Writing A Horror Protagonist - Daniel Stamm
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- Опубліковано 13 тра 2024
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#writing #screenwriting #screenwriting101 - Фільми й анімація
"Was that even the question?" I like that he gets so lost in the story he forgets the question.
The reason we love Laurie Strode is because in her first scene she is affectionate to the boy she will babysit later that night.
And she fights like hell protecting them and isn’t an incompetent protagonist. Laurie is a great character up until the later iterations
One of my favorite horror movies is Drag Me to Hell, and a huge part of that is because of the lead character. She makes a decision that brings on the horror, but she also makes that decision because she's trying to succeed at her job so immediately we can see her humanity. Love that movie!
The two horror protagonists that really are cemented in my heart forever are Ellen Ripley from "Alien" and Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise. To me, What makes them amazing is that both women are stuck in very extraordinary and deadly situations, yet find a way out alive, but also the level of humanity that both women have with Ellen being unsure of what do next and Sidney being blinded to not know that Billy is the killer. Also, Laurie Strode is one of the best horror protagonists simply because even being at a disadvantage against Michael, she uses her intelligence to stay alive for as long as she can.
Dope!
@@angeldillemuthactor Cecilia Kass from The Invisible Man (2020) is my favorite.
I loved Laurie Strode in Halloween 2018. One of the most intense cat and mouse scenes I’ve seen.
we cant forget about Marion Crane from Psyho. She has harassed at work by that arrogant rich man, while she worked at a bank..... we all were thinking girllll you better take that money and run.. So relatable
Erin from you’re next is also pretty rad,
This interview is AMAZING. Also, I love that you usually give Carry that respect.
The boy in 'Krampus' is established early on as a sympathetic character because he's the only one who still clings to the spirit of Christmas and his family persecutes him for it (scapegoating) and the film does a good job making us feel his isolation abandonment and frustration because of this. It also has a chilling ending that wraps up this concept nicely.
I immediately fell in love with the main hero in Dog Soldiers (spoiler>) when he refused to kill the dog at the start of the movie.
The blind protagonist of Late Phases is also a great character. I love that film.
Felt sorry for The Thing in The Thing. These humans thaw it out then blast it with flamethrowers cos It was hungry then chase it around with more fire and explosives. Poor soul.
Takeaway: if you want a good horror protagonist make them attractive and code them as socially conscious before they encounter the horror element of the plot
Maybe I’m missing the “forgiveness gene“ because I have zero problem holding serial killers or murderers accountable.
I don't know who the hell they have been talking to about "Carrie" - almost everyone I've ever talked to felt sympathy for her and even if they thought she was creepy, they didn't think at all she deserved to be psychologically tortured as she was in the film. I think they kind of pulled the analysis of the audience out of nowhere in respect to that. Overall, a decent interview though.
Yeah me too I was like "who says that about carrie??" Like the fact she was so badly bullied usually resonates with most people
@@Starburst514 it's funny because I felt bad for Carrie, but I didn't really care about Linda Blair I sympathised with her mother the most in The Exorcist.
I also liked Sue Snell, I think that if the second film played further into her trauma and fear of Carrie’s massacre happening again, she would have been as well remembered as Carrie herself.
Great info, thanks for knowledge.
My 2 favorite horror protagonists are Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott. I just finished a horror script myself, I think that the genre is really fascinating to me and needs to be explored more. GREAT video guys!! thumbs up! :D
Am I missing something? The protagonist of The Exorcist is Damien Carras, no? Not to be a negative commenter, just stuck out to me. The rest of this video is ace.
Loved your film 13 sins! One of the most underrated horror films the last decade!
That was the best most original film I've seen the past 2 decades. It was my cup of tea.
Sidney Prescott. She's clearly terrified the entire time but she acts in spite of it. It's like real life.
I want a man with a voice like that.
The Torment of the Bees. The Return of Clarice Starling.
The Inconvenience of the Ants.
Just what I need
How to make a Horror protagonist the answer
Bravery confront your fears of them darkest scariest nightmare fuel monsters ever 😥😰😨😠
I like detective tapp in saw, well written character for sure
Empathy for killers is a very misleading emotion, i do think we also have to be responsible in making sure we are not justifying the evil, a Psychopath is still a Psychopath.
Partly true, however, they (unstable killers) are also cautionary tales. Yes, some people lose it on their own, but I firmly believe if more parents treated their kids better, and people treated others as they themselves would like to be treated, we'd get way less horrific acts by people. Sweeping it under the rug is not the way to go. Better to show society that these killers or bad people were not always like this.
But empathy is not sympathy. Every psychoanalyst interviewing a psychopath employs empathy, i.e. attempts to comprehend that person's POV on their world.
