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The How and Why of Scary Movies
July 15, 2004 -- Since the earliest days of cinema, audiences have loved nothing more than a good scare. But with so many real fears in the world, why do so many people want more things to be afraid of, even if they're make-believe? And how do good directors manage to conjure this emotion so well?
To answer these questions, ABC News' Jay Schadler spoke to M. Night Shyamalan, director of The Sixth Sense and Signs, and Sigourney Weaver, who starred in 1979's sci-fi shocker Alien, one of the most frightening movies of all time.
Shyamalan makes movies that don't just go bump in the night — they haunt you after you leave the theatre.
"Most movies go for the pops — the big explosions," he said. "The movies that last for us are the ones that kind of do it the other way, kind of take the floor away from us and change expectations and make you uncomfortable and challenge us."
Part of Being Human
Scary movies allow the audience to think about other fears than their own, said Weaver, who stars in Shyamalan's latest film The Village, a supernatural thriller set in 19th century Pennsylvania.
"When we see someone keep it together in a situation of great stress and terror, it sort of, I think, excites us and makes us feel a little more capable. But it's also a great ride," Weaver said.
Scientists say fear plays an essential role in human survival by alerting us to danger.
During a creepy movie scene, a primitive part of our brain dedicated to fear called the amygdala wages a tug of war with our higher intellect — it allows thrill-seeking with a safety net.
Understanding fear is one thing. Generating it is another. Weaver said one of the things that made the creature in Alien so scary was its intelligence.
"I've always felt that the more intelligent you make the monster — the more knowing, the more perceptive — I suppose in a way the more human-like, the more frightening it is," she said.
You can also scare the actors. Weaver recounts that when she did the last scene in Alien, her character thought she had finally escaped in a shuttle.
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