What Makes Good Horror?

What indeed? It’s not that easy to define what constitutes ‘good horror,’ as horror is a personal experience. There are a few general fears which we all — or almost all of us — have in common (among them seem to be spiders). Then there are common ones like heights or being caught in a narrow, locked space, which both very much goes against our survival instinct. Others are more specific and often connected to our past, such as someone who has sustained a severe dog bite being afraid of dogs. Of course, a dog like Cujo from the Stephen King novel of the same name can scare us all. Danger breeds fear and fear can be turned into horror.

One way of invoking fear that almost always works out is to put the main character into a helpless situation. Sometimes, that includes them not knowing they’re in danger — while the audience does, of course —, or making use of the monster being much stronger than them and being able to overwhelm them physically. Having the character be alone — physically or simply because nobody else believes in the danger or nobody else can see it — is also a good way to manage that.
Helplessness makes the audience worry more for the character, but it shouldn’t go too far — if it seems too obvious that the character can’t survive, there won’t be a satisfying way to make them and it won’t be that much of a surprise or shock for the audience if they don’t (horror movies are supposed to have a high body count, after all, so deaths are expected).
The bus situation in the second “Jeepers Creepers” movie is a good example of helplessness. Not only is the bus of the sports team stuck in the middle of nowhere, the Creeper also goes for the adults first. The students, already in their late teens but not yet experienced adults, are left alone and can be depended upon not making optimal choices in this situation (honestly, many adults wouldn’t, either). The students are stuck alone on a lonely road and are hunted by something which looks scary and intimidating and has already proven its strength and resilience. They are, by all measures, helpless food, at least until the first victim’s family arrives.
Horror set in modern times can make it harder to have someone completely on their own, as smartphones and the internet make it easier to stay in touch even if you’re physically alone somewhere. Research is much easier and so is calling for help.
Of course, the villain could be able to block technology, making the smartphone useless, which could be much more of a horror to a modern-day protagonist than to someone born during the 1980s or earlier. There might be no reception in the area or the phone can have been taken or destroyed. Yet, the fact alone that a phone might go offline could make people come to the character’s aid because they worry about a missed call or can’t get a connection when calling the character.
On the other hand, suddenly being without phone and internet contact can be scary on its own, being cut off from everyone, not being able to easily look up information. For someone who isn’t used to the time before the internet, this can definitely be a heavy restriction and add to their helplessness. For everyone, being hunted by a monster and not being able to call for help is scary.

One big discussion in horror is whether or not to hide the monster. Should the audience ever see the monster before the big showdown in the end? Should it, perhaps, even be hidden from them at that point?
One reason why people keep the monster hidden is that uncertainty creates more tension. What if the monster is ten feet tall? The audience will gasp and then say ‘oh, I was worried it would be twenty feet, ten feet I can deal with.’
There’s always a moment of relief when the monster is finally revealed because we all tend to imagine something to be more horrible than it is in the end. What we can picture in our mind will be tailored exactly to fit with our own biggest fears. Whatever the writer or filmmaker can put up will never match that. It will never be precisely what we fear.
On the other hand, the audience wants to see what the main character is up against. No matter whether it’s Pennywise from “IT” or whether it’s your run-off-the-mill zombie, at some point the audience wants a visual, whether in actual pictures or in descriptions.
Show or don’t show? I would always say ‘show.’ Show early or late? That depends a little on how you work the whole story. If you want to establish the precise threat early, perhaps in a scene where the main character isn’t present, so the audience always knows what kind of danger awaits them and the main character doesn’t, show it early. It’s a good thing that King, for instance, shows us Pennywise and the danger he presents especially to children early on. The death of one main characters’ little brother also creates a personal connection between monster and main character.
If you want for the audience to be as much in the dark as the main character is, drop hints, but don’t show the monster until late. Have the audience read about the hissing breath as something disappears from the scene of murder. Have a victim talk about the ‘horrid face’ they saw right before they expire. In a visual medium, show a distorted shadow or a scaled limb in a quick shot. Then, towards the end, have the reptilian zombie monster jump out of the ground and latch on to the main character’s best friend — shock reveals are great reveals for monsters.

In every story, the odds should be stacked against the main character to a degree by the time the climax rolls around — that is where tension for the climax comes from. The main character must be invested in the situation and prepared to go all in.
Yet, in a horror story, the chances for the main character should be in an even worse state. It must be as likely, if not more so, that the main character will die and the evil will win as it might be that they’ll survive and be victorious. Many horror stories have an ambiguous ending. The main character dies, but takes the monster down with them. The main character kills the monster, but the body disappears (that’s the slasher way). The monster wins, but is mortally injured as well. The main character fails, but someone else takes up the mantle in the last scene, suggesting that the monster’s victory might have been short-lived. The main character gives in and joins the evil side, because why not?
The less likely it seems that the main character can win, the more the audience will be on the edge of their seat. Yet, there must be a chance. The situation can’t be completely hopeless. The main character must be able to make a difference, if perhaps at the price of their life.

What makes good horror? It’s not the body count alone, although horror stories often sport a high one. People tend to die when monsters and murderers roam the area. Yet, a few poignant, emotionally important murders can be much better than a long string of unknown deaths.
As mentioned above, it matters that Pennywise’s first victim in “IT” not only is a child, but also the younger brother of one of the protagonists. Pennywise has killed thousands, as becomes clear over the course of the story, but that is not what the protagonists are thinking about — it’s their friends and relatives who fall prey to Pennywise who motivate them. They are not righteous monster hunters, but people who have lost loved ones and are prepared to end Pennywise’s reign of horror because of that.

When you want to write horror, the first step should be to look into your own heart. Whatever you fear most, you’re not alone in that fear. It is much easier to write a horror story where the horror comes from a fear you really feel, so you can portray it well. In this case, ‘write what you know’ has merit. Being helpless and alone makes people more vulnerable, whether they are physically far from everywhere or just not taken seriously by others. Show your monster when it is time, as it is extremely hard to get away with never showing it. Ramp up the odds against the main character. Splatter a few bodies around, or a few more, but don’t think quantity is all in this case. Most of all, even if the topic is serious: have fun with the story, it will be much easier to write that way.