by Aaron Pope.

Fright flicks have been around since the beginning of film. Many a great career has been born from these gory and ghoulish movies, and while low budgets are the lifeblood of the horror genre. Theatrically released terrorfests can often prove to be the David to the studio tentpole Goliath. Don’t believe me? Ask the producers of R.I.P.D. how it felt to be felled by the slung rock of The Conjuring. How about The Purge, Paranormal Activity or Saw? Small investments with huge box office returns.

But if you’re hoping to make audiences jump out of their seat with the scares and starts of your next horror script though, make sure you follow these simple rules:

1. It’s the villain, stupid!

Quick: name the villain in the Friday the 13th movies. Probably didn’t take you long to come up with Jason, the hockey-masked, knife-wielding psycho who slashes his way through teens at Camp Crystal Lake and beyond.

Now, just as quick: name the hero in any Friday the 13th film. Not as easy, is it? See, unlike most other genres, it’s the villain who is the star in horror. So that’s where you should focus your efforts when it comes to building an iconic and memorable role. That’s not to say that you should neglect your protagonist. In a great horror flick, the hero should be layered, detailed and interesting in their own right. But when you hit the Hollywood pavement, script in your hot little hands, ready to peddle it to any and all producers of screened scares, it’s the villain you’re going to want to lead with.

2. No terror in the bang

Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”  And who knew more about building suspense than Hitch?  

If you have your lead walking down a hall and the killer jumps out from behind her and attacks, yeah, it’ll startle your audience. And then they’ll be done with it. But if you have your lead walking down the hall and then show the shadow of the killer on the wall behind her, stalking her, matching her every movement, getting closer and closer and closer with each and every step, all while the heroine walks blissfully unaware to her destination… well, the audience will have a coronary worrying for her.  

If you really milk it, they might just yell at the screen and throw popcorn in hopes of getting your soon-to-be attacked, virginal protagonist to just freakin’ look behind her.

3. Flight, then fight

The first two acts of every great horror film show heroes and hero groups dealing with escalating attacks by trying to avoid them.  When it comes to the “flight or fight” reflex, it’s the flight that wins out in great horror movies.  

But in the third act, things tend to change. With fewer and fewer allies alive to help out and nowhere left to run or hide, the hero has to change their mindset. If they’re going to live, they can no longer flee. They must fight.

Turning the tables on the monster and taking the fight to them isn’t just a great story development, it often works well with character arc too. We all need to learn to face our fears and a protagonist who runs from the issues that plague them in life becomes a much more relevant and resonant part of a horror movie when their internal issues line up with their story. Once they learn to stand up and fight the actual, physical killer that’s been chasing them for so long, we, the audience, can believe that now she’ll be willing and able to face down her other fears in life as well.

4. Lock the doors and smash the cell phone

The hero and their friends (aka, the victims) really need to be isolated and trapped. Otherwise, the audience is never going to buy the idea that they don’t just leave and/or call the cops when the body count begins to rise. And if the audience doesn’t buy it, then they aren’t going to believe in the characters and their choices. And once that happens, the movie’s fallen apart.

But this has become increasingly difficult to pull off thanks to the fact that everyone on the planet now carries a cell phone. So whether it’s establishing that cell service is sketchy, or having the characters accidentally drop their prized iPhone in a puddle of blood and watch it fritz out, or a diabolical killer finding a way to jam cell phone frequencies, one way or another, you’re going to have to make it impossible for your leads to call for help.

The Conjuring

5. Let there be blood

A lot of screenwriters have tried to buck the system and write the blood-free horror film. Or at least, that’s what they call it. What they’ve really written is a thriller. For it to be horror, there need to be physical manifestations of pain and death. It doesn’t need to be a soaker, but audiences want — no, NEED! — to squirm in their seats at the thought of bleeding out or stepping through the spilt blood of their best friend.

Kubrick knew this. Sure, The Shining may be a psychological horror tale about insanity but at some point, the elevator doors are going to open up and a tsunami of blood is going to fill the hallways of the hotel.

Now here’s the beauty of knowing and adhering to these core horror rules: if you do so, you’ll actually be able to do something original and different! Yeah, sure, that sounds wrong, but it’s true. See, as long as the movie delivers on the above, the horror fanbase will be happy, producers hoping to take their money will be happy, and you, the writer, will have bought yourself the freedom to do practically anything else you want in the story beats in-between.

So play by the rules, fellow slasher-scribes, and we’ll see you in the final reel.