Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MGibster" data-source="post: 8100826" data-attributes="member: 4534">I don't know of many horror movies that maintain the same tone and pace throughout the entire movie.  One of my favorite ghost stories is 1980s The Changeling starring George C. Scott where he plays a music professor who moves into a haunted house after the death of his wife and child.  While living in the house, he becomes embroiled in a decades old mystery involving the murder of a child and a presence in the house.  It's a great movie bolstered by the incredibly acting skills of Scott as well as his supporting actors.  But the movie doesn't maintain the same tone throughout each scene.  In the opening scene, we see Scott, wife, and child pushing their broken down vehicle on a snow covered road somewhere in the mountains.  But despite all of them struggling to move the vehicle, the tone is very light with Scott, huffing and puffing, jokingly telling them they only have to push the car for a few more miles and them quipping that it would have been better to have gone to Mexico or Hawaii.  But when Scott goes to a nearby phone booth the tone changes from lighthearted and jovial to one of horror as he watches his wife and daughter killed by a truck.  And of course the tone of each scene doesn't remain consistent throughout the rest of the movie with some being tense, others scary, and others very calm.  For horror to be effective, you really need to have highs and lows in the story.  An American Werewolf in London (1981) is an extreme example as it has some horrifically gory scenes  combined with some genuinely humorous ones as well.  "A naked American man stole my balloons."  Heck, it even combined gory horror and comedy in one with the character of Jack, a ghost who remains upbeat and cheerful despite his mutilated appearance and his deteriorating appearance as the move progresses.  So you're right, you can't maintain the same tone throughout a campaign but that's okay because it isn't something to strive for.</blockquote>

Verification