A Sense of Dread: Getting Under the Skin of Horror Screenwriting

by Neal Marshall Stevens

A Sense of Dread features three main sections. 1) A detailed examination of the biological, psychological, and cultural bases of fear. What fears do we share with animals? What fears are uniquely human? What fears have we learned from our culture? From our families? From our experiences growing up? And what, exactly, is the difference between fear and dread? 2) A Sense of Dread then combines these ideas to explore the roots of human fear and apply them to storytelling for the screen. “The Toolbox of Dread” outlines the techniques for creating terror on the page. A wide array of horror subgenres are also explored, including why they exist, and what challenges each presents to the horror screenwriter. 3) Author Neal Marshall Stevens puts Theory into Practice, using examples from his own work to demonstrate how to apply his “toolbox” and the principles of “Dread” to put real scares into the pages of a screenplay. Finally, we seek to answer the question many people What are you afraid of?

194 pages, Paperback

Published January 11, 2022

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful and insightful! This is a great book for aspiring horror writers. It’s more than just a how-to; it digs deep into fear—what scares us, WHY it scares us, and how to incorporate it into our writing.

The author’s love of the genre is infectious; when he lays out a technique like the jump scare or the fake tension break, he explains both how to implement it and why it works so well, and illustrates with examples from well-known horror movies.

The last section of the book is especially interesting—he includes a story treatment and excerpts from one of his own horror screenplays, and he walks you step by step through how he implemented some of the techniques he talked about earlier. He even explains how some scenes evolved over the course of several drafts, which is a great way to demonstrate how to polish up some of those techniques for maximum impact (not to mention a reassurance that nobody’s first draft is perfect!).

A Sense of Dread is both informative and entertaining—highly recommended for any aspiring horror screenwriter!

[Alexis Sharp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm afraid (pun intended) to say that this book wasn't quite what I hoped it'd be. The author spent half the book listing out common fears. I don't need a list of common fears--I'm human! I already know! Would've liked more of a focused screenwriting book.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror screenwriter and occasional horror film director Neil Marshall Stevens argues that dread and not horror is in fact the fulcrum on which scares ultimately turn. In other words, that our not knowing what is going to happen—but dreading it and the human imagination’s capacity to compound it before it happens—is true horror. It turns out that Franklin Roosevelt was wrong, that we not only have to fear “fear itself” but the ultimate arrival of the thing we’re fearing. It’s just that the fear precedes the arrival of the thing in question, whether it’s a monster, a disease, or our own encroaching madness.
It's a somewhat novel approach—and frankly a little subtler than I was expecting from a guy who worked with Charles Band over at “Full Moon.” That’s part of the book’s appeal, that it balances the high and the low, that it sees the art in the supposedly exploitative and vice versa.
Topics covered include the biology of fear: what we have in common with animals—as well as the psychology of fear: what is specific to the human species.
Along with the theory are more practical demonstrations of its application in forms ranging from films to the short story. That said, the focus remains on film—as the title suggests—and though short exercises end each chapter, the big picture predominates, and the granular is left up to the reader. Or the filmmaker as it were. Still, it you’re looking for general advice and inspiration from someone who knows the industry, the craft, and understands the instinctive drives underlying horror, it is helpful and illuminating. Recommended, with a small handful of drawings and a filmography well worth raiding, that includes both neglected classics, more recent overlooked fare, and widely acknowledged genre masterpieces.