The Potential of Horror Movies (ft. Goat Shenanigans)

I’m back from my family’s last-summer-hurrah camping trip last week, and I am so happy WordPress decided to work! Not gonna lie, I came home and opened my computer half-expecting something to have exploded and/or the blog posts to have not posted themselves. 

Anyways, this recent camping trip has made me look back on some adventures that happened over the summer. Around the same time, my brother and I had a contest while we were camping to see who could look the creepiest on the creepy backup camera in our car. After we got back home, we each set up jump scares for each other. You know, normal sibling things.

So now my mind was directed towards summertime and horror movies. You would think that these two things don’t combine very often, sunshine and happiness with dark nights and creepy ghosts, but I am a master of strange concoctions. 

Goat Mutinies 

In late July-ish, my family visited our cousins for a weekend. My cousins live out on a little farm with goats, pigs, chickens, and toddlers. They also have a little cabin that was on their property before they built a normal house, so that is where some of the older cousins live. We decided to watch a horror movie in that cabin. 

While we were figuring out how to finagle Netflix and sleeping bags, I peeked out of my window and watched as a goat ran down the dirt road, dragging a little red plastic wagon with it. We paused the horror movie shenanigans and went outside to wrangle up the goats. Then we discovered that the pigs had escaped too, so we went into full on cowboy mode and tried to round up the pigs. 

The goats ended up running towards us like an army from Narnia. They stopped a few feet from us, and we had a true Old Wild West staredown. Then, they turned and ran away. 

After the standoff with the mutinying goats, we all piled back into the cabin and began The Conjuring. *menacing music* The creepy goats definitely added to the general offputting tone of the day. 

The Movie 

You’ve heard me say before that I want to find a horror movie that combines the thrill of being scared with compelling characters and themes that make you think… Well, I might have found one. 

 The Conjuring was very, very scary. I found myself laughing hysterically whenever a jump scare came, but that’s a story for another time. We watched it and then promptly went to bed, and I just… didn’t think about it. I was a bit preoccupied with rafting adventures and sprained ankles. 

So now, a few months later, I’ve finally been thinking about how The Conjuring came close to the horror-movie-meets-writing-craft hopes. It had compelling characters that had desires and fears, and a plot that was pretty engaging. 

From there, I started thinking about how a horror movie could implement these aspects of a good story, while still being scary enough for popcorn to fly around. 

Combining Purposes and Genres 

A textbook’s main purpose for its audience is to educate the reader. A comedy is usually made to entertain and make the reader laugh. All types of books and genres have different purposes. A horror movie’s main purpose is to scare those who are watching. 

But I think we need to go beyond those basic purposes. Some of my favorite books and movies combine these basic genres with compelling characters and thoughtful themes. For example, the book A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a true crime/mystery/possibly a thriller. The main purpose of the mystery genre is to solve mysteries. But AGGGTM adds in compelling characters who learn and grow as the series progresses, and the books dive into themes about the justice system and morals. 

AGGGTM offers a page-turning mystery and characters that learn and grow, but makes you think about some tough themes all at the same time. It’s the best of both worlds. 

This is something that I hardly ever see in horror movies, and yet the potential is there. So as I was thinking back to The Conjuring and the adventures surrounding that, I realized that there is a lot of potential for a scary, but also gripping story. 

Characters 

I feel like The Conjuring’s characters were the most compelling out of all of the horror movies I’ve seen. Ed and Lorraine have a bit of backstory, along with the family that they help. 

Let’s try to do some brainstorming here. We could have horror movies characters who maybe deny that they are being haunted? Or maybe there could be a character who is very paranoid about being haunted and there’s a twist at the end where the hauntings are simply in her head? 

Or, we could take inspiration from The Sixth Sense and have a person being haunted by loved ones and then he goes on to figure out who killed their loved one, or something along those lines?

I would also LOVE to see a character who follows human instincts and uses some common sense to not search for creepy things at night. 

What I’m trying to say here is that there is a lot of potential for compelling horror movie characters. You could have a horror movie about mutinying goats. It could be both scary AND funny. 

In order to make creepy and suspenseful scenes, we need to have some sort of connection to the characters. We need to care about them, even just a little bit, to make the creepiness work. 

So, long story short: let’s make a horror movie about mutinying goats with characters who we care about! 

Themes 

Themes and messages are also severely lacking in the horror movie genre, and yet, I think there is a ton of room for themes. 

Amidst all of the darkness that comes with ghosts, haunted houses, and creaky floorboards, there is potential for the light to shine through. Hope. I’ve seen this peek out a bit at the end of horror movies, but what if it was the shining, overarching message? Combined with compelling characters, a horror movie could turn into an emotional journey. 

I’ve seen this happen in comedies before. One moment, you are laughing, and the next you are crying, and then you are laughing again. By the end, you don’t know what to feel, and all you know is that your emotions have been pushed and prodded over and over. I wonder what this would be like with the darkness of a horror movie in one moment, and the lightness of hope in another. 

And leading on from hope, we can move on to themes of family. Maybe a family could learn about sticking together through hard times, or maybe they have to decide if staying in a place they love is worth the risk? 

Slight Ramble Concluded

I think there is plenty of room for a compelling horror movie. It doesn’t need to sacrifice popcorn flying jump scares for themes, there is plenty of room for movies to take a twist. Imagine going into a horror movie night expecting to be scared, and coming out emotionally punched? 

Currently, the horror movie genre really only offers scary movies. I want to see a movie that combines the best of both worlds. So, fellow writers, let’s go out and make those emotioinally punching, goat mutinying horror movies! 

That concludes my ramble on horror movies. Let’s keep brainstorming in the comments! What other themes and characters do you think horror movies have the potential of? Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day! 

-Hannah

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