恐怖片：驚嚇奧義之我見

萬圣節(jié)來了，今年你打算怎么度過呢？化妝游園、鬼故事大會(huì)，還是到處串門trick or treat？除了奇裝異服和糖果零食，別忘了看一兩部嚇得人哇哇叫的恐怖片哦。到底怎樣才算是一部優(yōu)秀的恐怖片？恐怖大師斯蒂芬·金給我們現(xiàn)身說法——

閱讀小提示：文章篇幅雖短，但語言生動(dòng)傳神，可從中學(xué)習(xí)如何深入淺出地闡明道理。

While walking back to my hotel after a Tuesday afternoon showing of The Strangers， I found myself wondering what’s scary and what’s not. What makes such a little film with only one star (Liv Tyler) work in the first place? That the question interests me shouldn’t amaze anyone， since I’ve worked in the scare-’em-silly field for years.

One thing that seems clear to me， looking back at the ten or a dozen films that truly scared me， is that most really good horror films are low-budget affairs with special effects cooked up[捏造]

in someone’s basement[地下室] or garage. Horror is an intimate[內(nèi)部的]

experience， something that occurs mostly within oneself， and when it works， the screams of a sold-out house are almost intrusive[擾人的].

Those big studio execs[即executives] don’t seem to understand that most moviegoers recognize all the computer graphics of big movies， which blast[摧毀]

our emotions and imaginations， instead of caressing[愛撫] them with a knife edge.

The scariest sequence[電影情節(jié)] I can remember is in Night of the Living Dead. The heroine is chased back to her car by a zombie[僵尸] with white hair and dazed[茫然的] eyes. She locks herself in only to discover her brother has taken the keys. The zombie reaches down， finds a rock， and begins to bash[猛擊] it against the car window. The first time I saw this (and twice after)， the scene reduced me to[使陷于] jelly[像果凍似的抖動(dòng)].

One more problem: big movies demand big explanations， which are usually tiresome[無聊的]，

and big back-stories， which are usually cumbersome[討厭的]. If a studio is going to spend $80 or $100 million in hopes of making $300 or $400 million more， they feel a need to shove[推]

WHAT IT ALL MEANS down the audience’s throat. Is there a serial killer? Then his mommy didn’t love him. A monster from outer space? Its planet exploded， of course. But nightmares exist outside of logic， and there’s little fun to be had in explanations; they’re antithetical[正相反的] to the poetry of fear.

That’s why I can’t imagine that anything in big movies will match dialogue like this in one particularly terrifying scene of The Strangers.

‘‘Why are you doing this to us?’’ Tyler whispers.

To which the woman in the doll-face mask responds: ‘‘Because you were home.’’

In the end， that’s all the explanation a good horror film needs.

一個(gè)星期二的下午看完《陌路狂殺》之后，我在走回賓館的路上一直在思考“何謂恐怖、何謂不恐怖”這個(gè)問題。讓這樣一部只有一個(gè)明星（麗芙·泰勒）撐場的小片子大獲成功的原因何在？我對(duì)這個(gè)問題感興趣并不奇怪，因?yàn)槲覐氖隆鞍阉麄儑樕怠边@一行已經(jīng)很多年了。

回想起那十多部真正把我嚇倒的恐怖電影，我能確定的是，大部分優(yōu)秀的恐怖電影都是低成本制作，里面的特效就在某人的地下室或車庫中捏造出來。恐怖是一種內(nèi)心體驗(yàn)，幾乎都是由內(nèi)而生；當(dāng)它奏效時(shí)，一座被賣掉的房子里的陣陣尖叫便（多余得）擾人。那些大型電影公司的高層似乎沒搞懂一點(diǎn)——大部分電影觀眾能分辨出大片中所有電腦合成的（特效）畫面，這些畫面不能用（恐怖的）刀刃刺激我們的情緒和想象力，只會(huì)讓我們無法感同身受，也無從想象。

我記憶中最嚇人的情節(jié)出自《活死人之夜》。女主角被一只目光呆滯的白發(fā)僵尸趕回自己的車子。……