GMG36: Guillermo Del Toro’s Guide To Making A Bloodcurdling Horror Film

Guillermo del Toro may be the closest thing our generation has to an Alfred Hitchcock. Like that master’s canon (about which Del Toro has literally written a book), Del Toro’s films are eerie, suspenseful, chilling, otherworldly and terrifying—but also funny, intelligent, inspired, female-character empowered, surprising and fantastical. The Mexican maestro has written and directed films like Pan’s Labyrinth, the Hellboy franchise, Mimic and Cronos, written others (including the forthcoming Hobbit films), owns a film production company and even entered the business as a special effects make-up designer. His latest project as a writer and producer is Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, an instant classic of the haunted-house and killer-creature genre starring Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison.

FROM GUILLERMO DEL TORO:

I’ve literally spent decades of my life reading, watching, writing and shooting only horror. I live in a house that is organized in seven libraries; it has thousands of books and about a third of them are horror. I’ve watched every horror movie made at least until the 1990s. I try to systematize: When I watch a movie, I watch it once for enjoyment and then if I like it, I watch it two or three times to study.

On my personal list, the scariest movies of all-time are—in no particular order—The Haunting, The Innocents, The Shining, Alien, Jaws, the original Japanese version of The Ring, The Uninvited and Night of the Living Dead. There must be more, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. They’re all absolutely classics. The moment in The Ring when the ghost crosses the TV screen and enters that living room… I was on an airplane watching that movie and I almost opened the fucking door and jumped out.

I don’t do that many scary movies; I do strange movies. There are moments in the movies, like the bottle scene in Pan’s Labyrinth, that have affected a lot of people, which is great. But I haven’t done that many horror movies. I’m very happy with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark because what I wanted was to go contrary. Most of the time in horror movies, the female characters are just silly, screaming characters. I have devoted many of my efforts into creating female characters that are more interesting than the male characters.

I feel very strongly about presenting Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark—I only present movies that I fully support and really have enough influence or enough support to guarantee that credit. Don’t Be Afraid is something I wrote for myself years ago and I produced very closely. It’s always a director’s medium, so I would not call it “my movie” in that sense. But it certainly is a movie I am a big part of and I’m very proud of it.

Here are my secrets to making a terrifying horror film.

Widely Utilize the Things You Cannot See

By this, I mean you can have the presence of a creature by the sound it makes; or you can create the sense of oppression by an atmospheric soundscape that is really incredibly eerie—and not show anything. 

When You Have Something You Think is Worth Showing, By All Means Show It

I think it’s that constant push-and-pull battle between what you see and what you don’t. If it’s a scary movie, you try to reveal the creatures early by hinting and teasing, then finally the big reveal. You don’t do it all at once. In Don’t Be Afraid, we see them—we see their shadows stirring, we see their eyes glowing in the dark and then comes the famous under-the-sheets moment. As a kid, I always found the sheets to be almost like a refuge; it was the most intimate place in the house. I think that’s a great reveal for the creature; we do it gradually and then we pay it off.

Design a Good Creature

The secret in designing a good creature is that you can have it look almost different every time. When we show these creatures from a distance, they move very rapidly—almost like rodents. When they are close, we try to have some visual interest in the first shot and a very different type of interest in the close-up. You design them in a way that people don’t get tired of looking at them. If you are wise about that, you can show the creatures pretty openly. I think there are many, many creatures yet to be designed and there are many that we can still discover. 

Cast the Right Actors

It was very hard to find the exact balance of somebody who is a child actor but is not spoiled by having done 50 yogurt commercials and 50 cereal commercials. Bailee is one of the best actors I’ve ever had the chance to work with, no matter the age range. So I absolutely can say it’s about finding the right actor.

Make Your Central Character Know Less Than the Audience 

If your central character knows less than the audience, who are looking at the movie from a certain vantage point, it builds in anticipation and they fear for the character. If, on the contrary, you have your character know more than the audience, it’s extremely boring. That’s a rule that was initiated by Alfred Hitchcock. There are two reveals: to the character and to the audience. In order to generate suspense, Hitchcock sustained the idea that you reveal to the audience first. He said the difference between short suspense and shock is with suspense the audience knows more than the character; with shock, both the audience and the character find out the big reveal at the same time.

If It Freaks You Out, It Will Freak Out the Audience

If you’re not scared writing the scene, the audience will not be scared watching it. At some point, when we were starting the Don’t Be Afraid shoot, we removed the prologue—with the chisel—and it’s one of those few times where I truly became sort of a tyrant. I went back and I said, “We are shooting that prologue. You are not abandoning it because it’s the best way to start this movie.” When I was writing that prologue with Matthew Robbins, we were so unnerved and so freaked out that I knew it would work like magic with an audience.

Have One “Walk-out” Moment

Which means: Those who are not going to take it will leave the theater. They go, “Oh, screw this.” It can be whatever; it can be a logical leap that you’re taking, a very brutal scene or a very disturbing scene. I try to do at least one in every movie. Arguably, people who don’t like my movies would say the whole movie is a walk-out moment.

Fear Occurs Only in Context

Meaning, for example, there is no such thing as something that is scary by itself. It only becomes scary via the context it’s presented in. For example, you open the door of your house, walk into the living room and your father is watching TV. That is not a scary scene at all; except if, in the context of the movie, your father died three years ago. Then you can do that exact scene as bland as you want and it’s absolutely terrifying. 

Horror Works When the Things That Shouldn’t Be Are and the Things That Should Be Aren’t

In other words, horror is incredibly scary when you are in the safety of your own house, in the safety of your own bed under the covers and something that shouldn’t be there is there. Or the opposite, when you’re walking towards the door of your home, you open the door and guess what? The street is not there, you’re now floating in limbo; or you open the front door of your house and the kitchen is there. The things that shouldn’t be are or the things that should be are not there. 

Do Not Play It Safe

I think that no matter what, horror—like comedy—is a very intimate mechanism. What makes you laugh doesn’t make me laugh. What you find scary, I find ridiculous. What you find entertaining, I find repulsive—and you can keep going. So, with horror, the one thing you most definitely cannot do is play it safe. You are dealing with very intimate mechanisms; you don’t want to be bland. You want to push some buttons. I certainly try to; I think that’s my methodology. I don’t know if I always succeed, but I always try.     F