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I have worked with children on horror films/thrillers and, having found no official guidelines from SAG other than payment policies such as Coogan's Law, I have usually employed a number of tactics.
Firstly, I'll go over the scene and storyboard very carefully with the child's parents/guardians (although this isn't always constructive as many parents will ...
111
A fun example from "The Shining":
Because Danny Lloyd was so young, and since it was his first acting job, Stanley Kubrick was highly protective of the child. During the shooting of the movie, Lloyd was under the impression that the film he was making was a drama, not a horror movie. In fact, when Wendy carries Danny away while shouting at Jack in the ...
75
Of course they did:
Rosemary's Baby: Ruth Gordon won for Best Supporting Actress
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931): "Fredric March’s performance as the title character(s) earned the film a Best Leading Actor statue"
Silence of the Lambs: "one of only three films to win all of the “Big Five” awards, which also include Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and ...
65
The editing, filming techniques, and set attitude can seriously change the perception of what is actually going on. In various horror movie "behind the scenes" (last I can think of is Sam Raimi commentary on Evil Dead), it seems like casts for horror flicks are very upbeat and everybody is having fun. With many horror films it's only once the scenes are ...
38
I have also worked on film sets and I concur with @Nobby. I think a larger point, though, is that situations are generally only “scary” when actors are in character. For example consider Halloween. An adult dressed like a corpse and covered in bruise makeup and fake blood isn't scary to most children if she’s chatting and laughing and walking around as if ...
38
This great source provides some answers given by people related to horror genre (filmmakers, writers and experts).
Below are some quotes from their answers to the question Why are dolls and clowns, similar tropes that are often depicted as children or children's companions, similiarly creepy?:
Dolls are frozen in time—human, but not human. There's no ...
36
It's not specific to horror movies, but the event or action that kicks off the plot of a movie is typically called it's inciting incident.
This is a literary term that applies to almost anything with a plot. Usually there is a short portion of the movie, the "setup" or "backstory", then some seemingly minor event that triggers all of the players to start ...
28
That sounds like John Carpenter's remake of The Thing, (1982).
Scientists in the Antarctic are confronted by a shape-shifting alien
that assumes the appearance of the people that it kills.
There is a scene like you describe, with a severed head pulling itself along the floor with a long prehensile tongue. You can watch that clip here.
27
As @BrettFromLA mentioned is the comments, I would suggest this character is called the:
Red Shirt
Warning! TV Tropes Link!
The trope name come from Stark Trek: The Original Series where the new recruits/ensigns wore red uniforms. This can be a bit confusing because in later Star Trek series the Command positions wore red...
A brief excerpt of what ...
27
This is Cloverfield (2008) and the smaller creatures you are referring to are called Parasites
The monster was covered in 2,000 Parasites that are roughly the same weight and height as a dog. They have 10 legs consisting of six spider-like, double jointed limbs and 4 "pincers" on the top and back of its body. They have very large jaws, pale gray skin and ...
25
This is a topic of Which there is a huge body of work, circulating different theories of why Children are such a prevalent theme of horror, so its unlikely you will find a single comprehensive answer/theory, but there is one unifying reason that all parties are in agreement upon:
Kids are scary, yo.
Children are able to operate as Microcosm for social ...
21
This is Tales From the Darkside, the movie. The monster is Tommy Chong's daughter (IRL), I believe.
It was 1 of about 3 or 4 stories in the whole thing.
21
Ruth Gordon won Best Supporting Actress in Rosemary's Baby.
This article lists 14 horror films "noticed" by the Academy, including Misery and Silence of the Lambs. Whether these two can be classified as horrors is arguable, but if so, you can also add Kathy Bates, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins to the list.
20
It sounds like the third segment of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie -
A despondent artist named Preston (played by James Remar) witnesses a
gruesome murder by a gargoyle-like monster. The monster gets Preston
to swear to never speak of what he saw in exchange for a promise to
spare his life. After making the promise, Preston meets a beautiful
...
19
Just to share one related example: Linda Blair in the Exorcist did not understand what she was doing when she was told to act out the masturbation scene. It was only years later that she figured it out. So it's quite possible that child actors are often not quite aware of the exact nature of the scene they're acting out.
Source: Linda Blair herself.