@@hd-xc2lz ya thats true, it gets blurry.
@@hd-xc2lz Yeah but I don't think I'd be able to do that during the trial for my friends' murder. No matter the circumstances he didn't mention. I mean wtf?????????
Nah, look at shows like Dexter and You. People can figure out who is bad and crazy even if you make them very sympathetic.
To the question of the day... I'mma go with Ellen Ripley, "Aliens Franchise"...
Alien : Quite literally, she saves the cat... She does her best with the rest of the crew, caught completely out of her normal work (pilot) she's in a close-quarters battle with an extremely aggressive intelligent alien, and a droid "on orders" to capture it at any cost... Some shady crew that may or may not know whatever they're doing... and through it all... she's still got to remember the cat... It's a little thing, but trapped in a situation of do or die, at any and every cost imaginable, she just manages to keep it together, and still rescues the cat... down to the last couple seconds to escape...
Aliens : Now, Ripleys troubled with PTSD and night-terrors... sucked into the corporate machinations, and goes back to the planet with the Space Marines (hoorah)... to investigate and you can hang up any hopes of "just an advisor"... Right? BUT then there's the little girl, Newt... AND in spite of being "trained" by her new Marine-BF, on pulse rifles, shotguns, flamethrowers, etc... She's still putting all her energy into going back to save Newt'...
AlienIII: It's a prison world, full of psycho's and rapists, and the literal dregs... BUT here, it's a little less about saving the innocent... It's about finding humanity in "the worst of the worst". Yet, again... Ripley steps up to deliver. Not only that, but when it's apparent she's infected, rather than take the offer of the corporation to get it out and survive, she throws herself into the molten lead... to stop this thing from hurting anyone else... It's a moment of heroism, punctuating an exploration of the humanity found in a prison colony, even where the so-called worst examples of human life are kept.
Resurrection: THIS time there's the humor factor... From the snide supposition, "I should've known you're a droid. No human could be that humane."
Even as a clone, a sort of morbid antithesis of her original Character, Ripley's befriending the "misfit" of the pirate crew... Still hell bent on wiping out a species, she's got the ability (with past and all) to befriend a droid, "the asshole model"... as she put it... It helps that it was more action and a fun movie to watch all around... but in the fringes of a "survival horror" genre piece... Ripley's just as human as ever... even crying when she sacrificed the last alien that followed her to the pirates' escape ship.
I agree, in any genre... You should start with two parts for a good protagonist. 1. Make him/her believable... If I can't believe in this person AS a person, it stops dead in its tracks right there... 2. Make me CARE... Love them or Hate them, I should feel something. Preferably, I should Love the protagonist.
Really, it's as easy as starting with "the average Joe" type. It's a simply human "everyday" kind of person who's just trying to pursue life and a career, raise children, juggle bills... has the same kinds of problems we ALL have, between bills, car problems, and juggling groceries to cook alone, or going out for fast food (quick and cheap... hopefully).
THEN take him/her completely OUT of the "wheelhouse". Give them a problem so big, so weird, so beyond their "paygrade" as to put their life at risk with questions they don't "just have the answer for"...
Right there... You have something every single person can identify with... I've stood there thinking, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Does ANYONE know what the hell I'm doing? I'm making it up and hoping... What the HELL am I doing???
Show that doubt, amid the slightest humanity, and you've got a protagonist of ANY film that would likely hook the audience... I've never failed at the Table, to present an NPC with this formula, that the group didn't get hooked... right about the paragraph above, as written... only I speak it aloud, in Character... and they love the guy/gal who says it. It's not always "verbatim"... but it's the speech that gets them... practically every time. ;o)
So much depends on the actor because there is only so much that your writing can convey to an audience. If you do too much to get your audience to like your character it becomes too heavy handed. I think the most you want to do is to have them appear normal, perhaps having a bad day at work, but you get to know a character when as their personal problems surface and their opinions manifest. It doesn't matter the genre.
Seriously is this guy not the most soothing person to listen to or what
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Very helpful.
I disagree slightly. I think horror protagonists have to be a little more grounded and closer to a humble and simple reality. A common man. Sure you can make me cry for the Queen of England in any other genre, but that character rarely works in a horror, because characters like me make the ghosts and demons and witches feel closer to reality.
Cool!
Excellent. As screenwriters playing in this sandbox, what Daniel says is correct. It's all tools we can use to disarm the audience. Thank you so much for this!
