Caring about Characters

One of the blogs I keep up with is The Movie People. Recently I came across some good counsel about creating characters the crowds can care about. Just for the record, I don't condone, nor have I seen the horror films discussed in this article.

"Even anti-heros give you a reason to care about them and wanting them to live. Without that, the audience is just spinning its wheels waiting for the next big action scene. The writer has to know how to engage the audience with not just what the hero wants, but why they want it, why it’s so important and why there won’t be any other time to get it. Once the hero accepts this, he commits to this, there is no turning back. Now, with The Final Destination there is no reason for the hero to live and admittedly, he is going to die sometime, right? So without a reason for us to want him to live, there is no investment on our part to care if he survives. With SAW IV, I had an investment because the female cop, well, I liked her. I wanted her to live and knowing she was on the chopping block brought suspense to the film. Would she figure out the killer before being killed? That is suspense. So, if you want to engage people like myself that don’t normally enjoy horror films for the gore and torture, remember to have a solid back story that involves a hero that we can identify with and a goal that we can appreciate." -By Quito Washington

You can read the full blog post here.
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