What Aspects Of Your Chosen Horror Film Make It Horrific?

In the following essay I will focus on the horror genre as well as horror aspects from the film, "An American
Werewolf In London," (D. John Landis 1981). Whilst "An American Werewolf..." isn't one of the most horrific films made, and is at heart a black comedy, it still includes a lot of codes and conventions of the horror genre which makes it not only a horrific film, but one of the most memorable werewolf films in movie history. Using special effects and filled with bloody gore, "An American Werewolf" still looks as horrifyingly real as it did 27 years ago.

Opening on the eerie Yorkshire moors, "An American Werewolf" centers around two American backpackers who are attacked by a werewolf after leaving a small village in the middle of nowhere. Having been warned by mysterious locals not to leave the road or go onto the moors, the two ignore the warnings and pay for it when one of them is killed and the other bitten by the wolf. In these opening fifteen minutes, the follows many codes and conventions used throughout the horror/monster genre. The first convention is the gothic setting of the opening that is the yorkshire moors. Typically of the horror genre, the setting is shown to be damp, cold, dark and full of mist. Preying on the audience's fears of being alone in the middle of the wilderness the film displays the truly horrific nature of isolation. Like any typical horror film, the setting for the attack isn't a warm, inviting place but rather an eerie place full of mist, that blinds the two protagonists, so that they cannot find shelter or see if anything may be coming to attack them. This gothic setting is the most likely place to set a monster/werewolf story, being the setting for many monster films and texts, with one of the most memorable being Arthur Conan Doyle's
Hound of the Baskervilles. Being set on the moors of Dartmoor, the book has a lot in common with "An American Werewolf" with the most obvious being about attacks from dog-like creatures on the remote moors. What makes then opening particularly horrific for the audience is that the setting for countless tales of monsters and myths has now been captured in "An American Werewolf," which gives the audience something to relate to.

Probably the most horrific scene in the film is when the protagonist David Kessler, turns into a werewolf for the first time (00:56:00). It is here that the groundbreaking special effect for the time, are at their best. What is probably the most convincing as well as horrifying human to werewolf transformation in cinematic history is also the most famous scene in the film. Instead of using CGI like most modern horror films, the scene relies intirely on animatronics to display the changing of David's bone structure. The diegetic sound of David's bones breaking and reshaping as well as his screams for help are hauntingly scary as the audience see's the transformation limb by limb. Whilst in modern cinema, this transformation would have probably all been created on a computer, what makes this scene one of the most horrific in horror cinema is the high detail used to show each stage of the transformation, including the reshaping of David's bones and rapid hair and teeth growth. This added to the diegetic sounds of David's screams which then turn to howls, makes the transformation look horrifyingly real.

One of the more terrifying attack scenes takes place on the London underground (01:03:44). As David, now transformed into a werewolf, stalks a businessman who is alone on the underground, the only signs of the beast is the growling that at first frightens the man. The director decides against showing the werewolf to the audience in this scene, the only glimpse of the beast in the whole scene is towards the end as it corners the man on an escelator. Instead the director uses sound and camera movement to represent the werewolf, showing the audience some of the scene from the wolfs point of view, allowing the man to stare, horrified into the camera, as if staring into the eyes of the beast. As with a few great horror films, it isn't what the audience see's that is truly horrific, it is what they can't see. As they aren't shown the werewolf entirely in this scene, it means that the audience must use their imagination to see the beast. The audiences picture of the werewolf and the attack are more horrific than anything that could be shown in horror, which displays the true reason why this film is more horrific than most.

To conclude, whilst most modern horror films will rely heavily on CGI and lots of gore to create horror, what makes this film particularly horrific is not only the setting, which the audience can relate to, but also relying on the audiences imagination to "fill in the gaps," a far more horrifying way of capturing horror.