nightmare to get right, as a single mistake from an actor or blown technical cue can ruin several minutes worth of work, which is why you don't see them very often. Some filmmakers though, well, they can't help but make life hard for themselves.
There have been several famous examples of long takes in mainstream cinema, such as the corridor fight sequence in Oldboy or the immaculate Copa shot from Goodfellas. Sometimes, entire movies are filmed in a single take, or made to look that way, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope or Sam Mendes' 1917.
Not one to be left behind, the horror genre has also provided some stellar examples of this technique.
The thing about long takes is that they make an audience feel more immersed in the story, as their minds aren't distracted by all the camera cuts and edit trickery you get with normal films. This is a valuable asset for a horror to have as, the stronger the immersion, the bigger the scare.
10. Michael’s Spree Begins - Halloween (2018)
Trying to work out the chronology of the Halloween film series requires exceptional patience and at least two degrees.
To simplify things, the 2018 Halloween movie serves as a sequel to the 1978 original while ignoring pretty much everything else in the franchise.
Michael Myers finally escapes from a psychiatric prison 40 years after his first October killing spree and is out for revenge. He returns to the town of Haddonfield on the hunt for new victims, finding plenty among the Halloween revellers.
As Myers begins his rampage, the camera stays with him, following him silently stalking innocent strangers before bringing their lives to a gristly end.
Not only is this a highly effective way of maintaining audience immersion, as the murders essentially play out in real-time, but this technique also harks back to the opening POV from John Carpenter's 1978 classic, the first time the world saw what The Shape was capable of.
The 2018 sequence could have been even longer, were there not a weird cut between Myers picking up a hammer and then walking towards a house.