All things grow and restrain each other. If there are ghosts in this world, there must be gods.
In 2020, North New York.
The supermarket doors are wide open and there are no cash registers. The streets are lonely and deserted, and there are no pedestrians. Looking around, sorrowful clouds cover the sky, falling leaves and sand, a scene of depression.
A family of five came barefoot and communicated with each other by sign language. After they went to the supermarket to get food, they walked on the fine sand on the ground .
This is the beginning of [A Quiet Place] .
There are no lines, no sound, the protagonist’s family is cautious everywhere, not wearing shoes, not entering the cornfield, turning on the silence when watching TV, and replacing toys with knitwear.
Because of the large-scale invasion of unknown creatures, the name is "Black Angel". It looks like a human, has many tentacles, has no eyes, and has extremely sensitive hearing.
They come along with sound, even with a sneeze and a sigh. Afterwards, with a wave of the tentacle, his body was broken to pieces, the armor was not left, only hemorrhage was sprayed, and the fruit never left room.
"Don't speak out, live" is the only truth.
Because of this setting, even a slight noise in the whole film will make the audience nervous and dare not care.
From here on, the article will involve spoilers and a few horror pictures, please read carefully.
[Quiet Place] There is a scene where five people are walking on their way home.
The youngest son followed at the end, playing with his heart, quietly took out the toy rocket from his schoolbag, and turned on the switch.
The music came, and it was very harsh in the dead town. Upon hearing the sound, the monster rushed forward, preempting his father, and tore his little son alive.
This is the first surprise shot in the film.
Yijingyizha (Jump Scare) , horror films and video games are a common means, refers to the sudden change in the use of role or events to scare the audience, usually accompanied by terrible sound. Known as "one of the most basic components of horror films."
In 1996, Japan released the stand-alone game "Resident Evil" .
The scene has a sense of closure. The player never knows what is hidden behind the door. The most terrible thing is that when passing through the corridor, the background music weakens and the zombie dog suddenly breaks into the window.
What followed was a sudden increase in the volume of background sound, reaching its peak.
This is the first game in history to use "A Surprise".
According to reports, countless players were frightened to throw away the handles due to the sudden appearance of zombie dogs . For this reason, the game party once jokingly said that it would be sold in conjunction with adult diapers.
In 2004, Germany released an energy drink called K-Fee, which is equivalent to my country's Red Bull.
It launched a series of advertisements, such as a couple holding hands at the beach, the atmosphere is gentle and the setting sun is just a good time for kissing, zombies suddenly appear, and the camera is facing the audience.
After that, the screen went black, and a line of white characters appeared: Have you ever been so wide awake? To hint at the function of the drink.
Before the 1980s, this technique was not common in movies. Looking through countless horror films like me, I can only find a few of them.
For example, in [The Legend of the Ancient House] in 1973, the scene where the black cat suddenly jumped out and scratched the heroine’s neck was a standard "surprise and surprise" style.
There is also [Friday the 13th] in 1980 .
The six people went to the Crystal Lake to renovate the camp. They were very active, and from time to time they made some pranks to adjust their lives.
When the camera turned over, the audience screamed again and again.
Two years later, Spielberg could not sit still.
He almost deceived him and dragged the director of [Texas Chainsaw Massacre], so that people were dumbfounded, and filmed [Noisy Haunt] with him .
In one of the scenes, a clown doll suddenly appeared behind the boy. In any case, he would pick the set in [Friday the 13th].
This has almost become the only designated routine for "surprise surprise." Even Wen Ziren is inevitably "vulgar" and used it twice.
In [Latent] in 2010, the woman was chatting with the male protagonist, her voice was calm, and suddenly she screamed in the direction behind the male protagonist.
In [Calling the Souls] in 2013, the exorcist couldn't find the witch all over the place, and suddenly turned around, but saw the white-faced witch standing behind and looking at herself.
It can be seen that the word "surprise and surprise" has to rely on "calm" to pave the way for it to show its value.
It usually appears during a time period when the movie is peaceful and quiet, and the audience does not expect any amazing content to happen, or appears in return for a long-term suspense.
