The Craft of Fear: How to Build a Haunted House for the Big Screen

As noted when reading IndieWire's Favorite Horror Scores earlier this month, a big part of making horror movies is about giving shape to fear. Horror movies imbue the world we know with malevolent power, bringing out the threat of violence we suspect always lurks just below the surface. The home is an especially powerful setting for such a transformation, and while there are many different methods to get a moviegoer to question the safety of their supposed refuge, one of the most reliable is a good haunting to the 'Ancient. Looking at horror films through the decades, we can see patterns in production design, composition and lighting, special effects, and sound choices that give haunted houses their ghostly and/or horrifying force. We've selected six essential films showcasing the key elements the best filmmakers use to build the sinister shadows and otherworldly presences we love to see materialize in the places we should feel safest.

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir"

20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, TM & Copyright/courtesy Everett Collection

Fear has been a part of cinema since the beginning (just ask the dead of 1896 what their emotional reaction was to seeing it coming straight at them) and the roots of horror cinema are ever-present in the history of cinema. But there's something delightfully sinister about the way the American film industry took the expressive lighting and over-the-top sets of German Expressionism and adapted them so that less outrageous stories could capture the same kind of expansive emotions. "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" is a gothic romance, pairing a young widow looking for a fresh start in a seaside mansion with the house's former owner, a former sea captain. It also gets significant bonus points for turning its protagonist into a ghostwriter/ghostwriter: Gene Tierney lands Rex Harrison's colorful memoir as they fall in love.

There isn't too much fear, suspense, or villainy that doesn't come from the hearts of stubborn lovers, but the twists and turns of the old New England home feature prominently throughout the film and especially in the candlelit scene. footage of Mrs. Muir finding her unwanted tenant. There's just something about the style of architecture: the extra details and reliefs on the roofs, gables and columns cast unsettling geometric shadows, the changing shapes of the interior can give rooms a sense of distinct surroundings while making the whole thing seem a bit knotted or twisted when moving from room to room. The level of detail in the house is an expression of the ghost's personality and faded power from beyond the grave. While the captain's desires are mostly benign, the faded glory and complete crumbling...