3. The Alone-At-Night Willies Childs Play
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT94bF1R16Y Tom Holland is a highly underrated horror director. He has a deep understanding of two of the essential elements that make a horror story work: connecting with the audiences fears and using cinematic tricks to toy with his viewers. Hollands understanding of those tools gives him the ability to construct sequences that grab the audience and, if Holland chooses, to launch said audience out of their seats. Few scenes display Hollands ability to play the audience like a piano (to quote Hitchcock) than this scene from Childs Play, which depicts Chuckys first murder in doll form. Hollands first stroke of genius, unfortunately not shown in the clip above, is to use the same trick that Wes Craven used in Scream 2 and to let the audience in on whats going on before he lets the characters in on it. Holland does this through shots from Chuckys point of view and over-the-shoulder shots showing us Chucky going about his business as the woman whos to be Chuckys first victim blithely goes about doing nothing. Holland goes on to utilize the suspense hes built through these techniques several times in the clip shown above, using loud noises and red herrings to get the audience to, if not scream, at least jump a little. The loudest noise of all, of course, comes at the moment of death itself, when Chucky puts a hammer between the womans eyes. The only reason these horror tricks work as well as they do, however, is because Holland has tapped into a basic fear, one that all of us have felt: being alone. Probably all of us have had what are called, in this scene, the alone-at-night-willies. Those are those times when youre alone in the house or apartment at night, everybody else is or out for the night, and you hear a noise. You tell yourself that its just the house settling. But what if it isnt? Then, you hear another noise, slightly louder than the one before. Your mind kicks into high gear, conjuring up fantasies about burglars climbing in from the fire escape or monsters opening the door of the closet. Suddenly, every shadow becomes a threat and every dark room becomes a pit that could be holding anything. Rarely are we tenser than at such moments. Holland understands this, and he uses silences and dark rooms to inject that sort of tension into this scene, making this moment that much better.
Alan Howell
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Alan Howell is a native of Southern California. He loves movies of any and all kinds, Hollywood, indie, and everywhere in between. He loves pizza, sitcoms, rock and pop music, surfing, baseball, reading, and girls (not necessarily in that order).
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