In fact, it makes use of the unconscious defensive response of human beings, which is also called " scare response ."
In 2013, a person named Ralph Adolphs published a biological review on fear. He believed that the surprise brought by horror films was a typical visual and auditory "remote impact".
After the eyes and ears receive this kind of shock, they will reach the amygdala through the processing of the visual center, auditory center and thalamus of the cerebral cortex, and produce a continuous high nerve potential, which will lead to tremor, anxiety and stagnation of movement.
It is also commonly known as "fear".
However, some old film critics feel that over-reliance on "surprise surprise" to scare the audience is a lazy thing , and it is also a cliché of modern horror films.
Fortunately, in 1998, a man named Hideo Nakata took a picture of [Midnight Sword] .
For horror movies, the sound design is particularly important.
Therefore, Nakata deliberately weakened the human voice and natural sounds, and only amplified the sound of the telephone ringing , which was unusually abrupt and harsh, and deepened the auditory sensitivity of the audience.
There were no explosions, roars, babies crying, or women screaming, just the phone rang, back and forth, and the audience felt a sense of spontaneous fear.
This point is the same as [Silent Place] .
There is a scene in the film where the two brothers and sisters play Monopoly. After the younger brother rolled the dice, when he retracted his arm, he accidentally knocked down the oil lamp.
With a sound of "wow," the whole family was like a frightened bird, holding their breath to prevent the monster from coming.
After three seconds, there was nothing. Just shrugging their shoulders and letting out a sigh of relief, two voles actually jumped out . For fear of attracting monsters, the family tried their best to endure the exclamation.
It is not to scare the audience, but to make the sound sensitive, and make the audience nervous through small noises, as if for fear of breaking something.
Such a surprise is tantamount to listening to thunder in silence.
Many "time bombs" were buried in [Quiet Place] .
For example, at the beginning, the father pulled the battery out of fear that his little son would make a sound while playing rockets and put it on the counter. Later, the youngest son took it back by stealth.
You know, sooner or later , he will make a sound of the Rockets and cause death, but I don't know when.
For another example, the siblings fell into the corn warehouse, and there was a creaking door above them.
You know this door will fall, and you might be able to kill the siblings, but you don't know when it will fall. Even if it doesn't, the squeak will attract the monster, but I don't know when it will come.
There are also nails that have been criticized by the audience.
In the film, this long slender nail protrudes from the stair slab leading to the basement, smooth . At this time, the monster struck, and the heroine took refuge underground with her pregnant belly.
You know too well the consequences of going on like this, but the heroine doesn't know.
Sure enough, she stepped on her foot and was pierced by the nail on the bottom of her foot. Instinctively, she opened her mouth wide, almost screaming out.
This is not the most difficult response.
After that, there are also the male protagonist, son and daughter stepping on this staircase, each time, the audience will unconsciously cover their mouths.
You know that someone will get the foot, and you know that no one will ever pull this nail out.
But the biggest bomb of [Quiet Place] is not these, but the due date of the heroine .
She was pregnant and saw her belly bulging and getting bigger. How to give birth smoothly without attracting monsters is the climax of the whole film.
Fortunately, there were fireworks crackling and exploding in the air, overwhelming the cry of the hostess during childbirth.
But don't think that the time bomb is all over here. Don't forget, there is another baby who will cry out when he is not sure when he is just born.
This is Hitchcock's " time bomb theory ."
Tell the audience that there is a bomb under the chair. Three unsuspecting people sat on chairs and chatted. They talked for three minutes and planned to leave. One of them said no, and talked for a while. A minute later, the three of them were ready to leave again, and another suggested a drink.
In 1936, Hitchcock filmed [Conspiracy Destruction] , saying that someone took a time bomb and got on the bus.
The audience certainly knows that the bomb will explode. Although they don't know when, they have already begun to worry about the people in the film unconsciously.
So, Hitchcock said--
Loud noise itself does not cause any fear, but the expectation of loud noise makes people scared.
