Scary Stories Essay, Research Paper

Scary Stories

Campfires surrounded by frightened people listening to blood curdling stories of terror, mystery,

and murder is where screams were made. Before modern technology, before the flashy lights and

whistles of Hollywood there were ghost stories. Some of the most original, chilling, and spine tingling

tales ever, were told around these fires, generation after generation, with each one adding his or her

own twist. Many spooky tales were scripted into novels and short stories with vividly graphic details.

With advances in technology, black and white movies started thrilling lives. These colorless thrillers kept

much of the movie going population up at night and checking the closets for mythical spooks. Early films

such as ?Frankenstein? would have little to no effect on current thrill lovers.

Time changes and so does current technology. Movies in the black and white period made use

of intense symphonic music to build suspense and excitement. Building up music and right at the climax

a scarey boogie monster would jump out and make an audience shriek, is a common way of producing

a scarey part of any movie. In ?The Shining? by Stephen King, the great emphasis is on music as a tool

to pump blood through spectators? veins. ?The Shining? tells a story about a man named Johnny, that

looks after a haunted hotel during the winter months, while finishing his novel. With his wife and child he

tended to the hotel, while a fierce blizzard blocked them in. As the week progresses, strange

occurrences begin to happen and eventually the man becomes possessed by the hotel. In the most

famous scene, the young boy is shown riding his big wheel through the halls of the hotel. He rolls across

the wooden floors making a hollow wooden noise interrupted by the dull sounds of rugs scattered

across his path. This combination of sounds gives viewers an anticipation of something scary to come.

Turning a corner the boy runs into two ghosts of brutally slaughtered little girls that haunt the place. The

boy swings around and goes back across the rugs on the wooden floor, faster than before. At the very

climax, the boy flies into a room with his father and out of harm?s way. Without the over emphasized

sound, this scene would be a pointless and almost useless part of the movie.

Twenty years later, humans still enjoy a good thrill, but now extreme visual effects are put into

play to try to frighten viewer that have been dulled by the same old routine of music effects with

zombies popping out of bushes. Now days giant eyeballs hanging by ropes don?t catch people?s

attention as it did in early movie creations. Many thrillers are made with green screens and computers.

Creatures are no longer actors with rubber fish gills and diving flippers, but people?s imaginations

flowing as pixels on computer monitors. ?The House on Haunted Hill? is a story of seven strangers

invited to a party and promised a million dollars to survive a night in a haunted asylum. The host tries to

use the party as a ploy to kill his wife but his plan is bonked when the building comes alive. One

creature made of hundreds of lost souls was created on a computer and pasted into the film. This film

uses the same ideas as most earlier movies with the music played to intensify the plot. Yet, to grab the

attention of critics many costly visual effects were thrown in to spice up the weak story and give the

viewers some eye candy to chew on.

From pages upon pages of spooks and vivid details to ghost popping out from corners to

computer generated entities, the bumps in the night will continue to scare millions. Producers and

directors will continue add new and exciting twist to the ever changing stories that we enjoy. Just as,

what killed audiences years ago yet makes them laugh today one can only imagine what lies in the future

of chillers.