If you have ever seen a horror film, ever, you know that the most important to any slasher flick is the murderous entity with the mask, machete in hand. Below are the steps to create a killer in a way that even the film Cry Wolf would be jealous of.
Setting
Setting
Everyone has heard the old adage "location, location, location," and yet, in no genre is this more true than in horror. After all, Jason wouldn't be Jason without Camp Crystal lake, nor Freddy without his Elm Street. To create the perfect killer, you must have the right setting. You can't kill off a random group of adolescents at a nursing home, it just doesn't fit the occasion properly. So imagine yourself as a mental realtor, scoping out the right property for your own demented masterpiece.
Weapon
The mask is probably the most integral part of your killer's image. While the phallic imagery of a knife is never to be shortchanged, the real money is always on the mask.
Motive
Weapon
To say that the weapon defines the man would be an understatement. You think of Michael Myers, but with out the butcher knife, he's nothing. Freddy and his claw, Jason and his machete, Ghostface and his hunting knife. Without the selection of your killer's weapon, your killer becomes something far worse than worthless. He becomes irrelevant.
Mask
Motive
Finally, this. The crowning achievement to any killer is not how or where, but WHY they kill. Regardless of whether it is simplistic like Jason's, unknown like Michael's, or fabricated brilliantly like Jigsaw's, the motive is the most critical of all the elements. Even through the time-line the typical killer creates, there's always time for a big reveal, assuming all loose ends are tied up and the writer has the correct level of thought.
Whether you intend to create the masked silent type or a deranged monlogue-er, these are all elements to the formula. And, in horror, we all know that the formula is crucial.
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