Conversely, what about a horror ANTagonist might make you sympathize with them? Like with real life people like Bundy and Wournos, the scariest fictional villains are that much scarier _because_ we can find something about them that's relatable, or something about them that we've known in our own lives. The scariest thing about Annie Wilkes wasn't that she was some supernatural baddie like Dracula or Pazuzu, she was Mark David Chapman. Margaret White (Carrie's mother) was a hyper-religious zealot (and we have all known, in some capacity or another, someone who lived in a house loaded with religious paraphernalia and crucifixes all over the place). The thing with both these characters-at least for me-is the thought of, _if only they had gotten some form of foundational care, instead of being left alone to have their mania leach into their core and overwhelm them. If only Annie had been found guilty on the stand in Denver. If only Ralph White (Carrie's father) had lived and found a way to temper his wife's zealotry._
The scariest villains are the ones whose point of view you not only understand _but agree with to a degree,_ even for just a moment, because it's in that moment that you get caught with your pants down with the thought in your mind of, _"How easy it is to fall."_
Ellen Ripley will always be the greatest to me.
The protagonist of the Exorcist is Regan’s mom. Also Nancy from the Nightmare movies was great. Sidney from Scream. Ripley from Alien.
I kinda of think that Damien Caruss is the protagonist. The story is mainly his journey and the stakes are stacked against him specifically, if the objective is not met.
@@ButterCookie1984 I read somewhere that there's an academic distinction to be made between "protagonist" and "main character." For example, in the Great Gatsby, it is Gatsby who drives the whole plot forward (protagonist) but it is Carraway whose POV we directly hear and empathize with (main character). In the case of The Exorcist Reagan's mom is the main character, but Karras is the propelling force (protagonist).
@@thejawgz6719 I see what you mean, and I agree. Interesting
Brightburn was a prime example, was it not?
This question is the problem. Horror is not about the protagonist. "Jason" is about Jason. The question should be "Writing A Horror Antagonist."...Otherwise it sets the interviewee up for saying more about a non horror protagonist. Halloween is Micheal Myers. Carrie was the Antagonist, by way of Anti-villain. Protagonist aren't the focus in a horror. He's trying not to say nothing, but he naturally asked you for a horror protagonist, because we don't know them for a reason. We know Jason, Freddy, etc. If you're killing in a horror film, you're the antagonist. She's accidentally mixing protagonist and antagonist. And, the bashing comment section doesn't realize it.
Why would anyone hate Carrie.
… With little to no fear in the beginning…but the fear will grow to a point that he or she would no longer feel FEARFUL...to shoo away the ghost…lol
I saw the "Exorcist" of '73 when I was 7years old😅, and I was so terrified of what happend to the little girl Regan (Linda Blair) that I can't see any exorscim movies😅😅😅
I don't think of Blair's character as the protagonist in that film.
@@hd-xc2lz 😂😂😂you're right, but I had never seen it again since then. But if you see it with the eyes of a child you see Blair as a protagonist, you find empathy with her, not with the rest of the characters🤔thats my tought due to the "trauma" (😂) I have because of thi movie
@@emanuelvasilesabou9487 Interesting. Even with The Omen, through a child's eyes a different experience.
@@hd-xc2lz I agree. Ragan was not the protagonist as it wasn't her journey that we followed.
Stay on topic…
The protagonist's commanding officer orders him to fire on innocent civilians. He responds by beating up his commanding officer 'til he's in a body cast.
Likeable?
Ripley and clarice.
Look at that, he's German! At least according to his name and accent...
"you can't help but to like these serial killers" uuuuhhhm speak for yourself sir...
Most people have embers of horror inside and dont know it. And thats not directed at Daniel Stamm, but rather society. Its normal to be angry at serial killers BUT anyone who talks like theyre above the horrific should ask themselves if they wouldve been any different had they lived in the shoes of the killer. You should think about that.
Jack Nicolson. Shinning. For all of his bravado, he is going for a caretakers job, he is obviously a failure, but then....
I never felt sorry for him. I felt for Holleran (spelling?) and the kid. Torrance (spelling?) was just rude from the get go for me. Funny. But rude.
But in the book, he is the relatable tragic hero who wants to start fresh after his alcoholism and accident towards Danny.
@@joeofmacabre07 We are talking about the film, right?
@@charliemcgrain I was making a reference from the source material that Kubrick did not include
@@joeofmacabre07 I can see that. I read the book.
Two words: SARAH CONNOR
This is an interesting topic and it has made me conscious of the only horror protagonist that I authentically cared about which was Danny Glover's character in SAW.
1. His partner was killed. planting seeds of revenge.
2. He is alienated and fired from his job. planting seeds of an underdog.
3.He dedicates his time, space and energy to finding the killer regardless. giving us seeds of hope.
4. It's Danny Glover. I mean who hates this guy, really?
Then he gets killed regardless and doesn't get to save the day.
I'm not the type of person that stands up and yells at the movie screen but I did on opening night give my best sequence of obscenities I could muster.
How do you create a horror protagonist ?
Make them white