Today's Horror Films tend to go two ways on this. They either speed through it to get to the payoff, because after all, they did spend millions of dollars and hundreds of manhours making the special effects, who cares about all of that character development and suspense hokum?, or they over-exacerbate the suspense to the point where the payoff could never make up for the anguish you just had to endure getting there. I call the latter The De Palma Syndrome.
The most important factor to suspense and the subsequent fear that follows is character development. The audience has to actually care about the people in the movie. They have to feel something about them--good or bad. They also have to be able to connect with them. If the characters are completely unlikeable, where's the horror? You don't care if they live, and in all actuality, you want to see them die.
But Ashley is a 16-year-old teenager who never hurt a fly, and the big man with the butcher's knife is going to kill her... Who cares!?
When the audience cares about the characters and connects with them, they begin to put themselves in their shoes. They begin to think, what if that were me? What would I do in this situation? That's when you have them where you want them. That's when you can scare them. This has been the number one downfall of practically every Horror Film for at least the last fifteen years.
In case you were wondering, this is a Director.
Notice, he's not holding a turkey.The thing filmmakers need to realize, is they're magicians. They're making illusions, doing sleight of hand, and every other trick in the book. They have to treat their audience just like a master magician would. The audience is not stupid, you're going to have to work your rear off to pull the wool over their eyes, and don't forget--never let them see the wires.
No one would know who Houdini, Blackstone, or Copperfield were if they made even a fourth of the mistakes most filmmakers do, and filmmakers have the luxury of multiple takes and editing. As many people as there are who go over a film through its creation process, it's completely unforgivable to botch it up as bad as your average Horror Film.
There was no greater director in the history of film than Alfred Hitchcock, and his success was completely based off him always staying at least one step ahead of the audience and understanding the value of suspense. To quote Hitchcock, "There is no terror in a bang, only the anticipation of it."
It's not how they die, it's how bad the audience defecated themselves before they died. Today's Directors would do well to take this advice and realize suspense is greater than blood-splattering gore. It's also cheaper.
