10 Tricks Horror Movies Use To Scare You

First of all, yes, that is a word and I won’t hear otherwise. It also happens to be the perfect word for describing why infamous villains like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees are so terrifying to so many people: because there is very little - if anything - that you can actually do to stop them for good.

The cynic in me says that the main factor in these classic antagonists' invincibility is that the studios want to keep making more movies - it’s a kind of capitalist plot armour - however when it plays out on the screen as an absolute beast of a bloke unrelentingly pursuing a screaming victim, it’s undeniably scary.

With these hulking, bullet-proof antagonists we’re led to suspect that they will hunt their targets forever. There’s no respite, no escape - just ask Laurie Strode. This kind of certainty that they will reappear adds to the sense of dread in any movie they appear in, in that we know without a doubt that at no point can we begin to feel safe.

They’re lurking in every shadow, every sound is another footstep, and when they inevitably reach you you’ll have no defence against them. That sounds terrifying, right? Often a horror movie will end with our protagonists defeating the bad guy, but we have to give some extra credit to those who just can’t be defeated; they give us the bleakest, most enduring endings of all.