Scary Stories :: essays papers

Scary Stories Campfires surrounded by frightened people listening to blood curdling stories of terror, mystery, and murder is where screams were made. Before modern technology, before the flashy lights and whistles of Hollywood there were ghost stories. Some of the most original, chilling, and spine tingling tales ever, were told around these fires, generation after generation, with each one adding his or her own twist. Many spooky tales were scripted into novels and short stories with vividly graphic details. With advances in technology, black and white movies started thrilling lives. These colorless thrillers kept much of the movie going population up at night and checking the closets for mythical spooks. Early films such as â€Å"Frankenstein† would have little to no effect on current thrill lovers. Time changes and so does current technology. Movies in the black and white period made use of intense symphonic music to build suspense and excitement. Building up music and right at the climax a scarey boogie monster would jump out and make an audience shriek, is a common way of producing a scarey part of any movie. In â€Å"The Shining† by Stephen King, the great emphasis is on music as a tool to pump blood through spectators’ veins. â€Å"The Shining† tells a story about a man named Johnny, that looks after a haunted hotel during the winter months, while finishing his novel. With his wife and child he tended to the hotel, while a fierce blizzard blocked them in. As the week progresses, strange occurrences begin to happen and eventually the man becomes possessed by the hotel. In the most famous scene, the young boy is shown riding his big wheel through the halls of the hotel. He rolls across the wooden floors making a hollow wooden noise interrupted by the dul l sounds of rugs scattered across his path. This combination of sounds gives viewers an anticipation of something scary to come. Turning a corner the boy runs into two ghosts of brutally slaughtered little girls that haunt the place. The boy swings around and goes back across the rugs on the wooden floor, faster than before. At the very climax, the boy flies into a room with his father and out of harm’s way. Without the over emphasized sound, this scene would be a pointless and almost useless part of the movie. Twenty years later, humans still enjoy a good thrill, but now extreme visual effects are put into play to try to frighten viewer that have been dulled by the same old routine of music effects with zombies popping out of bushes.