Lessons in UX from Horror Movies
“I don’t watch horror movies”
This is something I’ve heard from many, if not most of my friends and acquaintances over the years. What’s bizarre to me is these same people would never write off any other from of entertainment wholesale the same way they do with horror.
But horror movies have racked up dependable box-office returns for decades, so clearly a lot of people, myself included, find something about them compelling.
What is it?
I started really thinking about this a few days ago after witnessing the initial reaction to my interactive horror story for the Amazon Echo. I was a little dumbfounded to see people sitting rapt around a monotone robot voice reciting lines of text.
Clearly, there’s something valuable to be learned from horror for anyone working in experience design or UX.
I think I’ve identified some of the key elements, so I’m going to break them down using a few of my favorite horror movies to illustrate. I recommend you watch all these movies in full.
OK, lesson one:
Tension is Key
This is already a familiar concept to UX designers, but few forms of media illustrate this concept more perfectly, while showing how integral it is to any kind of experience, not just horror.
In The Shining, a family spends a long winter trapped in an isolated mountain resort. The fear is driven entirely from the slowly ratcheting tension. The movie starts with a slow sweep through tranquil scenery, but the ominous music begins to make you feel distinctly uneasy.
The tension rises and rises, as the isolation the family experiences in the hotel seems to take on a force itself. Eventually, the few moments of action resonate through your entire body because the tension has been raised to such a fever pitch:
The Omen is another masterful example of the use of tension. The villain in this movie is a child, so how you can possibly create fear, even if the kid is supposed to be the Devil incarnate? By building tension, so every scene cuts like piano wire.
The music, lighting, and acting all combine to create a heavy atmosphere of dread:
The Element of Surprise
It’s easy to get sucked into the routine and occasional monotony of day to day life. We have our jobs, careers, friends, TV, and apps that we see and experience the same way every day, which can lead to a tendency to go on autopilot for days or weeks or longer. We crave opportunities to break out of the rut. By presenting an ordinary experience and twisting it unexpectedly, not matter how briefly, powerful bursts of emotion can be elicited.
Lord of the Rings did it expertly. This wasn’t a horror movie, although it definitely contained moments designed to terrify. Like this one. Our hero is having a friendly chat with his uncle in peaceful bedroom, glowing with the soft light of candles and moonlight filtering through the rustling trees outside:
Oh GOD.
Let’s see another one. Here in the movie Insidious, a group of people are talking about the nightmare one of them was having last night:
Pretty effective.
Set the Scene
Creating the right tone is key. If you create the right conditions, the story practically tells itself.
Suspiria uses music and a psychedelic lighting scheme to create a hallucinatory atmosphere, perfect for a story about a woman’s descent into madness and conspiracy within a witch’s coven.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. If you watch only one movie I’ve listed here, make it Suspiria. Regardless of horror, it’s one of the most visually arresting and beautiful movies I’ve ever seen.
The House of the Devil pulls multiple small details from the 80’s to transport the adults watching straight back to their childhoods and adolescence.
Strive for Delight
Horror movies gain their feel from the director’s concept of delight. Nobody wants to watch the equivalent of a tape on a tripod filming a scene of something brutal and horrifying. You can’t be exposed to a nonstop onslaught all movie long, either. The fear needs to be packaged into little moments of surprise and “delight”, defined by the innovation and imagination of the director. Similarly, it’s those moments that often compel us to come back to certain digital experiences.
The Thing is famous for it’s special effects, which are unparalleled in their visceral reality, macabre creativity, and twisted humor in skewing the beauty of natural form and evolution:
This one is particularly memorable:
It’s actually kind of hard to stop:
This movie is so visually distinctive I can basically play the whole thing back in my head despite the fact I’ve only seen it a handful of times.
Drag Me to Hell is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s a horror-comedy, and there are a lot of moments that are horrifying, obviously, but are so absurd you can’t (I can’t) help but laugh at how over the top it is:
Gross:
Ewwwww:
One for the road:
I used to think of horror as just a guilty pleasure, but after seeing the way it captivated people this last week, especially through such a bare-bones medium, I’m beginning to think differently.
Maybe our design work would benefit from more frequent trips through the shadows….
