How To Make A Monster
Horror stories, of course, frequently hinge on how scary, unique, fun, cool, and/violent the villain happens to be. Are they a tentacled beast from the depths of the sea? Are they an old god with cosmic powers? Are they a rotting bulk of a man in coveralls that you cannot seem to kill? Are they a regular person driven to be murder-y? Are they a displaced soul in child’s doll? Are they are car imbued with the essence of evil?
Be they ghosts, vampires, masked slashers, drug-addled forest creatures, or some beast yanked from mythology, knowing your antagonist is essential before breaking your story. In a horror film, the goal is to be scary, and you do that with tension, mystery, danger, and violence.
This means that generally speaking, your characters are going to be at a disadvantage until the end of the movie. Horror stories belong to the thing that is the source of the horror-- even if we don’t see them. In fact we SHOULDN’T see them too much in the first half…
…but that doesn’t mean we aren’t seeing a world affected by their existence. This is why you have to know your monster. The best thing about monsters is that you can make literally anything up, you can use something from mythology, you can put a new spin on an old trope-- whatever floats your boat.
It’s also been repeatedly proven that you can take a very traditional, maybe even over-used monster like a vampire, a slasher, or a zombie and completely change the known rules and tropes. Remember when zombies didn’t run and vampires didn’t sparkle? Do what you want!
So what if you don’t know what you want? Lucky for you, I’ve over-thought this so many times. I’m of the opinion that all monsters/antagonists in horror films can fight into a pretty tight taxonomy. At the top level, there’s only four categories: THE INTANGIBLE, THE LIVING, THE DEAD, and things from FOLKLORE.
THE INTANGIBLE covers conceptual evils— hauntings that are pure bad vibes, the notion of death, science gone wrong, or it’s the essence of evil sans a personality that imbues structures or objects.
THE LIVING covers all many of bad humans, animals, cryptids, and shapeshifters. People with powers or magic on their side, shapeshifters, anything that has a heart that pumps blood.
THE DEAD is obvious— it covers reanimation, the undead, ghosts, spirits, anything that was once living, and is somehow still around after not being living anymore.
FOLKLORE is a wide classifications as it includes mythology, theology, specific cultures, religions— so anything from demons and devils to chimera and monstrous legends to unknowable otherworldly space Gods.
Obviously, there is all sorts of overlap between these things, and the categorizations are kinda loose. Because I am a crazy person, I’ve actually even made a chart:
So what kind of monster does your story need? Despite this complicated and expertly-organized chart, when it comes to writing your monster there’s really only four different ways to go about portraying them.
A lot of these choices dictate which paradigm to follow, but also feel free to choose the one that best fit the kind of story you want to tell. A few outliers aside, most every monster/antagonist in a horror film every seen fits into one of these “villain paradigms.”
A. The Bad Guy-- Despite a monstrous nature, this creature has the mind of a human. Like any good antagonist, they should think they are the hero of the story, or at the very least, need something that they consider more important than human lives. The best way to develop this kind of character is to put them through the same sort of arc-planning as your lead character. Give them motivation.
B. The Unstoppable Force-- Great for slashers, survival horror, and creature features, this angle treats your monster as something propelled by a SINGLE motivator. What’s fun is the audience could know what that motivator is, or not. What did The Blob want other than to absorb people and get bigger? All we really know is that they don’t stop. Generally you want to find an arc where they may be more mysterious or weak at first and grow (perhaps literally) as the story chugs along.
C. From Darkness-- This strategy is all about the monsters that hide in the dark. It’s possible they are smart like a person, but most likely are some sort of lesser in- telligence. Smart enough to know how to track, hunt, and strike at just the right moment. Think snatch and grab, you want isolated kills. Its arc should lead to it being more like an unstoppable force in the 3rd act of your story. Generally they have a task or habit they are enacting, or are satisfying some sort of need.
D. Cause and Effect-- Something has started the evil on its path and will continue until it is put away again or stopped. It will start quiet, and stay hidden (sometimes in plain sight) or look innocent at first, then will be more overtly evil and dangerous as the story progresses. If intelligence is a factor it will get more clever as time passes. It usually wants something very specific, and will get it by any means necessary.
Whether we are talking about a giant monster stomping a city to bits, a possessed doll hiding in a child’s room, or a ghost with a grudge, the final piece is point of view. The more an audience sees and knows, the less scary things are, so always remember to arc the tension around a monster. That and… you know, drop some bodies!
Lastly, I’ve decided to expand the taxonomy chart with filmic examples, and sell it as a poster. It’s 12 x 18, has lots of cool little lines and dots and junk and can by yours for $35. This is a limited offer, I’ve only got 45 of them. If I manage to sell enough to pay for the print run, anything over will be donated to the Entertainment Community Fund, which is doing its best to help industry people in need during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike... so you know— cool horror infographics and helping people! Win/win!
Buy the poster here: https://www.paypal.com/instantcommerce/checkout/J3X2L4TSMALNC
