There are many things that have to come together to make a great horror movie. To me, a great horror movie isn't just about how much blood and guts they can fill into an hour and a half/ A great horror movie has to have a plethora ( Thank you El Guapo) of things to make it great. A great cast, a brilliant story, and the perfect sound effects. If you have great examples of those three things, then you will only need minimal blood and guts. Take one of my favorite horror movies. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original not any of the awful sequels (though, I did like the second one), prequels, or remakes. At the very start of the movie you have just absolute perfect narration by a young John Larroquette then that perfect intro to the movie. Some would say simple, I would say masterful. Just that the sound (if memory serves me right) mimicking a camera’s flashbulb and the recharging was actually a tuning fork running down a piano wire. Then the visuals of a body. Presumably a victim of a recent grave robbery. That opening sequence would set the tone of what I believe is the best horror movie ever made. A horror movie that had very little blood and a horror movie called “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and only had one person killed by a chainsaw in the whole movie. But it was the brilliant acting, the visuals, story, and directing that made that movie (imo) a cinematic masterpiece. Not just in horror, but film period.
And for those in the back, there was not a real Leatherface.
