Scary Images

I posted a series of tweets about some recent insights in the inner workings of scary movies. Makes sense to collect them here as well (edited): 

Currently I’m studying the inner workings of scary movies for a portfolio project I’m working on. It’s interesting stuff. It got me wondering if a single image can be truly scary? 

An image can be romantic, suspenseful, dramatic or even funny, but scary? Sure, an image can be creepy, or gory or disgusting (no need to share your examples, thank you :)) but really scary? I’m not so sure…

In movies scares come from a combination of things: a slow build up of terror through long traveling shots, the breaking of visual rhythm, musical cues. At best a single image can be unsettling, disturbing. But without the careful build up of the movie around it, it doesn’t pack the same punch, I think. 

I think this is because, more than any other emotion, fear needs to be constructed in our mind: It is not what we see that is scary, it is scary how what we see makes us think and feel.