18
This is Mindhunters from 2004 with Jonny Lee Miller and Christian Slater:
On a remote island, the FBI has a training program for their psychological profiling division, called "Mindhunters", used to track down serial killers. The training goes horribly wrong, however, when a group of seven young agents discover that one of them is a serial killer, and is ...
17
This is definitely the Mist: best ending to a horror movie ever.
Tom Jane, who is fantastic in it, insisted the ending not be changed or he wouldn't complete the movie. He was a big supporter of it.
It differs dramatically from the original ending of the Stephen King novella, but King was so impressed with how Frank Darabont adapted it he went on record:
...
17
Yes, that does ring a bell. There were a number of pretty good series that basically emulated the Twilight Zone in format and style.
One of those was the HBO-created series called The Hitchhiker (IMDB)
The specific episode you are referring to is called "Face To Face" -
Homely and desperate transsexual Nina Russell hires prominent, but sleazy and ...
16
I'm almost certain it comes down to parent permission and what they are comfortable allowing the child to see when working with the directors. Some are naturally more lenient than others while I'm sure some are only allowed on set to film their scenes and they never get to see what they filmed after post-production because of it being too graphic.
(The ...
15
Sounds like Prince of Darkness (1987) by John Carpenter.
Wikipedia's description matches the details you remember, including the creepy ending:
At the end of the film, Marsh has the recurring dream again, except
now an apparently possessed Danforth is the figure emerging from the
building. Marsh appears to awaken, rolling over to find a gruesomely
...
15
Having been in the makeup FX biz for a while, I am in a good position to answer this, but I'm going to do so using personal experience and no links to external sites - so you might want to wait for a more comprehensive answer before up voting.
Essentially, there are several ways to approach these shots.
Let's take a simple stabbing: If the stabbing is ...
14
It's worth noting that mirrors (and any other reflective material for that matter) are a well-used narrative tool for presenting the duality of characters on screen, whether they are protagonists or antagonists (or, more likely, somewhere in between).
As DForck42 has already pointed out, there are many urban legends and stories connected to mirrors as well ...
14
Probably House of Nine. The lead is Kelly Brook.
The description you provided matches the plot in the wiki page.
Nine strangers have been abducted and locked inside a house. A
mysterious voice called The Watcher (voiced by Jim Carter) tells them
that they are to play a game: the last person alive can leave the
house and win five million dollars. ...
14
Is it People Under the Stairs (1991)?
The plot seems very similar. Plus here are a few quotes that look like a good match:
The Robesons, who are believed to be a married couple, call themselves Mommy and Daddy. They have a daughter named Alice.
With the help of their daughter Alice and a boy called Roach, Fool attempts to escape the house and reveal ...
13
Yes and no.
Raimi and co wanted to make a film, but felt that going for a comedy wasn't a great idea - and after doing their research at the local drive-in, knew that horror was the way to go.
They made a short horror promo, Within the Woods, and the positive reaction they got from this propelled the development and shooting of Evil Dead.
Even though they ...
13
Might be The Tommyknockers (1993).
[Source]
But instead of Wikipedia I'll quote The 34th Dimension:
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen The Tommyknockers, but from what I remember the plot goes like this: blah blah blah, midwestern American town, blah blah blah, alien things show up, blah blah, A GUY PULLS OUT HIS OWN FUCKING TEETH.
...
13
It sounds like The Dark, (2005).
When Ebrill, who was a sickly child, died, her father gave her to the
ocean, sending her to Annwyn. He then convinced his followers to throw
themselves into the ocean, claiming that it was the way to Paradise,
while he privately hoped that their sacrifice would return Ebrill to
him from Annwyn. Ebrill did come back,...
13
In literature what you're looking for is called the 'sacrificial lamb'. A character whose sole purpose is to die so as to give the protagonist a reason to act. It also can be used to show just how 'evil' the villain is.
The 'red shirt' of Star Trek is a perfect example of this, though they're much more in line with the 'cannon fodder' than the '...
13
This is Final Destination 5 (2011)
Sam Lawton is on his way to a company retreat with his colleagues. While their bus crosses the North Bay Bridge, Sam has a premonition that the bridge will collapse, killing everyone on it, except for his ex-girlfriend Molly Harper, who he manages to get across the bridge safely. In a ...
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