[Alien] is the slippery one in this regard.
In the closed space capsule, alien creatures are fascinating, playing hide-and-seek under the eyelids of human beings. Except for the audience, no one knows where this creature is hiding.
This is so, and I can only watch it approach the people in the play, waiting for a bloody incident amidst tension and anxiety.
Of course Wen Ziren will not lag behind.
In [Latent 2] , the back of a woman in white appeared one after another, and the audience knew that sooner or later she would make a big move.
Sure enough, one day, the little daughter was crying, and the mother followed the voice to the living room. Just about to turn around, the woman in white suddenly jumped out and slapped her face with a big mouth.
It is said that at the time of this scene, the theater seemed to be blown up, wailing and moaning for several minutes, it couldn't calm down.
[Jurassic Park] also has it.
The siblings didn't hide where they were, so they went to the kitchen to avoid the dinosaurs.
There are crisp kitchen utensils everywhere, and the audience feels like a mirror in their hearts. They know very well what will happen if they bump into pots and pans.
Hitchcock said this:
We are sitting here talking, we didn't even know that there was a bomb in your tape recorder, and everyone didn't know. Suddenly the bomb exploded and we were blown to pieces, which is surprising, isn't it? But how long can this surprise last? No more than five seconds. But what if you let the audience know that there is a bomb in the room and it will explode in five minutes?
This will not be a five-second surprise, but a five-minute suspense. You can keep the audience's spirits highly nervous without even having to explode.
Just do one thing: reveal in advance to the audience some information that the character doesn't know.
Watching [Silent Place], some viewers said, "No one dares to eat popcorn or talk. They are all with the characters in the film, and they dare not show up."
why?
In 1920, psychologist Rosalie Rayner conducted an experiment on a nine-month-old baby.
He put all white rats, rabbits, dogs, and plush toys in front of the baby, and the test found that the baby did not have any fear of these things.
After that, the psychologist put the baby and the white mouse together. Every time it touched the white rat, he hit the hammer behind, making a harsh sound.
Repeat this ten times, to see the baby mice, actually give birth to an unprecedented fear - this is the " interaction effect (Inductive coupling)."
Such as [Silent Place] , once the character makes a sound, a monster will pounce on it and bite.
After going back and forth, the audience psychologically accepted the setting of "Whoever makes a sound, he will die." Naturally, they dare not come out , and they are afraid to hear the sound of the neighbors eating popcorn.
Lou Ye's [Tuina] is a bit like this, which is to let the audience have a blind experience through the virtual point of the photography, which is closer to the perspective and emotion of the character.
Tom Tykway's [perfume] is also inseparable, making the audience seem to be able to smell the smell, which is an olfactory interaction.
In other words, the so-called interactive effect is to let the audience participate in it and produce conditioned reflex.
But none of the above is the earliest.
In 1959, William Casso filmed [Meng Haunted House] . In order to match the plot, he actually hung a 3-meter fluorescent skeleton on the ceiling of the theater, dangling about it.
In the same year, he took another shot [horrified] .
There is a scene in which a bug climbs onto the character's thigh. To complement this plot, he used the electric buzzer on the theater seats to sweep the audience's legs .
It is the embryonic form of 4D movies at all.
The audience screamed naturally, and immediately resonated with the characters in the film.
[Quiet Place] The same is true.
At the beginning of the show, I gave the audience a "disarming power", proving that even a cough will make you dead.
At the same time, the human voices and natural sounds in the film are amplified, like the telephone ring in [Midnight Ring], which makes the audience feel nervous and almost unconsciously substitutes themselves into the film.
In a trance, there is an illusion that he is avoiding monsters with the character. I accidentally made a noise, and my heart trembled, and I subconsciously covered my mouth.
If someone feels scared after watching it, you can take a sip of tea and say unhurriedly, well, this is due to the interactive effect, the time bomb theory, and the surprise technique.
But don't worry, everything grows and restrains each other. If there are ghosts in this world, there must be gods.
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Author/six aunts
The article was first published on the WeChat public account "Pocier"
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