HOW TO WRITE COSMIC HORROR MOVIE

TheyвЂ™re still thrilling, but often the fear is more intellectual and gradual. For me, there is a disconnect between these forms and the fear they illicit. Same goes for theatre, music, poetry, graphic novels, photography and many other worthy art forms. I am often disturbed, unnerved, disgusted, anxious, and filled with nihilistic existential thoughts, but IвЂ™m rarely peeking into the corner of a dark room and wondering if the antagonist of the story is lurking in the shadows. However, I cannot say in good conscience that I have ever been scared by what IвЂ™m reading. IвЂ™ve read every story Lovecraft ever wrote (and believe me, theyвЂ™re not all good). IвЂ™ve read a lot of King, Poe, Ligotti, Stoker, Jackson, and M.R. You only get so many, and each has got to be memorable, unnerving, spellbinding, but not necessarily scary. If youвЂ™re going to write a horror screenplay then you have to nail every scare in your story. Of course, you need to tell a good story complete with rich themes, interesting characters, and riveting dialogue, but scares are what set horror apart from the pack. Scaring the audience is a fundamental obligation of horror films. ThatвЂ™s a distinction that IвЂ™ve exploited countless times in my own screenplays, one of which went on to win the horror award at Austin Film Festival. The cinema screen was a haunted house that I had to grit my teeth through and come out the other side with windswept hair, wide eyes, and a racing heart. Horror, I realized, was not about the fear itself, but the thrill of being scared.

I didnвЂ™t understand why anyone would willingly want to be scared.

HOW TO WRITE COSMIC HORROR MOVIE

I would make every excuse in the book to avoid seeing whatever horror movie was terrifying millions of movie-goers every weekend.

How to write cosmic horror